Last July on a whim I bought a Dutch Harness horse mare with a week old foal by her side. The foal had the big ears and head that his mom sported, but I didn't care because I thought he was cute and spunky and it had been a while since I had worked with foals and I thought it would be fun to revisit watching one grow up.
Baby and mom made the trip home from OH with no problems on July 26th, 2008 and he actually slept most of the way with Odessa standing quitely over him, as seen on the camera.
A couple of weeks after I got him home, he started coughing. Nothing major, just an occasional hack, no fever, no nasal drainage, etc. I kept an eye on him and checked his temp regularly for about a week and really didn't see any changes with just a slight worsening of the cough after he would run around. I decided to go ahead and call the vet out and she immediately suggested it could be the Rotavirus because of the extreme dry weather we had been having. She ulrasounded his lungs and sure enough there were significant lessions on both.
So what does that mean? It means Darwin has pneumonia and will have to stay in a stall during daylight hours while he is on the antibiotics Rifampin and Azithromycin. We scrambled to put together a foal safe stall as our three stalls were very open and airy for ventilation. With a few sheets of OSB and some zip ties we built what we hoped would be a 12x16 stall that would be tolerable to mom and baby. The stalling during daylight hours went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. He loved the meds thank goodness, but that much stall time for a kid just isn't healthy for anyone. After a month or so of the antibiotics and 4 ultrasounds later, his lungs seemed to be clear of the lessions from the Rotavirus and he and mom were free again. This was around the end of September.
The first of November, D. is lame on his back left leg and just seems off in general behind. X-Rays and ultrasounds didn't reveal anything so he had to go on stall rest. So back in the 12x16 stall he and mom went, but this time there was no hand walking or turnout. A few weeks into this, he went up to Hagyards and became a shaved patchwork kid. They ultrasounded his stifles and his hips on both sides and still found nothing. So back in the stall for another 2 weeks or so until finally mom, baby and Erin couldn't take it any longer and he has to go out. This puts us into late December and he seems mostly sound, but maybe just a bit stiff behind.
The holidays pass and I decide that I need to go ahead and get Darwin weaned because Odessa is continuing to act like a total idiot around him and I had a "if she's an idiot I can return her policy" and I needed to know if she was really a goof or just very protective of baby before my return time was up.
So around the first of the year, I did a test run with Bluff in the arena because I had never seen Bluff lift a hoof or bare a tooth to anyone. Things seemed to be fine. He kind of ran around and pestered her a bit and she ignored him and then he finally left her alone. So the next day I put her, Will and Darwin out together and put Odessa in the field next to them with hopes they would go on their merry way like all my other friend's foals do. It wasn't going to happen. Odessa was a total mess, which made Darwin a mess. It was chaos for 2 days and I kep thinking it would get better. There were periods where Darwin would join Bluff and Will to graze, but there was a lot of him and Odessa screaming at each other. On day 3 or so, Darwin comes up lame. No swelling, no marks, just lame on his front right leg. I immediately thought shoulder and that he had hit it on a post pacing the fence or potentially trying to go over it.
I give him banamine and palpated and move everything and nothing seems broken so I said I would give him a few days to see if he improved as I am thinking nerve damage at the shoulder point. A couple days into the lameness, TJ mentioned that he saw Bluff kick him and my heart sank. I immediately put him back in with Odessa so he wouldn't get kicked again and so he would stop stressing his injured leg because while it wasn't getting worse, it wasn't improving. Still no swelling or marks.
About 7d after the initial injury, I called the vet out 1/8/2009. I was trying to not be the over reactive freak everyone thinks I am and let it play out because again, there were not any indications on what was wrong. She didn't find anything obvious either. No swelling, no significant soreness, no breaks or crackling, just lame. She suggested we wait a bit long before X-Rays and ultrasounds. I believe I attempted to put him back on stall rest but he and Odessa were in agreement that they were not going to have any part of that and I thought he would hurt himself more by forcing the point. So he hung out quietly in a small paddock.
Three and a half weeks later on 2/4 the vet comes back out and ultrasounds his shoulder and sees some things in the shoulder joint she doesn't like so put him on the bone supplement Osteon and schedule X-Rays at Hagyard Davidson. Still no swelling or obvious changes. I am not quite sure how much time lapsed before the Hagyard X-Rays but I recall that the vet we wanted was out of the country so we waited until he got back. My records indicate that it was around 3/2/09 and by this time some swelling has started but he doesn't seem really any worse. Sometimes he could trot around almost soundly and then in the next instant be hobbling. At this point he has 2 shaved shoulders and shaved spots all over his backend, but he's still a friendly, happy guy.
Anyway, the X-Rays showed a massive OCD that had essentially destroyed the back half of his shoulder joint. The vet said I am sorry but there is nothing we can do. I am not Ok with answers like that so I took the X-Rays to Rood and Riddle, where they give him a 20% chance of improvement with surgery. 3k in surgery, more stall time and only a 20% chance. After a lot of Internet time and other calls I decided not to put him through it. The original vet at Hagyards was adament that even if it was his own horse and it was free, he wouldn't do the surgery. Shit.
So, I fed him all of the right stuff, kept him on Bute and hoped for a miracle. We took more X-Rays about a month after the inital Hagyards X-Rays were taken. I was optimistic that the bone looked healthier, but I guess on the hi res monitors in the office the changes were not positive, but I still had hope.
It wasn't meant to be though. His shoulder got worse, the atrophe kicked in, his foot started to club, the right side of his back was changing, his good front leg was over developed and couldn't be trimmed and he wouldn't trot up to his meals anymore. He was still bright eyed and seemed to be a happy kid, but it was only going to get worse and more painful for him as he grew bigger.
So yesterday I spent a lot of time grooming him (which he adored), telling him what a good boy he was, and then laid him to rest so he doesn't hurt anymore. He was two weeks shy of his first birthday.
Everyone has their opinions on what might have happened. Did Bluff kick him in the shoulder? Was there an OCD brewing in there for some time? Should I have moved faster on the whole process? I don't know the answers but I do know that I will do what I feel is right in the future and if that means calling the vet out 5 minutes after an injury, then that's what I am going to do. I didn't rely on my instincts in a lot of the decisions that I made involving Darwin and his life. I couldn't have changed the outcome of the Rotavirus or his backend lameness, but everything about the shoulder and how it happened would have been handled differently and the weight of whether I should have done something different is heavy.
So, this is the story of the adorable, spunky Dutch Harness horse named Darwin.
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
