Never a Dull Moment

Hello dear readers!  I’m back!

I want to apologize for missing last week.  I sat down to write, got 3 sentences in and promptly fell asleep for 2.5 hours.  Never quite got back to it after that. 

Welcome to the new subscribers!  Glad to have you join us on the farm.  Lucy wants to know if you brought her a cookie and some Gatorade?

I want to say thank you to L. A. for her amazing gift to me.  I am truly grateful and blessed by you for your kindness and generosity to me.  This gift will go a long way to helping out the farm, and allow me to finally get new glasses. A mere thank you is insufficient. I wish you many blessings in your life!

We have had some excitement over the past 12 hours here.  And I don’t mean the good kind of excitement. 

We went out to put the sheep in about 7:30 last night and found Miss Brandy horse flat out on the ground. 

On occasion, Brandy likes to do dead horse.  That game they enjoy where they lay there and not move a muscle as you yell their name at them.  They don’t even look like they are breathing.  They love to scare the crap out of you and right about the time you are going to poke them in the butt with your foot, they pick up their head and give you the most disgusted look that screams “Hey I was dreaming here, WTF?”

Yeah, that wasn’t the case last night.  Although I really wish it was.  I’ll always take dead horse over what happened.

This time she was really sick

Brandy is my Robyn’s horse.  He got her, along with another, Miss Babe, when they were both foals.  So, they had been together a long time.  Brandy is 29 now.  They both worked cows in Wyoming, packed out meat on hunting trips, and spend many weekends riding with friends.  Rob was fond of saying that she was too smart for her own good and did demonstrate this once by going down an arroyo while Rob was not paying attention, losing her footing, falling, rolling over Rob and broke his ankle.  Good times.

I long promised Rob that I would take care of her if anything happened to him.  It would be devastating to me if I failed in that.

I got a halter on her, and between me pulling and Michael pushing, we were able to get her up on her feet.  She started to walk with me, and I sent Michael to the house for a stethoscope.  I could hear belly noises, but there should have been more of them. 

Called my vet and discussed this with him.  He wanted me to keep her moving and give her a dose of banamine.  Then call him back in half an hour. 

The more we walked though, the worse Brandy got.  Her breathing became more labored and she seemed to be having some kind of neurological impairment.  She was losing control of her back legs.  She would splay them out to the sides, wobble around, lean to the left like she was going to fall.  Then she seemed to jerk herself out of it and move forward, except now she was picking them up much higher and coming down hard, like she didn’t know where the ground was. 

Back on the phone to the vet. 

As I was talking to him the second time, Brandy did a lay down fall kind of thing and would not get up again. 

Vet was on his way out.

I really thought this was going to be the end of her life.

I sat with her, stroking her soft face and telling her all the good things that were waiting for her on the other side.  That it was ok to leave, and that Rob was waiting for her with Babe.  That they would ride in green fields, up mountains, and sleep in the shade of big trees. 

I told her what a good girl she was, and how much I loved her. 

I talked about the rides we took together and did she remember how much fun we had?

Her breathing slowed down and her body started to relax.  I kept talking and stroking her face.  Waiting for that last breath to come. 

The thunder from an approaching storm started to rumble, flashes of lightning skirted across the sky. The tears were streaming down my face.

And Brandy decided she was going to get up.

And she started to fart.  And boy did she fart.

I got her into the barn, and the vets showed up a few minutes later.  I say vets because our vets are a married couple, so I got two on this call.

They did their assessment, we talked about the symptoms, and I swear Brandy made a total liar out of me.  I did have Michael for a witness though.

It was decided to give her a gastric lavage with water and mineral oil.  That’s where they pump several gallons of warm water into her stomach using a tube that goes in her nose on down. 

Brandy was not amused to have that tube go up her nose, and she gave us a bit of a fight over it.  I can’t say that I blame her for it.  I wouldn’t want that either.  Besides, it was so good to see her fight, after thinking that 20 minutes before she was going to cross the bridge.

It’s now after 10pm.  Brandy stayed in the barn overnight so we could watch how much, if anything, she ate or drank, plus what her other bodily functions were going to occur.

Micheal checked on her at midnight, and said she was eating the hay we put in for her.  At 5am she had cleaned up about 90% of the hay but didn’t drink much.  After having gallons of water pushed into her, I suspect she was not very thirsty.  She had pee’d once and had one bout of the runs.  She was even feisty enough to start dragging stuff off the table in the barn (we don’t have stalls) and scatter it on the floor.  Plus the inside door knob was slimy from her trying to open it. 

Vet said we could turn her out but keep any eye on her.  I pitched in some hay and the sheep, of course, descended upon it with Brandy.  She got pissy about sharing, did a bit of kicking at sheep not hitting any of them, then proceeded to choke on the hay in her mouth. 

Luckily, she was able to clear it so I didn’t have to intervene with that particular problem.

And just to make the morning even more fun, Miss Lucy got herself a massive wad in her mouth and SHE started choking at the same friggen time!!!  That one I did have to reach in and pull out. 

My question to you dear readers, is this.  Is it too early to start drinking at 7:39am?

Blessed Be.

Ps the diagnosis for Brandy was gas colic.