There's a Hole in Her Heel

On Thursday, Phantom, my drama queen of a horse, was pretty sure her leg was going to fall off.

I fed her when I brought her in before an intended ride. She's a right foot forward when eating horse, so her left hind needs to stay underneath her to keep her balance. She wouldn't keep that foot weighted on the floor. I found a strongish digital pulse but nothing else so I suspected an abscess might be brewing.

It's been really muddy for most of the last week. We keep getting pelted with bursts of rain. On that day it had poured rain for about an hour just before I arrived. 

A farmer's field a mile or so from the barn. Supposed to be a crop field.

The barn would be visible behind the trees. I hope bees can swim!

The roads to the barn have been atrocious this year. This is on the good road.

Yep - it washed out. I had to go through in my rental car (mine was in for repairs).

I had forgotten to put my boots on when I went out for Phantom. Thankfully, she likes me, so she came to me and I didn't have to walk through the mud (though it took some convincing). Also, note that she is fully standing on her left hind and might even be resting her right hind yet would not put weight on that left foot 5 minutes later in the barn.

I buted her and threw her back out. Despite not wanting to stand in the barn with weight on her left hind, she was walking perfectly fine on it. 

The next morning I went out early so that I could have a look at her and if I needed to call the vet hopefully avoid a weekend fee. 

As I walked towards her paddock, she was picking at the grass, walking and standing on all four legs. When I got to the gate, she saw me, lifted her left hind to leave it resting kind of awkwardly, and gave me a nicker. As I said earlier - she's a total drama queen.

Otherwise, she was about the same. Walking without issue, resting it in the barn. Still a strong digital pulse.

Saturday I found a hole in her heel.

I'm still thinking that's it's an abscess. The cleft in the center of her heel has been pushed to the side and the hole is close to the center. I'm thinking that the pressure of the abscess pushed that cleft over.

It was already wet from being outside in the mud. Ugh. Thus I didn't soak it. I flushed it with some betadine as best I could and wrapped it with some Animalintex. Not my best wrapping job as Phantom refused to unflex her fetlock. I tried to wrap up a bit higher than I might normally wrap to keep the mud out, but I'm not sure how well that will work.

I have no recollection of buying fluorescent orange vetrap.

Hopefully, it was indeed an abscess and she should be more comfortable in a few days. I'm also hoping that it stops raining. But that isn't looking so good.

Clean Breathing is Best

Here is a picture from Wednesday around noon.

A little hazy in the heat, but it was a beautiful blue sky.

Here is a picture from Thursday around noon.

It was actually far darker than this photo shows - my phone camera automatically cleans it up.

This is closer to what it actually looked like.

This was all due to smoke from the forest fires in the northern part of the province.

Last summer we had a couple of weeks of terrible air quality. This year isn't looking like it going to be great either - there are currently 9 out of control wildfires in the northern part of the province. I know that where I live we've only had like 2 days of rain since the snow melted so everything is super dry. The fires are only going to get worse through the summer unless the weather changes considerably.

The smokey skies changed through the day yesterday - by mid-afternoon it had changed from a dark haze to a light haze that strongly smelled of smoke and ash. Driving home the visibility was only a couple of hundred feet on the freeway (with my windows shut and recirculated air on in the car).

And the air quality health index was off the charts.

Anything over 10 is considered very high risk of problems with breathing. This chart was from around 9pm, and it got as high as 72 through the night. 

We're looking a lot better so far on Friday morning. The warning is still in place, and it will probably change through the weekend depending on the wind direction. 

The horses live outside full time. They don't have a way to get out of the smoke (unlike me who sat on the couch watching Netflix with all the windows shut all evening). Phantom already has known respiratory issues. This smoke is a huge concern.

Ponies will be getting little to no work while the air quaility is poor. I might tack them up and go for some walks, but that will be the max speed. 

I know much of North America has been having a very wet spring. If anyone wants to bottle any of that excess rainwater up and have it shipped to us up here I'm sure we can find a way to use it!