Hi, I’m new here but I’m hoping someone can help me, my mother’s horse was acting like her normal self this morning zooming after the food when I fed her, but then about 5 minutes later when I went to go get her hay she was limping! The lameness Is in her right front leg, nothing is visibly wrong, no heat,no swelling, nothing in her hoof. Any ideas?
UPDATE:
farrier came out, she pulled a muscle in her leg, she is completely healed now
Your farrier or vet can tell you. Might be a number of things - abscess, bruised sole, injury to the pastern or fetlock (like she hit herself on something), a strain… If I wasn’t sure if it was hoof or leg causing the lameness, I’d go for the vet over the farrier.
How seriously lame? If its just a little off I’d give her a couple hours or overnight and then call in a good lameness vet.
I would actually call the vet asap. I would be worried that zooming around and fine one minute, and lame the next, could be a suspensory injury, a fractured coffin bone, or something else that needs to be determined sooner rather than later. I would be confining her to have as little movement as possible, whatever setup that means for her (which might mean turnout with a quiet buddy, might mean stalled).
It COULD be an abscess that was forced into a painful spot with all the running around, but that wouldn’t be my first thought.
OK good points about emergency care. In that case keep the horse quiet in a well bedded stall to minimize further injury. Not in the pasture.
All of the above and we had a mystery once too. Called in the vet. He took one look at her and pointed out a tumor on her shoulder. We were busy looking down and the cause was up. Excised it and she was fine.
And to look on the bright side, I had a horse once come in foot waving lame. Could see nothing. I can’t remember the elapsed time but said horse 4 beat walked out the stall hours later.:yes:
