Expect The Unexpected !!!

Anyone that has ever thought about owning a horse, make sure you have a few thousand dollars set aside for emergency use. I get to the barn this morning to find my horse down, I get him up and he is not putting any weight on his left hind and it's swollen. Crazy horse probably kicked a fence post while he was having a good time tearing through his paddock. So now I have a vet call fee & whatever else it will cost me to fix that foot. He gets limited turnout, a standing wrap and 1 gram of Bute twice a day until the vet gets there on Thursday and he hates Bute so I'm sure I'll be wearing most of it. And he gets to skip our show this weekend at the KY Horse Park that I already paid for since I cannot ride him until he heals :11: . Hopefully he learned that kicking the fence hurts !!! If it's not one thing, it's another with that horse.

awww hope all goes well an no more accidents

I have a suggestion on the Bute. Crush it up into dust, put it in a syringe with molasses and they will generally eat it up like candy. I have one horse that will actually just eat it if I hand it to her, but she's a weirdo

The bill may not be as bad as you think. They will probably start with testing the hoof and move up from there with some nerve blocks if it's not actually in the hoof. You may or may not need an x ray as well. IIRC when one of my mares hurt her shoulder, I got away with about $300 and that was nerve blocking all the way up the leg to narrow it down to the shoulder.

Oh, can anyone else loan you a horse to use this weekend? It's not ideal, but I had to do that once when my gelding got stung in...his male part by a hornet. I had never ridden this horse before, and that's not the funnest thing to do in combined training, but it worked out and we even somehow came in 4th, lol!

I can see if I can take one of the other horses at the stable I board at. There is another dressage horse there that hasn't had much work done lately but maybe I can prepare him throughout the week. The Bute I have is in a paste form and he spits it out. I'll try mixing it with something when I give it to him tonight.

Hmm, never had paste bute before, just pills. I do the same with anti-biotics since horses have to take like 10. No way can I get a horse to cooperatively take 10 pills, lol! So I would mix like 5 in molasses and then do it again with a second syringe full. I wonder if you could mix it with some apple sauce.

Yes, the horse I took was not at all good at dressage. I got on her that morning for warm up and just thought, well, this won't go well, lol! And we were in last place after the dressage test. Then I don't know what happened because we were suddenly in 4th place after cross country. My riding coach just looked at the results and asked, "How did that happen?!" And I had to say, I don't know, obviously several people must have had serious issues like refusals. And we managed to keep that placing through stadium jumping.

So, at least my entry fees didn't just go for nothing and I didn't have the disappointment of not going to the event.

Yes, my horse got stung shortly before we had to leave, too! And the vet had to come give him a shot because he's allergic to hornets. And he was so swollen up he couldn't even walk well. So I was like OMG, what am I going to do?? And someone offered her little QH mare that was built like a bulldog, but I said ok, I'll take her!

I can only do flat work with Falcon, he has issues with his front legs from his racing career, he has a splint on his front right. This is the second time he has kicked the fence .... assuming that is what he did this time too. The first time the fence got the worst of it but this time I think he hit the post. Big butthead better learn to respect that fence real quick.

I have apple flavored bute powder it's wonderful! Sorry to hear about your horse~

I've heard that there is a pellet form of Bute, no? Are all crazy bird people also crazy horse people? Didn't know this...I guess birds of a feather, flock together, is true!

Always had horses, my whole life, know them well. Only within the last 4 years have I had experience with a bird and what a journey it's been! I suppose, it all makes sense, now.

Has it been that long since I crushed up tablets of bute , lololol.
I didn't even think they were using bute any longer , lol.
Now they have a paste ? . Wow .

I would try mixing a little bit of the paste with some honey and see if up your horse eats it.
Because if he doesn't m you just wasted your dosage of bute.
If he eats it , the mix the same amount and just keep giving it slowly , you want him to get the whole dosage. If he refuses , try getting it down him on its own , then smear some honey on his nose right after that , before he throws his head up , this way he will be too busy trying to lick the honey off his nose , the trying to get the paste out of his mouth.
I've done this to a Shetland pony ( very mean one , lol ) and it worked like charm
Good Luck , I hope your horse recovers quickly

Thanks for all the advice. I actually put his last dose tonight in some applesauce and he tore it up. The swelling has gone down a lot. The stable owner said at feeding time tonight, he looked much better. I'll still have the vet out to check it and I'll give him some time to heal.

And I do believe us crazy bird people are crazy horse people too, lol. I work with over 120 off the track Thoroughbreds and I still own one and he is a nutcase so I must be crazy I wouldn't trade his crazy butt for anything though. We never have a boring ride, lol. My favorite feedback from a judge at a show was "At least you stayed on" Needless to say, we didn't win

Bute powder is great, but I still have to mix it with molasses to get my old lady to eat it. Everyone else is pretty tolerant of it. I have friends who have had a lot of success with a product called no Bute which is liquid Devilsclaw. t is an anti inflammatory that has very few side effects. Good luck with your boy, My horses are finally getting into shape now that the weather is so much better.

I noticed a long time ago that many of my fellow horse people were also fellow bird people. I even discussed that with Merlin's previous owner. I think if you love a giant prey animal with a strong flight instinct like a horse, and are willing to deal with things like 50lbs of manure each a day, and lifting hay bales and bags of grain, birds seem like not much trouble in comparison?

I'm glad the applesauce worked; thought that might do the trick I will even dip the tip of de-wormer in molasses for horses that aren't very cooperative with it. I had one mare that was an absolute pain to de-worm, and that went pretty far for helping me get the tube into her mouth. First I just started giving her syringes with molasses in it so she didn't go bonkers every time she saw a syringe, and then I could just put some on the tip and she would cooperatively let me put it in.

Oh I love the unexpected vet bills. I'm glad the bute and applesauce worked for you, I had the powder and mixed it with a few crushed peppermint candies (my horse loves peppermint) and would give it that way.

I have to deal with the equine vet Wednesday, coggins time and checking to see if my 2 year old gelding was gelded properly (something is there that shouldn't be!)

Good luck on your show if you get to go this weekened.

and Roxy, YES! A lot of horse people I know are general animal lovers, but I've definatly met a few with parrots.

PiperAndRiosMommy said:

Thanks for all the advice. I actually put his last dose tonight in some applesauce and he tore it up. The swelling has gone down a lot. The stable owner said at feeding time tonight, he looked much better. I'll still have the vet out to check it and I'll give him some time to heal.

And I do believe us crazy bird people are crazy horse people too, lol. I work with over 120 off the track Thoroughbreds and I still own one and he is a nutcase so I must be crazy I wouldn't trade his crazy butt for anything though. We never have a boring ride, lol. My favorite feedback from a judge at a show was "At least you stayed on" Needless to say, we didn't win

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OMG ! LMAO ! "At least you stayed on" !!!!!

My newest shire mare went lame in her front right about a month ago, and I called our vet out to take a look (I have Bute in a flavored powder form and I just mix it with grain). Anyway my emergency visit and him to look at her (hoof test, etc) was $52 total. It turns out that the mare came here with a special kind of mites under all that draft feathering, and only after we shaved her legs did we see or feel all the little sores from her rubbing and chewing. So we treated that and things went smoothly. As for parrot people owning horses or vise versa, I started with birds, when I got into horses I started training them myself and realized that after owning birds, horses didn't require much of a mental shift. Something about the body language and being a firm but fair owner seems to translate well from one to the other. Also, a good horse person is not afraid to lay out the rules and will not be intimidated by their horse.... the exact same approach applies to big parrots... especially macaws.

Hope your horse does okay. Yes they can be very very expensive. In December my 12yr old gelding was bitten multiple times on the nose by a rattle snake. We had to take him to the University of Florida's large animal veterinary medicine hospital (its a 2 hour drive one way) where he was hospitalized for a week. He had to have an emergency tracheotomy done, two blood transfusions (which we had to trailer his dam up there twice for each transfusion - less risk of a reaction by using his mother's blood), and he received a brand new (new means expensive as all get out) medication that helps them form clots until the venom runs through their system. By the time it was all said and done I re-bought my horse at 3x what hes worth in vet bills but he is my baby and I would do anything for him (or for any of my animals for that matter).

Oh and parrots aren't cheap either. They automatically have to go to a spe******t. When we first got Rome she had liver problems, that have since been resolved. Rome also has abnormally small nostrils. So they are constantly getting clogged by the dust that she naturally produces. She has to have her sinuses flushed on a regular basis (if not then she gets infections) and special nose drops put in frequently as well. Each vet visit usually runs about $300-400 and we've had four so far in the past year.

Some vets will do a laser enlargement of nares. I have a U2 that I had the nostrils laser enlarged. Worked out really well.

Thanks, I will definitely look into that. She either didn't develop well or she wasn't bred well. She is small, only 705 grams and her pubic bones are very close together, she also has really dark eyes (vet thought she was a male, DNA confirms female). However she does have a very beautiful darker pink hue to her feathers. I've seen some M2s that are almost white, she is a darker more vibrant pink.