The guys from Window World are FINALLY here installing the windows in the the barn, and Mark and Jerry are hard at work on the stalls. I'm about to head out to pick up one last gate and a couple more exterior doors.
The vet came by yesterday afternoon to see Bug and it turns out she does have another ear abscess - exactly one year from the last time that happened - but it's her other ear this time. Unlike Lizzie when she had an abscess, though, Bug will NOT allow anyone to get anywhere near her ear without kicking the crap out of them! She's not the patient sort anyway, and when she's in pain there is NO dealing with her. So rather than trying to sedate her, which may or may NOT have been sufficient, Dr. C called back to the vet school and talked with one of their surgeons. He said he's free on Tuesday, so in the meantime she put her on antibiotics and pain meds and we're keeping her inside until she comes home tomorrow. Then on Tuesday the surgeon is going to come out here, anesthetize her completely, drain the abscess AND check out her teeth since she's been chewing a bit strangely lately too. I haven't noticed any pain anywhere along her jaw lines this time, and I don't feel any points against her cheeks, but I can only check from the outside - there's no WAY I'm sticking my hand in her mouth! So while she's out cold they're going to take advantage of that to examine EVERYTHING on Tuesday, just in case. I guess horses are like people in the sense that once they reach a certain age they need to have just about everything checked out periodically. And Bug is about 23 now.
In talking to Dr. C, she advised using a combination of those fly predator wasps on the manure pile AND that fly stuff that goes in their feed to prevent fly problems once they're here at home. She also said that due to Lizzie's Cushings, she would suggest allowing her out to graze only 4 hours to begin with, then 6, then 8 . . . to be sure all the grass we have here doesn't cause her any problems, particularly since all the recent rain after the draught we've been having causes the grass to contain something or other (I've forgotten what it's called) that tends to increase their susceptibility to laminitis / founder. But no problem. I'm sure it won't take Lizzie more than a day to either eat or trample the grass inside her paddock! And we'll probably be keeping them ALL in their paddocks instead of letting them out in the pasture anyway as long as it keeps raining, since letting them run around out there in the rain will make the place muddy and kill the grass and this place just isn't big enough to let them mess up any of the pasture that way. So anytime it rains they're going to be kept in the small paddocks, not just when they first get here.
Okay, I'm off. Tractor Supply, Home Depot, and the library.
Later . . .
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