I need some help, advice, input, from the hive mind. Bit of a novel, bear with me.
This morning (Saturday) I went to barn to feed breakfast. Walked into mare’s stall to find: mash dumped upside down, uneaten, tub across stall. Flakes of hay still flakes, untouched. Mare is standing in far end of her run, won’t come.
I walk out to see what is going on, I find her with a tucked up belly, and obvious pouring sweat marks. Even her face has lines of dried sweat. That is a LOT of sweating, it is not hot here right now. I get her haltered. I notice she’s got some scrapes/cuts on the left hock, and a swelling on the front of the cannon bone just below - like she whacked something really hard. I take her into her stall, give her morning mash, she will only eat while I’m standing there holding her. Soon as I took halter off, she went back outside and began pacing non-stop the length of her run (a little over 100’). I gathered up breakfast and took it outside, thinking she’d be happier eating out by her neighbor. No luck.
Thinking she had/is colicking, I run home to grab the truck, thinking I may need to go to vet. I get back she is still pacing nonstop. While I am at home I also grab some Dorm gel. I don’t have banamine.
I get her out of her stall, basically all I want at this point is to calm her down, settle her. She shows interest in hay on the floor, so I grab a handful of hers and drop it, she eats it.
My BO comes out to do breakfast for everyone else. I ask her if she knows what went on last night. She said my mare was playing over the fence with the gelding next to her; indeed she threw a shoe and I found it in his run. This, tho, isn’t anything new. They’ve been neighbors for a long time now and always gotten along. Why the 2 of them playing over the fence (no fences were down either, I checked) would cause an apparent all night long anxiety attack/meltdown makes zero sense to me. For her to be “playing” (and I am not sure that’s what it was) hard enough to toss a front shoe and be that sweaty…is bizarre.
My first thought was ‘what animal was around last night’ but NONE of the other horses are upset or look to have been upset. I checked her stall/run for bees. Nothing.
Anyway, I put her into the arena, waiting for the dorm to take effect. I gave her 1 ml, just enough to take the edge off but still allow her to eat. I sat down and just waited. I observed her drink. The pacing continued. I put some alfalfa out, she ignored. I put some grass hay out, she would take a bite, pace, take a bite, pace. I finally got her to finish her morning mash.
When I took her out of the arena, I was examining her for other injuries, found a spot on her neck, touched it and she flinched, I found a thorn in there. A thorn from the Hawthorn trees that are in the back of her run, other side of the fence, neighbors property. On our side they’ve been trimmed up/back enough that for her to have put a thorn from a branch into her neck…?? She had to have been rearing, and maybe crashing? into the fence back there? And then she dragged a small branch clear down into her stall, found that when I cleaned it.
Anyway, none of this adds up to what I came out to this morning. This is a mare who in spite of being a TB with that love of running, hard, I have NEVER seen her not be safety conscious. She is very much into self preservation, lol.
I cold hosed the hock, checked those cuts for thorns, finally put her out with her 2 buddies. Quiet, settled, ho hum types. Hoping just being with them will be enough. I will go back out in awhile, when I think the dorm has worn off, to check on her.
What else could I have done for her…? I got some banamine from my BO, but I opted not to give it since she did relax and eat/drink. I didn’t feel like she needed it. So, just the dorm to help calm her.
What might have caused this? Basically an inability to calm down from whatever it was that upset her??
I swear it is like she ate loco weed except we don’t have that around here…
