Saturday, November 29, 2014

Copper's Owie

On November 13, the day after it got *really* cold, Jay noticed that Copper was lamed up.  We thought it was maybe due to ice balls that had built up in his hoof, so we cleaned out his hooves.  Even though we'd never "trained" him to have his hooves picked, he stood like a champ.

Only, that didn't solve the problem and he looked more and more pathetic.  We buted him, which helped for a day, but then he got more pathetic.  I was at a loss, I knew it wasn't an abscess and we had cleaned his hooves out every day, so I know there wasn't anything stabbing him when he stepped, so I took video and posted it to our Facebook page in hopes that someone would know what was going on.



I was so focused on it being his foot, that it never occurred to me that it could be his shoulder.  We continued with the Bute as needed and just let him be.  Tincture of time has worked and he's still a bit gimpy, but not much, and started trotting around a few days ago.

It was a huge relief to find that it was his shoulder instead of his hoof.  Shoulder injuries heal much better, while hoof injuries can be expensive and may never heal right.

5 comments:

Dreaming said...

Don't you wish they could tell you where it hurts? Lameness is so frustrating. I'm glad Copper is getting better. Phew!

Brenda said...

Poor Copper! I'm glad he seems to be getting better and will keep my fingers crossed that it was just a one-off and won't be a chronic problem.

Achieve1dream said...

Ouch! Poor Copper!!!! The dragging the toe definitely looks like a shoulder strain or something. I'm glad it's healing up.

GunDiva said...

Copper and Skeeter are not aggressive with each other, but we did find hoof prints on Copper's shoulder. It looks like Skeeter reared up and struck at him. With the drastic change in temperature, horses get kind of crazy, so I think they were playing and then oops.

Allenspark Lodge said...

I hope the warmer weather earlier this week helped him heal a little more.

Bill