Issues

To answer Lytha's question, Ashke has been lame for the past three weeks or so, with the lameness getting more pronounced as we went along. Two weeks ago, I scheduled Dr Scott to come out and do injections again. Granted it has only been four months, however, he is really favoring his left hind (which is the opposite leg from where almost all of our issues have stemmed from). Doc came out last Thursday and did an evaluation of his gait and was amazed that it was definitely his left hock.

 

Dopey horse is dopey.

The good news is that the right hock seems to have fused (which explains why he is suddenly favoring the left) and we will need to do x-rays next time before we do more injections. Doc did both the upper and lower joints in both and Ashke has had the weekend off, with handwalking and Bute.

 Not wanting to weight the left hind. This tendency is why the left hind hoof looks different from the other three. He has been favoring it for at least six weeks.

I washed him off before the injections (he was a mud colored brown) and got his hocks pretty clean. Doc scrubbed with betadyne and alcohol for a significant length of time prior to injections.

Beginning to wake up. He was not happy he wasn't being fed with the rest of the horses.

I think this week I will talk to Amanda about flying vs simple changes when it comes to the hocks. It may be that I will need to show L4 for the rest of this year to take some of the pressure off that hock until it is closer to being fused. We will see what happens.