Doctor Mom

I foolishly thought that when my boys were grown, there would be no more sleepless nights watching over a "patient". Well the heck and gone beyond the first time and no where near the last time I am up at 1:34am nursing a sick horse.

Usually, it's a horse pregnancy that has had me up at all hours, snatching rest when and where I could manage. The last time I was up all night with an actually sick horse was when Desi had the flu two winters ago. I don't really (not really) count the night I spent watching newborn baby Poppy when her mother wouldn't let her nurse, even though I had to haul her to the vet at the crack of dawn the next morning.

Tonight it's Blondie. All the hooved kids had their flu/rhino vaccinations yesterday. Some of them were mildly droopy today. Nothing big, a couple of them were just resting a little more than usual. As soon as I cranked up the treat wagon (aka Minerva the quad) they were all more than willing to race joyously along the fence lines, following me for their Nicker Maker horse treats. When I brought Blondie in this afternoon she was fine. She ate like a horse. Tonight when I went out to feed their nighttime meal, she was sick sick sick.

Poor baby could hardly walk. One leg was locked and she's never had a locked stifle. She was none too steady on the other three. She'd had diarrhea and was totally uninterested in her hay. She hobbled slowly over to her water tub and drank, letting a lot of water just dribble out of her mouth. I pulled her out of the paddock and put her in the temporary stall we have set up between the barns. I soaked her a little bit of hay, a little bit of beet pulp and a few spoonfuls of her SafeChoice, but she didn't want any of that. She just kind of hung her head over the bucket and looked very doleful. This is not healthy horse behavior.

Her respiration rate, gum color, gut sounds and capillary refill time are normal but her temp. was up at 102.5 and it's a darned chilly night. I rinsed out her tail, gave her a dose of Banamine and here I sit. Waiting to see if she gets better or gets worse or stays the same. If it were just the aches and the fever, I wouldn't be overly worried, but diarrhea is a bad thing in a horse.

When we first got Blondie she came with Blaze. Blondie was extremely bonded with Blaze. We had them stalled side by side and if we took Blaze out of her stall, Blondie would get so frantic that she would have spontaneous, stress induced diarrhea. 4 or 5 cowplop like poops in the brief 20 minutes we'd be bathing or trimming Blaze were not uncommon. Knowing that, makes me slightly hopeful that the stress of being sick may have given her the diarrhea tonight, but I can't count on that.

Other causes for diarrhea in horses could be parasites or sand ingestion. Gosh knows we have sand and she always has her nose in it, but that wouldn't cause the fever or the obvious aches. Neither would parasites. Plus, they get psyllium every month to clear the sand and are wormed every 2-3 months.

That leaves the really bad stuff like Potomac Horse Fever and Salmonella. Although Salmonella is a concern, I've not read where pain is a symptom and there is no foul smell to her diarrhea (you needed to know that didn't you). I'm doubtful that this would be PHF because we do not have a pond, it's the desert, and water buckets are dumped and filled frequently. She's been vaccinated for every lethal disease there is a vaccination for. Thus, I am stumped, and, therefore, awake at 2:14 am.

Off to freeze and stare at the patient for a while to see if she feels any better after her Banamine.