Tummy Upsets & Sore Shoulders

I've been really worried about Kiri for the last week; she's had the runs when everyone else has been pooping just fine. They are all on a really good worming cycle, have plenty of access to good quality forage, and are fed good quality feeds produced in horse-feed-only mills. She has a lot of non-cancerous melanomas, which unfortunately appears to be a genetic thing in Charlton horses and I was worried that the runs were due to internal melanomas. We had a really reputable out-of-town equine vet come and check her melanomas over recently and he all but guaranteed she'd have a fair amount internally. It was actually on the pretext of wanting to breed from her, and he advised us to just do it as the damage was already existing and the melanomas continue to crop up. Breeding will do nothing to exacerbate the problem. We are sitting firmly on the "no" fence currently as I read a few threads on COTH saying that breeding tends to speed up melanoma growth and she's worth more to us being here herself than having a legacy foal.

So, mysterious diarrhoea. I fretted and fretted as it spanned for four days, some poop was slightly more solid than others and she wasn't looking sick. Very interested in food, and drinking fine. All of her vitals were completely normal. I consulted with a vet and we'd agreed to check her out if anything changed with her vitals.

Unfortunately she's a grey, and with grey horses comes white tails and with diarrhoea comes dirty tails...

Clunkers galore.

It was disgusting. I'd clean it up and then she'd spray poop through it again, it would get weighed down and she'd pee right through it and flick it all over her legs. It was so hideous and I can only imagine how uncomfortable it would be to have faeces all over your legs. Luckily we are in a cold snap and flies aren't rife. I think it was the third time I'd brought her in for a bath when I clicked on to what could possibly be causing her tummy upset. It seems the horrors of getting up close and personal with dried up diarrhoea was all down to Kiri being in season.

When I released the beast to dry off, she was off pretty sharpish to the nearest gelding.

Here's a photo dump of her breathing heavily all over the poor guy's face. He didn't have a clue what to do at this little white marshmallow of a thing whickering sweet nothings into his nostrils and peeing all over herself. She clearly hasn't heard the term playing hard to get...

Finally losing interest, he wasn't quite the man she thought he was.

I called the vet to ask if it could possibly be down to the horse being in season, especially as her heat-cycles are so irregular, and she confirmed that it could definitely be to do with that. I'm starting to see healthy droppings again now and she's back to her normal self, so the tummy upset - on heat cycle time frames coincide perfectly.

So much anxiety on my behalf, thinking the melanomas were wreaking havoc and that we may have to look at her options, when in reality she just wanted to get in one last chance of making a baby before the winter set in. Not such a great idea when your baby freezes its tail off next winter because of your poor life choices is it Jakiri? Fancy timing your year long pregnancy with the onset of winter.. #blondemareproblems.

Speaking of equine health related anxiety, Oscar's mystery lameness is still there. I had L come and confirm it wasn't anything in the elbow down and he was able to pinpoint the shoulder. 90% of 'shoulder lameness' is in the hoof, so he whipped off the shoe and tested the hoof so we could definitely rule that out. He manipulated the shoulder area a little and got a good reaction out of Oscar, so it's a safe bet that it's some muscle or soft tissue damage in there.

A really well known rider in our area hires out her cyclossage rug and so we'll give that a go this evening and see if it does anything. The lameness isn't bad at all; unnoticeable in walk and barely there in trot. Canter is where it really looks like there's something going on.

If there is no improvement following the cyclossage we'll get the vet out to try and diagnose him; either that or a vet-physio, or chiropractor or something. We'll get to the bottom of it. I'm not too concerned as he's getting about happy as larry in the paddock - I'm just having major withdrawal symptoms. Especially as I've been invited to go hunting again and I'm literally chomping at the bit to go again. Even contemplating taking Kiri but she's a handful and I don't have anything strong enough to keep her under control on a hunt field. I struggled slowing Oscar down and his mouth is like butter, where Kiri has major rock-jaw from her time cruising around Intermediate thinking she knows #allofthethings, #holdtighthumanpassenger, #jumpthebigjumps, #gallopthebigcourses. Le sigh.

I did treat myself to a little summin' summin' as a condolence slash present to myself for doing particularly well on an assignment. It starts with Sportsvibe and ends in two minute noodles on the menu for the foreseeable - #worthit ;).

More on that later, please pray the cyclossage works on Oscar so I don't need to sell my soul to fund a lameness identification mission.

Oscar will tolerate looking like he's about to take his first lesson at Water Waders for the massagey goodness of the cyclossage, *drool*.