Happy Monday

Nothing like a call from the caretakers of a person's barn at 7 am on a Monday morning to brighten your day. Turns out Axel was lame. And over the phone, they said he wouldn't even walk up to his bucket for breakfast. It didn't sound like anyone really knew what to do and I didn't think I should run out there if it was just some lameness. So I called Steph to have her run up on her way to work and see if she thought I should call the vet or what. My thought was that it was just the mud fever acting up. All the mud out there for the past few weeks certainly doesn't do anyone any good. Steph determined he was quite lame, 3 legged lame in fact. They managed to get him in the barn and she thought I should probably call the vet. So around 1:30 Brad arrived out at the barn and Jeff and I met him there. We drove up at the same time so I hadn't seen him yet.

He greeted us in the barn with a nice knicker. Brad had me try and walk him to see what was the deal. He was dead lame, hopping on 3 feet lame. The vet did some testing to see if it was any joints that were bothering him - no reaction. He did some pressure testing on his hoof - no reaction. He looked like he had an abscess but that would have shown up with the hoof tester and it didn't. He was sore when he pressed on some of the lumps and bumps from the mud fever but that was the only reaction we could get out of him. And the mud fever wasn't all that bad externally at least. The vet decided that he seemed just too lame and he better xray his foot to make sure. I guess he was walking like a horse that broken it's coffin bone. Though that kind of break usually results from the horse kicking something really hard and Axel isn't really a kicker.

So until we see the xrays he said to give him some antibiotics and bute in case it is just the mud fever and it went deeper and caused the lameness. If that's the case we should see some improvement in a few days. The vet hasn't called about the xrays so I should hear from him in the morning. So keep your fingers crossed that it's just the infection. We'll be heading out there tomorrow evening as usual so I hope he's showing some improvement. Scott called earlier and asked if he could put Axel in the round pen tomorrow during the day. I guess he's not totally content in the barn by himself. At least in the round pen he can see the other horses better and be out in the sun. Hopefully he takes his bute in the morning and doesn't give them a hard time.