Recovering

For 2 days Mara stayed in that stall, taking care of herself by lying down a lot. On the 3rd day she was out standing at her gate - on 4 legs - staring at the house. I asked my man to help me take them to the front pasture where they won't have to walk through mud to get there.


As soon as we turned them loose Mara started trotting around tossing her head at the size of the pasture (quite small). I was relieved to see her walking freely and occasionally bouncing around.

3 days after the incident, our vet came back and opened the bandage. I was amazed it stayed on so long, even with me dumping a liter of antiseptic inside 3 times a day. He tested her hoof again and she reacted. Then he cleaned and rebandaged the hoof and told me to leave it on for 5 more days.

I'm supposed to give her 1 ml less bute per day, so now she's down to 4. She hates it and tries to get away before I can halter her and dose her. A friend said I should try mixing it with sweet feed but that would have to be a lot of sweet feed to mask bute. Also, she might not clean it up - better to just dose her directly into her mouth, so I'm sure she's getting it.

They're out on pasture day and night again, and the bandage is all muddy but staying on.

I've finally got the hay down to an amount where Mara doesn't look like a marshmallow as much - just this week I can say I suspect she actually has a skeleton under there somewhere. I don't need to see bones, I just want to have a sense that they exist, ya know?