So if you read my post Advice White Line Disease, you’ll see I’ve been trying to figure out a lameness issue for the past week or so. That post will give you all the background info.
Well last night I go out to feed and my gelding and yearling colt come as they always do. I fork the hay over the fence and give them a pat as usual. My gelding takes a mouthful of hay and starts tossing his head and his ears lay flat sideways. I’m caught off guard thinking what the heck-did you swallow a bug. So I wait and see how the next mouthful goes. Same thing. So I keep watching him and it gets worse. As soon as he would take a mouthful of hay he would throw his head up. He started stomping his feet and swinging his head back towards his belly. I instantly think colic. I put my ear to his belly and here lots of gut movements. I take the hay away and watch him. When he’s not eating he’s a bit better. I wait and give him some time and he quits everything. By this time it’s well after dark and go to bed and he seemed fine. I wake up at daybreak to check on him (I can see his pasture from my bedroom and he’s out nibbling what little green grass is coming up and of course the dead brown grass. I go out a couple hours later to feed at the usual time. He makes his way over (at a walk at first) then decided to canter and trot the rest of the way. He hasn’t cantered it trotted that far in a little under a week. He actually looked less sore too today. So I fork over hay and he digs in like usual seem fine. I watched him for a few minutes and he shook his head a bit-he didn’t toss it like last night and there is no foot stomping and he seems more relaxed eating. I’m looking at him now and he’s eating normal. Any thoughts on what went on? I’ve never seen him act like he did last night. His pasture mate is a yearling stud colt and they’ve been together since November. Just the toe of them. There are mares about a 1/4 mile away could it been him acting like a stud? He was with mares and gelding all last winter and spring and never acted like that-but there were no stud colts with them. He’s also a notorious roller. You brush him and as soon as four done he goes and rolls. He gets tied up for longer than 10 minutes he goes and rolls. Could he have hurt his neck when he rolled? He seemed fine while grazing though. Just a thought.
I’ve had laminitis in the back of my because he did have a strong digital pulse in one front leg and then it seemed to switch legs but now it seems to be normal. I can feel it but it’s not bounding like it was on Saturday. He was just trimmed on Sunday after not being trimmed for a long time-the farrier didn’t see anything strange. He was rode as well before he was trimmed after being on vacation all winter. Could all this and the head tossing while eating be related? His pasture is brown with very very little green grass coming up. It’s been too cold and dry here for anything to turn green. Even my lawn is still mostly brown. So that’s why I’m having trouble with thinking it’s laminitis and not something else. His hay isn’t that rich either and he doesn’t get grain. I did find some soft spot on his soles of both of his front feet. They are on the side of the frog and there were none between the end of the frog and toe. He does have funny looking pasterns with one looking more off than the other. It almost looks like ringbone but he’s always had them and it never seemed to bother him before. If you go to the post Possible Ringbone I have pictures of his really funny looking pastern.
I’m at a loss to what the issue is with him. He was fine all winter until he cut his hock on barbed wire. I took him to the vet for that and she wasn’t that concerned about it as the cut didn’t damage anything. He just had some swelling which came down with some Bute and he was on Uniprim just to be sure to catch any possible infection.
Any thoughts would be helpful.
