Hopefully a final update:
This morning Keil Bay had dropped four good manure piles in the arena where he spent the night, with his herd wrapped around him in the paddock and back pasture. He is in good spirits and has had very good heart rate and gut sounds while eating and drinking and pooping and peeing. The signs of a healthy, functioning system.
We’re continuing his simple, small, very wet meals through this evening, and will gradually dial back the soupiness level toward what we normally feed him, which is wet but not soupy. I’m putting just one hanging water bucket with plain water in his stall today so I can insure he is back to drinking normally from that, and we’ll continue monitoring heart rate and gut sounds and gum color. He’s also getting short grazing sessions, but no hay yet.
I’m not sure what caused this - the vet thinks something caused him to stop drinking water - could be as simple as a change in weather, a tooth that hurt, some small thing - so now the impaction has cleared, we just need to do some detective work to make sure he is taking in water the way he normally does moving forward.
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24 hours after the previous update below, the Big Bay has dropped many piles of manure since last night’s first pile. We have monitored him like hawks all day, and celebrated every new pile. By mid-day today, he was whinnying for food, and by the late afternoon banging on his stall door. Around 6 p.m. he had been drinking water and dropped a huge manure pile and the vet approved the reintroduction of small soupy meals of timothy balance cubes soaked to the point of being soupy mush. He’ll spend another night in the arena but tonight he’ll have a tub of soup with him. Small and frequent wet meals for another 24 hours. Unless he knocks the barn down first. So grateful for his coming through this.
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UPDATE: It’s 10:48 p.m. and when I went out to check on the Big Bay, I found a single horse apple in the middle of the arena. Then kept looking found a small pile of 12 more! Wet and shiny. Possibly TMI for the average person but my horse folk will get it and rejoice. :))) He needs to do this three more times, but it’s the best news of the day! Before I came in earlier this evening I walked over to the A marker behind which Salina is buried and I talked to her and asked her to watch out for Keil Bay tonight. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did her boss mare thing from beyond and got things moving for him.
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This morning he wasn’t interested in food at all and seemed off - thankfully our vet was able to come almost immediately. He has an impaction colic - no manure today yet and he’s not drinking. Vet has administered nasogastric fluids around noon today and again around 7 p.m. He’s had pain med injection x2 and honestly doesn’t seem to be in pain. Still very interested in peppermints (I made peppermint water, Aqua Aid water, plain water, water with ice cubes, and water from hose, water in different buckets, water in troughs. He’ll lick my hands and lap up some but what we need now is manure to drop and him to start drinking so he doesn’t have to be tubed. Yes, he can smell the peppermint I have in my pocket and has been rooting for it.
For tonight vet has approved him being in the arena with his herd in the paddock and pasture adjacent so they can be close but we can tell if he drops any manure through the night. Dear husband is on his way home with a stethoscope so we can monitor heart rate, which vet says is a very good way to monitor how things are going for him, along with checking color of his gums.
His massage therapist has given me some techniques to try and when I do it he yawns repeatedly, closes his eyes, and then goes and lifts his tail - so far nothing has come out but he’s trying! I’m also using a homeopathic remedy that might help.
His heart rate is good and not increasing and he has just a few gut sounds on one side only (good that there are any at all but we want more!).
He is interested in food which vet feels is a good sign. But we just do not know how things will go tonight and tomorrow. At his age (34) we won’t be sending him to the vet school. Thankfully our vet lives 15 minutes from us and he is amazing, so Keil Bay is in good hands through this. I hope for the very best outcome for him, but we do know he’s had a long and very good life, and while it will break my heart if this doesn’t resolve, he has been and will remain The King. Best horse ever in my life, dream horse, heart horse, and a joy to all of us.
Send some jingles his way and I’ll update when I can.
This is him a few minutes ago:
7 comments:
I hope everything works out for him. Keep us updated. Sending good thoughts to a special guy.
Oh, gosh, I totally forgot to update today! Thank you for the good thoughts and let me do an update up top of the post.
So glad to hear this!👍🏻😊only horse people are happy about piles of manure!
LOL - yes - I have posted on Twitter and gotten radio silence. I think people must think I’ve gone “round the bend.” :)))
Sounds good! Glad he's basically back to normal.
So glad to hear he's coming through this. He is lucky to have you...and vice versa. Sending healing thoughts for continued improvement.
Thank you! We are maintaining progress and have increased his feed and stretched out to 3-hour intervals for today. I’m a little bit “anal” - yes, bad pun intended - about this whole thing and micromanaging but otoh I think that is what he would get if he were in a vet hospital setting, so my old vet school wannabe energy is kicking in. :)
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