Too long, didn’t read(tldr): D-Day for my semester work and Jellybean tries to buck me off
Month: October 2014
Jellybean’s early release and yet another new home
Welcome back for another installment of fun and adventures concerning three horses we hold so dear.
The good news is that Jellybean has received the news from the parole board that she will be released into the wild again! Her release from stall life was executed on Sunday Oct. 26, 2014. Her stall door was opened and she was allowed to run into the cutting pen where the rest of her herd, Gracie and Knots, were eager to greet her with bucking and whinnying and lots of running around. it was a joyous horsey reunion.
It quickly got old though and Amanda and I felt the need to be home. This begs the question of how you convince three crazy horses to cram into one tiny paddock…. FOOD TIME!!!!!
One bucket of food is the magic to getting a horse to behave. As I carried the grain through the cutting pen they all fell into line behind me. I felt like the pied piper of horses leading my little troupe to their home. Dump some grain and horses begin chomping away merrily. No lock the gate and get out! Everyone ended the night comfy in their own beds…
Now the fun part. We had a boarder leave the barn and a paddock not attached to the arena opened up. So, we uprooted our little family AGAIN! we are such a military family with all this moving. Now the ponies live amidst the whinnies and neighs of other horses and get all the love and attention they could ever hope for.
Thanks for reading,
More pictures soonish… there is a costume contest for halloween.
Cabin fever
Its been well over two weeks now since Jellybean tried to slice her foot off. She’s been trapped in the stall, bickering with Panda and doing that weird thing she does with her teeth. She literally opens her mouth and runs her teeth back and forth on the metal bar. So odd. She has only really gotten released when she escaped one morning, and again when she goes to the cross ties for bandage changes.
Speaking of bandage changes, that last bandage was a bear. It would not stay on or up, so we finally just left everything open for the last day or so before the vet came back out to cut the stitches. Unfortunately I didn’t really get to talk to the vet, but Jellybean was knocked out when I got there, and I was instructed to “hydro” the wounds until they healed. I thought that word was funny, because I have always called it cold hosing. The more you know…
Anyway. I know you are all here for the pictures, so wait no longer:
Now we just need to wait until the sores heal so she can return to her friends!
Some more bandage changes and pictures
Its almost time to take out the stitches! Jellybean just has to make it to the end of the week and she will be on her way to the great outdoors (and some turnout) again. Lots more pictures for the next bandage change. The rub was healing, but pretty ugly in the meantime We used less vet wrap with the green horse shoes and much more padding, so as to have less pressure points.
Stitches look good |
Another bandage rub 😦 |
The skin is literally falling off here… |
That little flap makes everything look worse |
And bandaged up |
Unfortunately the bandage was not tight enough to prevent it from falling down, which is how I found it one night. Cue another bandage change (3 days later).
The stitches are continuing the improve |
This looks better too, albeit still yucky. |
So when we rebandaged this next time, we wanted to leave the back of her knee pretty open. It looks very wet and gross, so we decided to air it out. We were considering limited wrapping at all, but we decided to protect the stitches until the vet comes out at the end of the week. Whew. This is all a lot of work. But this last change happened without sedation, which was good and bad. Good because I know she’s not in too much pain, disappointing because it wasn’t an option (btw… at $25/go, its not a cost effective solution).
I’m very excited to hear from Dr. Lee on Friday and determine what he thinks about the wounds and how he thinks they are healing. And then Jellybean just has one-two more weeks in the stall before being turned back out in the paddock.
You can stop holding your breath now
I know, you have all been waiting to hear if Jellybean is surviving this nightmare. I finally have a couple of spare minutes to update her adoring fans. The first couple of days were pretty boring, mostly spent in anxious anticipation of the upcoming bandage change. You may not have been reading between the lines very well, so I’ll just say it. Jellybean is a sassy red mare. And she doesn’t like to tolerate what she doesn’t like. You see where I’m going.
The vet school initially said the bandage needed to be changed on Sunday (2 days post stitching). I asked about pushing it back a couple of days until my normal vet (the wonderful Dr. Lee of South 40 Equine) could help/supervise the bandage change, and the attending said sooner, and that it would be best to do it Sunday. Now I’m not made of money. I want my horse to be healthy, but I’m not really willing to pay for a weekend farm call for a bandage. I talked to Dr. Lee, and he suggested if the bandage was in the same place, I should make an appointment early Monday morning. Whew. That was a lot of stress that fell away.
So Monday morning comes, and Dr. Lee starts taking the bandage off. Opinionated mare is very unhappy with this setup, and proceeds to be naughty. Cue the good drugs. Jellybean relaxed in the cross ties and Dr. Lee does his business. I forgot to take pictures the first time we changed the bandage :(. So Dr. Lee gave (haha sold) me a bunch of bandage supplies and most importantly, a sedation drug, Dormosedan. He finished the bandage and remounted the splint, and Jellybean went back to her stall to sleep it off.
The next time the bandage was changed, there were flies sitting on the outside of the vet wrap, indicating extra drainage. So we tried to cut off the bandage. Jellybean was really really really upset about this procedure, even through the fuzz of sedation. As it turns out, we were pushing the scissors into a bandage sore from the splint. Nothing worse then forcing a horse to stand while you are causing them pain 😥 We made the executive decision to leave the splint off one bandage change early, in the hope that the rubs could start healing.
I took some pictures:
This is the rub on the back side of the knee |
The actual wound is healing really good |
Bandage shot! |
Stay tuned for another post on further care of this wound!