Trip to the Vet today

Today I took my 3 girls to the Vet  The main reason for the trip was to preg check Nellie and Pam.  It was a day full of good news, bad news, and bad news with a good ending.

The Good News:  Nellie is pregnant.  I'm very excited about this. 2 years ago, Nellie threw an awesome filly sired by Vegas (my favorite stallion).  This philly is in Vermont and is winning every show she attends.  I'd love to throw another award winner.  Hopefully we have some good news next spring.  Yay!

This is a very bad picture, but it is supposed to be the foals nose.

While looking over Nellie, I had the vet look at a bulge on her neck.  Ever since she had that bout with colic, she has what looks like some swelling on her neck.  The Vet looked at it right after the colic, and didn't see anything wrong.  Vet looked at it again in spring, and said it seemed to be scar tissue.  Over the summer, it got larger.  The vet ultrasounded it today, and said it still appears to be scar tissue.  A second Vet on staff agreed.  It's good to have a vet to confirm things like this.  Now I won't worry about it, but will still maintain a watchful eye.

Two Vets collaborating on what they throught of Nellie's neck

Since Pam is so herd dependent, I have to keep her near the other horses at all times.

The Bad News:  Pam is not pregnant.  This is the third year that she didn't take.  I'm wondering if it's just been 3 unlucky years, or if there is something wrong.  Pam has foaled in the past, so I'm not quite sure what is going on.  She had 3 weeks of heaven with Vegas this spring, and she was vet checked and appearing to go into heat when I took her to be bred.  Guess we'll just have to try again next spring.  (The funny part about this, is that Pam is a fat mare!  She gains weight so easy and is just a big girl.  Anyone who see's her thinks she is pregnant.  I wonder how big she'd get when she's actually bred.  Hopefully we get to see)

This is pregnant Nellie.  Note she doesn't really even show.

This is BIG Pam.  Not preggers.

The Bad News With A Good Ending:  I brought Rachel in to be examined.  This spring her right eye started watering pretty good.  I've been watching it, and friends have told me that it was probably just dust and flies.  I couldn't see anything that appeared wrong, so I've just been watching it.  3 weeks ago when I was looking her over, I noticed that I could see a little bit of growth on the third eyelid.  That caused concern for me and the wife.  Thus, we took her today to have it examined.  It turns out that it was Squamous Cell Carcinoma (skin cancer).  He did this trick with his fingers where he got the 3rd eyelid to close half way and bulge out so that you could really see what was going on.  Sure enough, there was a growth.

This is Squamous Cell Carcinoma.  A small growth that was normally hidden.  Dr. Smith had a neat trick to make her expose her 3rd eyelid.

The Vet told me that this is skin cancer and is caused from the sun.  He said that it is unusual for darker horses to get it, and that it is more prevalent in light horses (or horses with light colors around their eyes).  There's really nothing you can do to prevent it, it just kind of happens sometimes.  I've had friends with horses that developed this in their eye.  Roger's big old gelding Jack has really suffered from this, and Kim Wright had a mare get one that spread into it's lymph nodes and ended up eating away a ton of the horses face.  This was very scary for me when I heard about this.

The vet told me that he wanted to dope Rachel up, and remove the growth today.  He said that there is a chance it might come back, but that it is a slow growing thing, and removing the growth would be the best thing to do.  I agreed and asked him to do what he could for Rachel.

The vet drugged Rachel up, and soon her face was hanging close to the floor.  Dr. Smith (the Vet) is awesome at what he does.  He spent a few minutes researching the nerves on a draft horse and put in litacane blocks above the eye to make sure Rachel didn't feel a thing.  It looked pretty crazy when he was doing this, but it worked great, and Rachel let him do what he wanted.

Here is Dr. Smith doing the block on her eye nerves.

Block's in place, waiting for drugs to kick in before the growth is removed.

Hmmm ... have the drugs kicked in?  I don't think a horse gets more relaxed while standing up.

It didn't take long at all for Dr. Smith to remove the growth.  Once it was out, he showed it to me.  He showed me the dark part of the tissue, where the cancer was and the red parts that were being irritated.  He also showed me the cut line of the tissue.  All of it was pink, healthy tissue.  This was great.  He felt very confident that it hadn't spread and that we got it all.  Yes, it could still come back, but we're happy with a great removal.  He said that we timed it perfectly:  the growth was big enough to diagnose and remove easily, yet small enough that it hadn't spread.

For a while after, Rachel was crying blood out of her right eye.  Dr. Smith said it will just heal on it's own.  He recommended I just put a fly mask on her and let her out to pasture with the other horses.  I'll bring Rachel back in a month for a re-check and we'll see how it's doing then.

A trip to the vet like this is very satisfying.  I'm not a rich man, and I do have tendencies to not want to give my money to veterinarians, however, there is so much peace of mind knowing exactly what is going on with your horses.  Because of the trip today: I now know that Pam does not need any kind of pre-foaling care; I also know that Nellie does; and I am educated on Rachel and I know that we just did something great to help prolong her life in a happy state.  I love Dr. Smith and how he cares for my horses.  He is one of the few Vet's around here, that recognizes draft horses as the gentle giants they are.  I've been to places that seem to cringe when they see the draft horses, and act like it's an extra burden.  Dr. Smith always smiles big and looks excited for the chance to interact with them.  I got to hear him instruct a grad student today on how awesome the draft breeds are because of their cold blood, and that you should never let the size intimidate you.  I love that kind of thought process.  Today was worth every penny that I gave the wonderful Vet and staff at the Quitman Animal clinic.

Also, as an added bonus, while waiting for drugs to take effect on Rachel, I got to witness a calf with a second tail on it's spine up between it's shoulders (vet removed it), and I got to witness the dehorning of some cows.  Never seen that before.  VERY interesting!