Chapter 2
An Angus Update
Its now nearing the end of July, one of the hottest times of the year here, and Angus has been with us two and a half months. I remember thinking a few days after he got here, "oh, he's just starved and needs the right food. How hard can this be??" Oh how wrong I was, and how much I have learned about the fine art of rescuing a critter in these past 2 1/2 months...
From the start I knew this was going to be no normal rehab horse, even with my limited rescuing experience. For starters- he wouldn't eat. Imagine my confusion when I proudly presented him with the best food I could find, food Hero would have happily devoured even with all the canola oil and odd assortment of supplements, and that Fancy would just inhale. Nothing I could do could get him to eat. He would take two bites and then stare off into the distance, and then walk away. Great. I changed food, did everything to tempt him and still barely a bite at every feeding. Needless to say I was distraught and out came the old school equine science books to hunt down an answer.
As I have found living and learning from our other Shire Draft, Hero, draft horses are notorious for presenting problems slooooowwwly. Being the larger than life horses they are, it sometimes takes longer for things to bother them and for them to show signs of problems, particularly of their source. Hero's foot abscess took two weeks to show up and pop before we could figure out why he was so horribly lame, and his bad teeth took years before they ever bothered him. Much the same with Angus, because after weeks of trying new food combinations, we left him in the care of a friend for 5 days and came home to an interesting (now that is- gross then, of course) discovery.
Angus had an abscess the size of a softball (I kid you not, a regulation sized softball) in the space between his jaws along his throat. It was as hard as a softball and was getting bigger by the day. I doubt he could swallow any of the super tasty food I had been trying to coax him to eat. We called the vet and he said the soonest he could be out was in a few days, so I spent an anxious weekend waiting and hoping he'd be ok. Our first thought was Strangles, a horse infection closely related to the common flu, but a hundred times more contagious and very, very GROSS. Mention the word Strangles to a horse person and they will practically cross themselves in superstitious hex, its that bad. It is recoverable for the horse, but when one horse has it, ALL the horses nearby get it, and it can be carried on clothes, brushes, buckets, anything. It also lives in the ground to come back again whenever you least expect it. Its accompanied by running puss and exploding abscesses that are just beyond gross. You get the idea.
So the vet shows up and lances the abscess, and he, Angela and I all lean over expecting to see the telltale yellow puss of Strangles, and... nothing. Some watery fluid, some blood, but otherwise, meh. Its an abscess. Like a deflated balloon, we filled it with idodine for a week, sprayed it with my favorite cure-all, Vetericyn, and it healed fine. He has a small white scar under his throat where the abscess was. It could have been from a piece of cheat grass, some food, anything. We cultured it anyways and it came up negative for Strangles a week later, just to be safe. So we dodged a bullet there (especially with a new foal on the property too) . However, the vet did say he tested positive for a small case of a Staph infection. A bacterial infection that could be cured with a good, strong dose of penicillin. Two rather expensive penicillin shots and a grumpy Angus from being made a pincushion, and we were golden.
The best part of it all- as soon as that Staph infection cleared up, he started eating.
HALLELUJAH!
So here is Angus' current diet, given twice a day:
2 lbs Nutrena SafeChoice Senior
3 lbs Nutrena SafeChoice L/S (Low Starch feed)
generous pinch of mineral salts
2 double handfulls of beet pulp
A splash of water to wet the beet pulp
1 cup of Canola oil
1/2 scoop of MSN/Chondroitin supplement (for muscle strain)
and as much grass hay as I can get him to eat
every AM he gets 1 scoop of Vit E/Selenium
So far, so good.
As I have found living and learning from our other Shire Draft, Hero, draft horses are notorious for presenting problems slooooowwwly. Being the larger than life horses they are, it sometimes takes longer for things to bother them and for them to show signs of problems, particularly of their source. Hero's foot abscess took two weeks to show up and pop before we could figure out why he was so horribly lame, and his bad teeth took years before they ever bothered him. Much the same with Angus, because after weeks of trying new food combinations, we left him in the care of a friend for 5 days and came home to an interesting (now that is- gross then, of course) discovery.
Angus had an abscess the size of a softball (I kid you not, a regulation sized softball) in the space between his jaws along his throat. It was as hard as a softball and was getting bigger by the day. I doubt he could swallow any of the super tasty food I had been trying to coax him to eat. We called the vet and he said the soonest he could be out was in a few days, so I spent an anxious weekend waiting and hoping he'd be ok. Our first thought was Strangles, a horse infection closely related to the common flu, but a hundred times more contagious and very, very GROSS. Mention the word Strangles to a horse person and they will practically cross themselves in superstitious hex, its that bad. It is recoverable for the horse, but when one horse has it, ALL the horses nearby get it, and it can be carried on clothes, brushes, buckets, anything. It also lives in the ground to come back again whenever you least expect it. Its accompanied by running puss and exploding abscesses that are just beyond gross. You get the idea.
So the vet shows up and lances the abscess, and he, Angela and I all lean over expecting to see the telltale yellow puss of Strangles, and... nothing. Some watery fluid, some blood, but otherwise, meh. Its an abscess. Like a deflated balloon, we filled it with idodine for a week, sprayed it with my favorite cure-all, Vetericyn, and it healed fine. He has a small white scar under his throat where the abscess was. It could have been from a piece of cheat grass, some food, anything. We cultured it anyways and it came up negative for Strangles a week later, just to be safe. So we dodged a bullet there (especially with a new foal on the property too) . However, the vet did say he tested positive for a small case of a Staph infection. A bacterial infection that could be cured with a good, strong dose of penicillin. Two rather expensive penicillin shots and a grumpy Angus from being made a pincushion, and we were golden.
The best part of it all- as soon as that Staph infection cleared up, he started eating.
HALLELUJAH!
So here is Angus' current diet, given twice a day:
2 lbs Nutrena SafeChoice Senior
3 lbs Nutrena SafeChoice L/S (Low Starch feed)
generous pinch of mineral salts
2 double handfulls of beet pulp
A splash of water to wet the beet pulp
1 cup of Canola oil
1/2 scoop of MSN/Chondroitin supplement (for muscle strain)
and as much grass hay as I can get him to eat
every AM he gets 1 scoop of Vit E/Selenium
So far, so good.
MY what horrible teeth you have...
Fairly early on in our attempts to feed Angus we noticed he dropped way more food than he ate. And when he finally did start eating, food flew everywhere, and his mouth was open more than my 6 year old son's at the dinner table. He also had a horrible habit of slobbering saliva everywhere. When he opened his mouth, the saliva fell out in long ropy strands. Gross. I knew he had to get to an equine dentist, and soon, but he was still recovering from his Staph infection. An opportunity came up last week for me to get him a spot at the Academy of Equine Dentistry in Glens Ferry and I didn't hesitate. They are one of the best equine dentist schools in the world, as is evident by the variety of foreigners who travel to little 'ole Glens Ferry to take classes, and they had helped Hero with his two rotten teeth in February. I was worried about bringing such an emaciated-looking horse there, but they were all very understanding and did a great job getting his teeth back to healthy.
Because of what us humans feed horses, they normally require a dental visit every few years. Since they grind all their food, most of the tops of their teeth naturally file themselves down, but the edges, or hooks, on the sides can get really sharp if not taken care of. Plus some teeth grind down more than others when a horse uses one side of their mouth more than the other. All of which was the case with Angus. His hooks were so bad they were stopping his teeth from grinding back and forth completely, so he was only grinding a small distance side to side. Plus the hooks were cutting the insides of his gums, so it probably hurt every time chewed, and making more saliva was his way of trying to help cushion the cuts. No wonder he didn't want to eat, and when he did kept his mouth so open all the time. He also had a bad case of TMJ, possibly from trying to avoid his scarred gums as he ate, and the first thing the dentists did when they saw him was pop his jaw back in place. It was not a pretty sound. The picture on the upper right is of Ms. Pauline working on Angus. She is from the Netherlands and Hero was the first horse she got to work on at the school back in February. She is also a vet, so we got the best of both worlds for both horses, and I look forward to seeing her again next February when Hero goes back in for his checkup (since he has two less teeth in his head now, he has to go back every year).
Because of what us humans feed horses, they normally require a dental visit every few years. Since they grind all their food, most of the tops of their teeth naturally file themselves down, but the edges, or hooks, on the sides can get really sharp if not taken care of. Plus some teeth grind down more than others when a horse uses one side of their mouth more than the other. All of which was the case with Angus. His hooks were so bad they were stopping his teeth from grinding back and forth completely, so he was only grinding a small distance side to side. Plus the hooks were cutting the insides of his gums, so it probably hurt every time chewed, and making more saliva was his way of trying to help cushion the cuts. No wonder he didn't want to eat, and when he did kept his mouth so open all the time. He also had a bad case of TMJ, possibly from trying to avoid his scarred gums as he ate, and the first thing the dentists did when they saw him was pop his jaw back in place. It was not a pretty sound. The picture on the upper right is of Ms. Pauline working on Angus. She is from the Netherlands and Hero was the first horse she got to work on at the school back in February. She is also a vet, so we got the best of both worlds for both horses, and I look forward to seeing her again next February when Hero goes back in for his checkup (since he has two less teeth in his head now, he has to go back every year).
The dentists gave us some interesting information on Angus when we were there. First of all, he has NEVER seen an equine dentist before. Which kind of goes hand in hand with him being neglected. If you can't afford (whether with time or money) to feed and take care of your horses feet, you sure aren't going to get them dental work. An Angus wasn't exactly the best patient either. Even drugged, he pulled back as much as he could and the sweat was rolling off the dentists from having to both run the files and fight to hold his massive head. The other thing they told us, after a variety of different dental students looked at him and speculated, was that Angus is 12 years old. Relatively middle aged for a draft horse, and younger than I first thought. A good sign, since that bodes well for his chances of a good recovery.
So here is Angus, the morning after the trip to the dentist, diving head first into his food for the very first time, barely coming up for air now like a good eating horse should. He even whinnys when he sees me in the morning and evening for meals now. He still drops some of his food, but he hunts around to find the extra bits. All great signs towards recovery. He got his second hoof trim the day before the dentist trip and his feet looked amazingly better according to Jules. He's putting on more actual hoof wall and growing out the bruises and swells that came from broken off side walls and overgrown toes. He's sore as hell, but that's mainly from his fight with the trailer... a whole 'nother story...