The seasonal transition plan at our farm (one that includes dealing with the mud and staying off fields until they’re ready) hasn’t come without a few glitches.
The most distressing?
The Big Girl, Shea, came up lame. She went from fine to barely able to walk within a day. Poor girl!
Thankfully, I’m getting familiar with her history and didn’t load her up for an urgent trip to the vet for x-rays, a professional diagnosis, and a bill to match.
What with that history, the seasonal transition, and all the mud, an abscess is strongly suspected. So instead of panicking, I grabbed the hoof pick, Epsom salt, soaking tub, and betadine.
Three days and seven soaks later, she’s feeling much better. I haven’t been rewarded by that classic stink of surfaced abscess fluid yet. But she trotted out with the others this morning.
That’s good enough for now.