Update on Nellie

A bit more happened with Nellie since the last blog posting. Nellie seemed to be fine the next morning after the vet came out. However, the next night, she was laying down again, and rolling worse. She had really scraped herself up on her hips, withers, and side of the head from rolling.

Vet said to bring her to him and we'd tube her again. We also needed to get her some more bantamine. We took her to the vet that night, While looking her over, the vet noticed a small string hanging out of her rear end. He pulled on it, and out came a 1 foot long piece of Hay wrap/netting. He tubed her again, and this time there was no reflux at all. Also, she wasn't passing much through her intestines. This led the vet to diagnose her with an obstruction instead of just colic. We figure that Nellie unknowingly ingested some amount of hay netting (the plastic wrap that is used on round bales now days).

A sick Nellie.  Note the IV bag hung from the tree.  This is country living!

This started a long 3 day long ordeal. I made a pen for Nellie in our front yard near the house. We had to keep an eye on her. She had a catheter put in, and needed to be on IV fluids. We also had to tube her twice a day and pump a gallon of mineral oil, and a 3-5 liters of water into her belly to try and flush out the hay netting/wrap that was stuck. Suddenly it seemed that our whole life was about Nellie, and making sure she made it. We were also advised to give her 4-5 small amounts of hay each day to keep the digestive track functioning.

It also began the awesome fun of dissecting poop. Everything that dropped out of her got dissected and analyzed. It seemed that each small pile had small pieces of hay netting with a few long pieces too. Slowly but surely, she was passing them. We kept hoping to finally see a big ball of the hay wrap come out, but instead we saw a string or two with each load.

There were storms coming through, so I moved the pen under my porch.  IV bag hung from the rafters.

On the 3rd day of fluids, Nellie started acting like herself again. She had not tried laying down and rolling at all, and we were not giving her any meds. We were advised to keep her on the IV, but to begin giving her a flake of hay at a time. We did this, and it made for a very happy Nellie. She had no problems digesting it, which also made for very BIG piles or poop for me to dissect.

On the 4th day, we stopped the IV, and put her out in the pasture. She was glad to be out of her pen, and we kept a close watch on her. She did perfectly. No soreness, no laying down or rolling. She's still doing awesome. We think we got her to pull through it. What a relief!!

One of the silver linings about this ordeal, was that Nellie doesn't care about needles on her neck anymore. Last year when it was time for shots, it was a rodeo. We didn't get to draw blood for a coggins because she was so unruly. By the last day of her being in the stall and feeling normal, my wife was able to draw her blood all alone, without me holding her. This is a great thing.

Also, on a bit of a disappointing note ... we did a blood test on Nellie to see if she is truly pregnant (supposed to be having a March foal) and the test result came back negative. Looks like she didn't take. I'm a little dissapointed, but that's Okay. It means I can work her with Rachael when Pam get's too big for her harness. :)