Breathing Again
The vet called and Jackson doesn't have any rotation or sinking of the coffin bone. Yes! Let me repeat that. YES!! We are still waiting on the insulin test which will come back tomorrow. So, there is no permanent damage and he should recover and return to work. He will require management which I am more than happy to do. His soles are thin so they got very soft and flexible in our wet weather - and tromping through the puddles to get to the water trough. I need to get those nice and hard again. His blood work was pretty normal as well. He does have some levels consistent with bowel irritation which isn't surprising given his loose manure with the new hay. I am going to give him a Panacur Power Pac to ensure there aren't any parasites lurking and evading the fecal cultures. No more sugar is going to be the biggest change. No vitamins. No supplements except his GastroEase. ...no carrots, no apples, no cookies, no Good & Plenty. OMG - can I do this??!! Yes, yes, of course I can. I can do whatever I need to in order to keep my Jackson well. Actually it feels good having something to do. Last night and this morning were hard... waiting for the vet to call with results, not knowing, imaging the worst, not being able to do anything. My boss told me to take my own advice and breathe. Oh, duh. How did I forget that??
We continue to move forward on the goat front. I've been busy talking to goat owners, feed store owners, and reading all about the adorable little creatures. Brett has been busy drawing plans. Shed plans, fence plans, plot diagrams... At least we don't obsess about the same aspects of this project! Tonight he will go to the home owner association board meeting to get approval on his shed plans. Here is what he will present:
Can you tell he started out as an architecture major?
Oh Whew, thank goodness!!!! Such great news about Jackson:) And I can't tell you how excited I am about your goat project...:)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to hear that Jackson's prognosis looks good! I'm not really into giving horses treats, I think they respond much better to being rewarded in their own language. In their herd, with other horses, they wouldn't be rewarded with treats. Food rewards are a human thing, and not a very healthy one at that! In a herd, a horse would be rewarded by being groomed by his herd mates (especially scratching the withers!)
ReplyDeleteI have spent many years cultivating my "Horse-ese", learning to speak their language. The greatest compliment I ever received was when a client exclaimed, "I don't know why my horse loves you so much, you're so mean to him, you never give him any treats!" I didn't have to give him any treats to express my love for him, and he responded in kind. You can show Jackson how much you love him without treats, and he will respond. I think the two of you will find a much deeper bond because you are caring for him when he is ill and that means more to a horse than all the Good 'N Plenty in the world!
Val came to me with very thin soles. I have had good results with Venice Turpentine - I paint his soles once a week.
ReplyDeleteSo glad about your news. You can deal with a diet related problem! :)
Great news about Jackson. Isn't there a manmade treat that does not have lots of sugar in it? I must admit that what Shannon said made sense too. Do you feed Safe Choice?
ReplyDeleteThe goat palace is going to be fabulous!
Yippee! Great news. We had the larger type of goats once (2 of them.) Nice animals. And the smaller ones are so cute and fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm happy for you and Jackson. Like Shannon, I'm not a treat person either except with my pony.
ReplyDeleteWe have three goats. That looks like a wonderful plan for a house. Is the porch covered? I like the shelf idea because our goats love to be up on things. Our goats live in our barn, but we let them out to wander the property. They stay close together and never get far from their home.
I started out with two bottle-fed babies and they were the closest thing to real babies I'd ever had. My husband and I would hike with them and they'd follow along, leaping behind us. They died of urinary calculi (wethers) and it broke my heart. The three we have now, we've had for five years, but I'm not as close to them as our first two. Unfortunately, I'm an expert on urinary calculi. If I knew then what I know now, they'd still be alive.
What a relief! Pea gravel works great for stimulating hoof growth and also gets rid of the mud. I put it in my horse's barn and will eventually put it around the water and any low spots.
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