Poor Stella. My poor, poor girl. This week has brought some tough times on her, yet another crazy injury. Backstory: one of the geldings she shares the paddock with has a history of falling fast and hard for mares when they come into their first spring heat. Stella has been sharing space with him all winter and he hasn't batted an eye, until earlier this week. As soon as she came into her first heat cycle of the season, he became OBSESSED, forgoing food, water and all other necessities to be glued to her side 24/7, chaperoning her wherever she went, making sure no other horse got anywhere near her and annoying the sh*t out of her all day. She gets separated at night so she can eat and rest in peace, and he would stand by the fence and whinny and pace and fret over her absence until the next morning. We all chuckled about his complete and utter stupidity and knew, from history, that once she came out of heat he would relax and this likely wouldn't happen again.
Well, she didn't get that chance.
By Wednesday, he'd grown absolutely nuts over her. It took me 10 minutes to catch her that afternoon because he'd herd her away from me, and ever time she'd try to break away he'd rush to redirect her. He never displayed aggression towards me, but I'd had enough and finally went and got a dressage whip to, ahem, relay my feelings about his behavior. (No, I didn't beat the snot out of him, but when he got mouthy and bit her on the rump to direct her, I smacked him a good one and he shuffled off long enough for me to halter Stella.)
Wednesday night, I got an email from the BO saying the gelding had managed to walk under the fence (mind you, there are two strands to the fence, and they are both hot) and get in with Stella. She said everything seemed OK, but that when she removed him and put him back where he belonged he, quote, "almost killed her". The next morning, I got a call just before 6AM saying I needed to come to the barn, that Stella had a bad cut on a hind leg and the BO felt I needed to see it. It took me another 10 minutes to get her away from the gelding, even though she was hobbling in obvious pain. Three out of the four legs were cut up, she had a massive scrape up above her hock on the inside of her right hind, another long gash below that, and another long gash on the outside of her left cannon bone. There was another cut on the inside of her right front. Her right hock had doubled in size and both hind legs looked like giant sausages.
The worst leg. Luckily the wounds were clean and fairly bloodless, but clearly very painful.
All cleaned up. Who needs a vet when you have a mare who can teach you all about injury care?
My guess is, based on the location and appearance of the wounds, that Stella was lying down around her usual time at night, taking a snooze. The gelding got into her enclosure, either the first or second time, and rushed right into her stall. She gets really nervous about other horses coming into her stall with her and will usually scramble out. I'm guessing she did the same here, except she was down and scrambled to get up, beating herself up in the process, potentially with some help from the gelding (though I don't think he attacked her, but his presence was clearly enough to freak her out.)
Today was day two: the initial injury happened sometime Wednesday night. Her discomfort has definitely increased, but she's also been on stall rest since Thursday morning partly because I didn't feel it a good idea for her to be really mobile, and partially because it was the only way to keep her away from the gelding. She seemed exhausted all day Thursday: she ate a ton but was clearly drained and napped for a solid hour halfway through the day. She has gotten much stiffer over the past 48 hours, and the swelling hasn't gone anywhere for the most part. I've taken her out a couple times to graze and get some movement in/cold hose her legs, and once she gets a few strides in she moves much better, albeit stiffly and with a bit of a gimp.
I don't think there is any deeper damage. Her injury is astonishingly similar to mine: a large surface area, not a lot of blood but still really painful, lots of swelling, lots of heat. I don't think it's infected, but either way she's on antibiotics (yep, had those already) and Bute. The soreness has crept up into her hindquarters and low back, so I put her Back on Track sheet on tonight to sooth her a bit. She was much more lively today than yesterday, so I take that as a good sign. If things don't start to improve, the vet is coming Monday anyway to give spring shots and do teeth. I'm not sure if she will be getting any of that done as planned, but at the very least I will have someone to look at her.
Fingers crossed, everyone.
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