Advice please - post op care - stable vices starting...

Vetwrap

Vetwrap

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Can you help?

My horse has been away for schooling for just over 10 weeks, but had an accident just before he was to come home. He has now had surgery and his foot is in a cast. Obviously, he is now very fit and is starting to get a little bored. He has always weaved around meal times, but this is now becoming more common. He was also starting to crib and windsuck this morning, which I really am sad to see.

I've done some research and have emailed a company about ordering a large stable mirror for him - other than that, people talk about diet. He is on calmer chaff and a handful of pony nuts. The breakdown on the nuts is:

Typical analysis: Protein 9, Oil 4, Fibre 17, Ash 10, Vitamin A 8,000 iu/kg, Vit D3 1,000 iu/kg, Vit E 75 iu/kg, Copper 22 mg/kg, Selenium 0.2 mg/kg

The breakdown on the chaff is:

Ingredients - Straw, fibre, pellets, molasses, dried grass, soya oil, vitamin & mieral pre-mix, herbs, limestone,salt,flour.

Protein 7.8%
Energy 9.8mj per kg
Crude Fibre 27.6%
Oil 5.7%
Ash 8%
Calcium 0.83%
Phosphorous 0.4%
Magnesium g/kg 3.4

Both the vets and his trimmer advised to treat his as a laminitic, therefore, the haylage is soaked (no hay available) for 12 hours to remove the sugar. He has a salt lick hanging up, but due to the warning about laminitis, I wouldn't go for the usual route of lickits and hanging swedes that I have done in the past.

Is there anything else that I can do? I am ashamed to say that this morning, when he started to crib and windsuck, all I could think of was trying to make the stable gate taste unpleasant, so coated them with fairy liquid. Not ideal, but it was the only thing that I could find to hand and I had to get to work...

Other than a mirror, I really don't know what else to do. I did think of a playball, but then he is on box rest and supposed to be resting. Giving him something to chase round the stable would defeat the object, I suspect...

Any thoughts, advice or anything would be gratefully received.

Thanks all!
 
Ugh. Poor you. Well, poor him, but you know what I mean. I've just had a very difficult horse on nearly 10 weeks box rest so it's a subject near and dear to my heart! I went with the "do everything and hope some of it works" approach!

This is one of those "swings and roundabouts" situations where you're never going to get it perfect, and all sorts of people will tell you what you *should* do but the only thing that counts is what you CAN do and what your horse can cope with. So yes, he needs to rest, but if you give him absolutely no outlet for his energies and frustrations, he will - as he's already showing you - find other ways to dissipate them. Also, horses cope differently. I've rehabed horses in the past that didn't seem to care if they ever went out again, others went loony after a day then settled, others ramped up to increasing levels of looniness over the course of it! Again, do what works for you and him.

I would definitely try the mirror. I didn't use one with the above horse because he's in an American barn and can see other horses all the time (although prefers not to have a neighbour), but have used them with success in the past.

Re the treat ball, mine banged the crap out of his and everyone told me to take it out as he also had a hoof injury. I figured if it wasn't the plastic ball it would be the door, or the floor otherwise, and it seemed to help him a lot when he was particularly frustrated, so I ignored them. :) I did consider duct taping a padding around it (my plan was those strips of bubble wrap you get for packing) but as time went on he got better at getting the treats out so stopped bashing it quite so much. We tried the balls with the elastic strings to put treats under but he scared himself the first day and refused to contemplate it after that. (Yes, really - he is THAT high maintenance!) Also, the rolling ball meant I could use the lowest calorie fibre cubes and avoid apples and carrots on account of the sugar content in them.

I organised it so he got the ball at specific times to distract him, such as at turn out switching and when I was riding other horses.

I also made sure he got a GOOD grooming, with lots of currying and whatever physio he could do every day. Again, I tried to time it so it broke up his day around meals, getting skipped out etc, so he never went very long without some sort of interaction. I know this would be impossible for someone on DIY but as I said, you do what you can do and I could arrange that for him. I encouraged lots of people to visit him, as he's a real "people" horse, so long as they didn't feed him treats. If anything, he has got more cuddly and probably a bit spoiled but generally we've been able to keep a lid on that and, like the treat ball, I felt it was an acceptable risk.

Feed wise, he gets supplements so he did have to be fed 2x/day, plus I wouldn't not feed a horse while others were being fed as I think that's a needless stress. So a handful of cereal free (he doesn't get cereals . . . se high maintenance comment above :rolleyes:) nuts and a small amount of beet pulp to make sure he ate what he was supposed to.

Supplement wise, I didn't use a calmer but he is on an immune supplement and he's always calmer when he's on it (I've heard the same anecdotally from other people but have no idea if it's intrinsic or because the allergies make him tense), and a cereal free vitamin supplement because he wasn't eating enough hard feed to make sure he was getting what he needed to heal. He also got MSM, which I've found does give some discomfort/inflammation relief and there is some evidence it works as a free radical scavenger, so good for healing.

I also gave him dandelions every day - much to the amusement of all - as they are supposed to be a good tonic. I left the roots on and he seemed to enjoy waving them around. Again, one more thing to break up the day.

I used sedation sparingly because he does not react well. For certain situations - shoe changes, trot ups etc. I doped him pretty significantly (he's a big, reactive horse so can throw it off easily). Too little just made him uncoordinated and even more dangerous. I think it's a good tool for the box but you have to figure out how to use it most effectively for your horse. If you're really worried, talk to your vets about the options - there are some but they don't seem to be offered in this country unless you specifically inquire.

For weavers specifically, I've had very good luck hanging bags/bottles/heavy ropes from the ceiling where they like to stand. It's not to stop them per se, but many weavers/walkers like to stand with the object over their neck/back. We've discussed it on here before in the context of box resting.

Cribbing is tricky - honestly, me might not completely give it up. BUT if you can manage him it should help. It's quite possible the stress and medications have given him/contributed to ulcers - have you spoken to your vet about Gastroguard? If you've covered all your bases and done what you can to relieve his stress, it's not the end of the world to use a bit of Cribox or similar to stop him eating his house and home.

You're unlikely to find a magic bullet and sometimes you might just have to shut your eyes and grit your teeth and know you're doing what's best in the long run. How long is he shut up for?
 
Thankyou so much for all of that. There is a lot to look at and try there and like you said - it's a case of doing what you reasonably can.

I don't actually know how long he is in for - that is dependant on how long the cast stays on for. The longer he can keep it on for, the shorter his overall recovery period will be. I've tried asking the vets, but they are being vague at present. Somewhere between 4 weeks and "a few months" was what I was told - but they were ambiguous about whether this was time to working or time to turnout...

I'll get the mirror on order today and hope that he likes that. I'll dig out the treat ball and see what he does with it.

I do groom him thoroughly twice daily and give him a massage. He is being very good really - but watching him start to windsuck was a real blow. I will contact his physio and explain his injury and treatment and ask about relevant exercises for him. He is completely out of balance at the moment anyway and I wondered if doing his usual stretches could potentially cause any problems in his back or pelvis.

What do you think?
 
Hard to say - is he weight bearing? Mine was with the cast shoe on so I didn't have to worry about over loading the leg doing stretches etc on the others. My gut instinct is that if you can help him stay as balanced as possible it will only help BUT I don't know the intricacies of the situation.
 
The cast is up to the fetlock and it is really any sign of infection that I have to watch out for. He is walked out about four steps every morning, just to make sure that he is not hopping lame. He is resting the leg, but I would imagine that this is more about the cast having a thickness of about and inch and a half on the sole and he therefore has one leg longer than the other. Certainly walking he is fine, but he does chose to rest that leg.

I have put a stable bandage on the other leg and am checking digital pulse for any signs of elevated rate. I have hoof boots which I will see if I can fit on the good back leg to even up the height, if there starts to be any heat or sign of strain in the good leg. I have also been advised that padding that foot might help.

So much to think about!!!
 
make your own licks!!!

Cheap and easy to make! You just need a lot of plastic containers - like take aways!!

Slice up carrots, swede, parsnip, apple, banana etc anything your horse likes - you can use mix as well - if putting in nuts wait until the lick is like a 'mr frosty' otherwise the nuts go soggy before freezing. Tesco mint imperials also are good (again waiting just before its frozen to put in)

You can either use sugar free cordial for your horse and/or get the flavours you use for food!

Peppermint is a good one! So is vanilla!

You can use apple juice but I would water it down (and this gets expensive) 1 litre just about does 3 licks - 6 if you water it down!

You can either buy a cheap freezer for £99 or see whats on gumtree! Just ask people to put in 2-4 licks in his manger every hour or so! The horses love melting it to get to the treats inside!
 
Could you try treating the cribbing as symptomatic of stomach ulcers by giving an antacid of some description? I think you can use human ones to see if they help initially, though I've never had to do it.
You could also get a treat ball for the hard feed.
ACP is also great stuff.
 
Good idea about making your own treats. The only problem that I personally would have with that one is that I had to remove the corner manger and the bracket because he was using that to crib on!

I have read elsewhere that limestone flour in the feed has been shown to reduce cribbing, so I will investigate that further. My boy already has brewers yeast and magnesium oxide, for his feet...

Just have to keep trying stuff. Have re-introduced the playball with high fibre nuts and he spends hours batting that round the stable. That seems to be a winner right now!
 
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