Poor Baasha, poor us

I think Baasha should just live in the house with us - then maybe I could take better care of him.

Today I heard a frantic nicker and I knew exactly what it meant. I was in the bathroom, the windows were open. It was the same urgent rumbly sound he made the long night of the big storm. It means "I need help." It's a very different sound in his array of calls and murmurings. The first thing I thought was "Another storm is coming!?" because it was gusting a little out there. I wonder if any of you have heard this sound before with your horses? I cannot really describe it - it is mostly a low sound but today it was really urgent and would escalate into a higher pitched whine.

I ran outside with only one shoe on and when I saw him my heart froze up - he was holding one leg up at an odd angle and nickering, "I need you!!!"

His back was hunched, he was trembling and his nose was on the ground as he concentrated on the pain. He would paw the ground every so often in frustration. I thought his hip was broken from the angle he held his leg. It was way up in the air and to the side and he would not put it down.

I started calling around emergency lines for vets and couldn't get through and couldn't even think straight and asked my man to go out and stay with Baasha. I finally got through and for the next hour we waited and wished I had a pain killer to give him.


Poor Baasha, he had the inward look of a horse who is trying to comprehend "I'm broken!" Out of all the wounds or lamenesses he's had in his life, I've never seen him exhibit pain like this. I was beside myself. (He has never colicked that I know of.)

My man rubbed the muscles that were bulging out, and I felt his entire leg and felt nothing wrong. I cleaned that hoof and found nothing. What was it?

I kept holding onto my husband, who was in bed sick but wanted to help.

We started feeding carrots and bite by bite Baasha started to feel better - he wouldn't walk to me for a carrot, but he would stretch and ask for more. He started to lower that leg by degrees and finally it touched the ground.

Then every so often he'd try to relieve his other leg for a split second, but then switch back to resting the bad one.

When the vet finally arrived Baasha wasn't in distress anymore, just not using that leg.

He gave him two shots (one was penicillin - that means the cat and horse both got penicillin this week). (I read the history of penicillin this week - fascinating!)



The vet gave me a topical painkiller to rub on his ankle twice per day. He also refilled my bute bottle. After testing his hoof for pain and finding none, he thinks the injury is in the pastern. Now that I think about it at one point Baasha reached around and nuzzled his ankle, nosing it curiously. Maybe the vet is right.

He told me he'll be here at 10am on Monday to recheck.(We're up to 7 unplanned vet visits for July.)

I'm emotionally exhausted right now from the stress of this day.

So what could have happened?

I wanted to block off the hang because I don't want Baasha walking down that steep trail for a couple days. He can walk around the paddock and if he's feeling better, I'll take him streetside to the pasture, but I'm not letting him ascend or descend that path.

Then I saw it - a hoof shaped deep hole next to one of the stumps on the steep path. And a hundred or so wasps swarming in and out and around it. Holy crap!

I finished making my temporary fence and dragged my husband out of bed again to see. What are we gonna do about this? We already have three other wasp nests on our property - this is normal, but this one is in a very bad place.

UPDATE: I bought some wasp spray and it was so fun killing those wasps! I will spray again today to get any remaining ones, and fill the hole.