By Patty Wilber
We have been fighting Cometa’s laminitis flare since early April, and it has been a bit depressing because he is still hobbling around, clearly in pain. He does love going for his daily walks with Jim, though, and does move better once he gets out there.
Cometa (still looking pretty handsome for a laminitic 30-year-old!) on his walk, after getting his first dose of Previcox. He is wearing his athletic socks and his SoftRide boots. (https://www.softrideboots.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqIP_JPc0vPd8p__gbxjVxqQKuKMCSrjE2b8aYfptACoNLxnfu9)
Dr. Dixon came by to X-ray and check his blood values. I was dreading this because given Cometa’s lack of progress, I was fearing we were going to be having a funeral.
The news was better than expected! The doc was not pleased with the level of pain, and the X-rays do show that there is still rotation, but fortunately, it is not extreme, and there is improvement in terms of hoof stabilization. The right hoof is better and less painful. Doc put him on full pill of 227 Previcox (= Equiox) for 30 days to help with the inflammation and said that it should take effect in three days, but it made a difference in six hours! Decreasing his pain level is going to be huge!
I was able to order additional Previcox via Chewy. The 30-day supply was cheaper per pill than the larger amounts, go figure. I got $50 off for enrolling in autoship and 20% off for the first Rx order! Easy, and quite the savings!
Pond news:
The spadefoot pond has been quiet all summer despite having water and seemed devoid of tadpoles. The other day, when I went to check the game cam, I saw there was a very small puddle and it was body to body with barely surviving, flopping tadpoles. That night a good storm blew in, and the pond refilled! At least some of the tads likely survived!
The reason we have had such a small crop this year compared to last year could be that the spadefoots used up so much energy breeding last year, that they went into torpor a little skinny. When they came out, they needed to feed, not breed. The 2025 hatchlings are not yet mature. Male spadefoots mature at 2-3 years, and females probably slightly older. Also, the post-transformation survival rate may be as low as 1%. Last year we had several breeding events, and a single female can lay 1000 eggs, but 1% of 1000 is just 10…
Oh deer.
Cometa was striding around his pen looking a bit keyed up, and the other horses were all focused in the same direction, too. Thanks to them, I saw the buck! He was outside the fence. He effortlessly cleared it, coming for a good long drink from the stock tank by the trailer. Then he hopped back out and went on his way.
Happy Friday and keep your fingers crossed for Cometa.
Poor old man. I’m glad you found pain relief for him! (And the cheapest way, too!)
The Previcox is working. He was raring to go on his walk today!