The Green Horseman

Last week I received a call to tell me that Stanley didn’t finish dinner, barely drank, and wouldn’t eat his breakfast.

Stanley always eats.

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It was Friday the 13th; I’m not superstitious but I had just told my colleague I’ve always had good days on Friday 13ths….so here we are. I didn’t want to risk there bein an emergent call after hours on a Friday so I asked the vet to come out during the day to pull blood and fecal for labs. I was hoping to administer some antibiotics too for good measure.

At the time there was no fever. We administered Banamine preventatively. The vet came to draw blood. He was perky, no fever, good gut sounds, slightly dehydrated. Still wouldn’t eat food but was eating hay outside and grazing.

I was given a jar of doxycycline to administer if he went downhill or if we got test results back.

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Stanley ran a fever that night. I gave him his Back on Track sheet and started him on doxy. Since doxy tastes terrible he clenched his mouth and refused to swallow, spitting most of it out when I gave up holding his head up. He wouldn’t eat his dinner again.

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I got results that his CBC test wasn’t very conclusive either way. There were some values that were slightly off but not by much. His fecal was negative. The vet said it was a good decision to start doxy and to keep on that throughout the weekend. We won’t get the Lyme titer results back for another week.

Over the weekend the concrete aisle of the floor got a good coating of doxycycline as Stanley continued to spit out most of his medication. He continued to reject meals.

Finally on Monday night I was successful in using a Molasses/Applesauce combination to prevent Stanley from spitting it all out. Unfortunately, the process was tedious and he still wasn’t eating. We had plans to be out of town at the end of the week and were worried about leaving the other help to administer the drugs.

One of the borders at the farm is a vet and she graciously offered to administer IVs if the our clinic would dispense the oxytetracycline. I asked the vet about this and picked up 7 IV units to use each day for the next week. I also began Stanley on omeprazole which he enjoys with a “protein shake” consisting of Purina RepliniMash and Purina Supersport. The Replenimash gives him electrolytes to encourage drinking and the Super Sport has added aminos. We like this mix after workouts but also in times of stress like this.

We gave Stanley his first IV Tuesday night. Wednesday morning we noted an improvement in his demeanor. Still uninterested in feed but better overall.

As I post this Thursday morning I can say he’s shown significant improvement over 24 hours. He has been eating his alfalfa and his special hay. He loves his protein shake with omeprazole, and he’s gotten 2 IVs so far. I’m very cautiously optimistic that he will soon be back to normal.

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As of now we are still waiting on results of the lyme titer, and we didn’t test for anaplasmosis due to the high rate of false negatives.

My guess is Stanley is dealing with a tick-born pathogen with added digestive issues from either the meds or brewing ulcers. He hasn’t had much stress with me being out of commission but late summer, our recent change from night turnout to day turnout, bugs, and seasonal changes are certainly reasonable causes of an upset digestive tract.

Six years ago I went through a VERY similar situation with Blade. Blade ran a fever, wouldn’t eat, and was feeling pretty sorry for himself, too. He had gotten sick just days before we were scheduled to go to Massachusetts and camp at Equine Affair. We have the same symptoms, different horse, same farm, also planning a trip within the week out of state (different state) for multiple days. What could possibly go wrong?! Blade turned around pretty quickly once he got the oxytet, so I’m pretty confident in Stanley’s recovery, too. Read about Blade’s sad run-in with ticks here: https://thegreenhorseman.com/2017/11/10/blades-got-the-blues-and-equine-affaire/

Luckily he hasn’t run a fever since Friday night. He’s drinking better, eating grass, courser hay, and enjoys alfalfa. I will be much happier if we can get him eating like his old self. He’s lost quite a bit of weight in a little bit of time…which is frustrating because he was just getting to a point where I thought he was filling out, too.

I’m confident that we have an excellent support team and we are getting into colder months where, in my experience, I have an easier time putting weight on horses.

Currently when this article posts we will be on our way driving to Maryland for the MARS Maryland 5* Event. We;ve been looking forward to this all year and I can’t wait to report back so stay tuned.