Tyke's hurt - 2015-05-28

I have had some requests to see pictures of Tyke's injuries. I will reference pictures in the post and will post them at the bottom of this post. They are rather graphic, so I don't want anyone to accidentally run into them.



Received a call from Darin this morning. Tyke injured himself and wee needed to call a vet. He sent me a couple of pictures (picture 1) and it's bad. Tyke cut up his hind legs quite badly (especially his left hind).

They managed to load him up into Darin's huge stock trailer, and I met them at Block & Bridle Vet in Greeley (my boss told me I had to go, thank you Mike!) When I got there, they had him well drugged and were about halfway through shaving him up. Tyke was an angel during the entire four hours they were working on him. The vet was very impressed at how good of a boy he was.

Tyke - He never moved while we were working on him

His legs look like he stepped through bailing wire and it tightened up around him and he panicked. We couldn't find any wire in his stall, so we don't know for sure what happened. I deeply regret not getting him moved 2 weeks ago... (picture 2) This is an excellent lesson for why you need to teach your horse to "Lead by the Hind Foot". If I had done that before this happened, I believe the outcome would have been entirely different. If you want more information on that, you can watch some info by Warwick Shiller on You Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMfp7xJXkAE or  get more detailed information through his subscription at http://www.warwickschiller.com/videos/leading-by-a-hind-foot/.

By tapping several spots, the vet determined that three sterile sections are involved. The fetlock join on the right hind has a small puncture wound, the coffin joint or the pastern joint (maybe both) on the left hind, and the tendon sheath on the left hind is wide open. He severed the superficial digital flexor tendon and mostly severed the deep digital flexor tendon (back tendons) on the left hind and may have severed the common digital extensor tendon (the front tendon) also on the left hind.

She did limb perfusions on both hind legs to try and combat infection. This is an incredibly painful procedure (antibiotics are injected into a superficial vein in the limb below the tourniquet and the tourniquet is left in place for 30 minutes), but he surprised us by being perfect for it as well (picture 3). She even had to try a couple of times on his left hind because the veins kept blowing out...

If you are interested in more detail, I found an article that describes what our vet did pretty well. https://rainlandfarm.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/joint-and-tendon-sheath-infections/

Tyke has been put on stall rest for the foreseeable future. The vet has given him a 60-80% chance of recovery. Movement is the enemy, so we will do our best to keep him as quiet as possible. She has given him shots of pain meds and antibiotics and gave me pills to give him every day to help with the pain.

Tyke is clearly in a lot of pain, but he was so very good during all of these procedures. We were sitting under and behind him while cleaning and inspecting his legs. He was drugged, but not so much that he didn't know we were there. The vet was amazed with how good he was.

Getting ready to leave the vet

It took some work to get him into the trailer after his 4 hours at the vet. He was very willing but in so much pain that he took a while to figure out how to maneuver into the trailer without falling. I felt so bad watching him limp to it and barely be able to get into the trailer...

Managed to get him into the trailer

It is really muddy out in Windsor right now, and Darin doesn't have a pen we can keep clean. Fortunately, Tarrah lives right next door and does have a concrete floored calf pen. While we were at the vet, they worked on cleaning it out for us. Unfortunately, this pen is both isolated (so no other horses near) and requires going up a steep concrete step. Tyke was very hesitant to go up that step, but he was very good and did go up it once he was asked (it was clearly painful!)

Unsure about going up steps to get to his stall...

His temp tonight is 102*. The vet wants to see it stay below 101* to make sure no infection is setting in. We're keeping hay in front of him 24/7 while he is stuck on stall rest. He'll be getting pain meds and electrolytes every night for a while. When I left, he had settled in quite nicely.

Tyke's new home for a little while

Below here are the graphic pictures of his legs.

Picture 1 - First pictures I saw

Picture 2 - After being shaved

Picture 3 - Limb perfusions on both legs

Tyke & Fire - 2015-05-10

We finally went out to Windsor to get Tyke's shoes pulled tonight. I'm really glad we made it when we did, because when we got there, the fence was broken and both horses were out. It took us about 30-45 mins to finally catch them. It's good that Fire is still here. He can be a pain sometimes, but he knows that he will eventually get caught. I don't have that established with Tyke yet. Even so, they went all over the open property and into some situations I was worried about.

Once we got Fire caught, Tyke followed like a puppy. He was still a bit difficult to actually catch (hiding behind Fire...it was kinda cute and quite funny), but I eventually got him. We were fortunate they didn't run to the road (a county highway with high speeds), but they headed that direction a couple of times. After finding them like this, we will have to move them soon. They are not staying safe, so we will need to move to a different facility. We'll try to move them by June 1st.

We then worked until we got his shoes off. We haven't been able to get a farrier up here, so it was me and Jeremy working to figure out how best to pull them off.  It was cold and windy, and this was the second time he's ever had his feet worked on. Overall he did quite well.

He has an interesting habit of backing up if you walk towards him. I like that he gives to the pressure but really need to work with his comfort level of me coming towards him. I can't wait to get him closer so I can work with him consistently!