Saving Ellie 9-23-05
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My biggest worry was whether or not Ellie could handle the long 3-hour ride though twists and turns and hills of the remote area in which I live. I recommended a hauler I knew that could be trusted and who knew horses: Fay Ellison
Ellie arrived. Emaciated, weak, covered in sweat and stressed. She could hardly walk to the corral stall I prepared for her. I also placed a cute little gray Arab gelding next to her for company. That turned out to be a hit. Ellie liked the boys and she still has a thing for Fuego.
My plan was to keep her in for a few days and let her relax and get used to the country environment with all the new smells. Eventually, she could go out in the pasture with whoever she could be compatible and safe with.
Two days later, Ellie got a new stallmate. Fuego was bumped back in with the boys (loudly complaining!) and a new big warm-blood mare came in and took up residence next to Ellie. Geneve only likes girls and the two hit it off immediately. The following day, I separated the boys to allow Ellie and Geneve to go out into the pasture. Geneve became Ellie's surrogate mother and protector. She loved her.
There were many red flags about Ellie. She could barely walk, obviously in pain. I suspected her feet and have always hated the condition of her feet. The other thing was that when you put hay in her stall and led her back into it after her day of pasture, Ellie did not recognize that she had dinner. For breakfast, I would toss hay in and she would hang her head and begin nibbling her bedding. I had to literally go into her stall, pick up the hay and put it in front of her nose – then she would eat and what an appetite she had! Therefore, I free choiced her on 3 way, some alfalfa that she did not prefer and beardless barley. I also put her on 2 grams of bute/2x a day mixed with a small coffee can portion of bran mash and a coffee can of seven feed.
That began my routine. Next step was my Ferrier, Steve Karshner. Steve has proven himself extremely knowledgeable about founder and laminitis and has successfully brought horses “back from the dead” through his natural barefoot trim.
Steve set his own foot rehabilitation program for Ellie. Ellie was put on an every other week foot trim. I watched Steve carve out the most disgusting dead hoof and while there was dramatic improvement in ellie’s movement, she was still in pain and I kept up her bute program (now only 2 grams a day) knowing that I had to get rid of the inflammation in her feet.
Steve began to question the way Ellie was standing, sucking up her gut. I began to question whether she had ulcers to add to her list of problems. I called the vet and put her on Maalox (60cc or 2oz. a day).
Now in comes our wonderful vet, Dr. Chris Cuomo. Dr. Cuomo has a meticulous creative mind open to new ideas and an attitude of leaving no stone unturned. Steve and I laid out the facts and Dr. Cuomo introduced his portion of Ellie’s program.
First came x-rays of Ellie’s front feet. Yes, she had foundered. Possibly before this recent bout as well. While Chris felt Ellie had come through the worst of it, her angles and feet needed some serious adjusting and armed with x-rays, vet consultations, and the vet, himself, Steve dramatically aligned Ellie’s hoof angle to the coffin bone.
There was still obviously a problem with her back feet but we could only deal with her feet in stages.
Dr. Chris and I decided to seriously go after the gastrointestinal irritation since Ellie needed to be on so much bute. Chris prescribed and brought me a big tub of horse formula Maalox called “NeighLox”. Now we had a medicine and a feed program that Ellie liked and seemed to work for her. The small amount of bran kept her bowels moving (since she wasn’t moving around as much as I liked), the senior feed kept her nutrition up and a slow weight gain happening. The 2 grams of bute kept her pain down and the NeighLox kept her insides comfortable.
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