Rico's Tough Weekend

Rico had quite the weekend! He's fine by the way, just had a tough time. 

Clipped part of his neck is an abscess

Last week I had to call the vet for Rico because he had a lump on the right side of his neck and was struggling to put his head down low enough to eat his food. The vet thought it was scar tissue from his vaccines and advised me to give him bute for 3-4 days to help with the pain as he worked through it. It worked, and then he went back on his normal equioxx. We thought his body would kind of break up that knot of scar tissue over time, but then on Friday morning it was ENORMOUS. 

The vet came back again. We clipped it and ultrasounded it, turns out it's a HUGE abscess. It was 2.5cm in from his skin, so we couldn't drain it yet. So I was advised to put him back on bute, keep his food higher off the ground, and then just wait. She told me what to look out for and so every day I've been squishing it lightly, waiting for there to be a softer part of it so that we can drain it. She thought it'd take 1-2 weeks. Hopefully it won't be too long. 

It was definitely caused by the flu/rhino vaccine that we gave him a while back, and this is only the second time in her whole career she's seen a vaccine do this. Of course it had to happen to my horse who is almost 30 years old, and who needs all the calories he can get so can't be not able to eat. 

Speaking of calories

Then on Saturday morning, I get a text saying to come down ASAP because Rico is fully losing his mind about something in the hills. 

Apparently he refused to eat or drink all night long and hadn't eaten his breakfast (although he'd gotten some water into him). By the time I got down there, we were debating taking him to the vet clinic to get him away from whatever was scaring him and maybe put him on an IV. Again he can't just NOT eat with this abscess and with the vet wanting him to gain a smidge of weight before winter. 

I pulled his haynet out of his stall and took it down to the part of the pasture he seemed to be happiest in. Then also brought out a bucket of water to hang for him. We were able to get him to eat soaked grain (so that he got some water into him) and eventually he did start to nibble at his hay and drink some water. 

TC says WHAT ABOUT ME, also yes he's muddy

Jealous

Throughout the day, we'd bring him more hay, grain, and water and he slowly started to calm down more and more. And probably felt better because he wasn't so hungry. 

TC stayed nearby, although it was because he thought that we were just having a super cool picnic in the pasture and he was mad that he wasn't invited to eat any of the food. I did end up bringing his lunch down for him to eat by Rico, as well as a bucket of water for him so that he'd be encouraged to stay with Rico. 

TC thought that was SUPER fun, even when Rico stole his hay.

TC's version of sneering is so wholesome

That night, we fed them both out there and filled the water buckets too. Rico slowly got more and more comfortable over the course of the weekend, he hasn't yet gotten into the stall except to eat a little bit of grain, but TC has kept him company in his picnic area with them both continuing to be fed and watered out there. He at least seems calmer now and TC is being a good companion for him, sticking close. I'm still not sure what he saw up the hill or what happened when he was last in his stall, we checked the cameras and there's nothing that makes it seem like anything serious happened.

Hopefully Rico continues to feel better and hopefully his abscess is getting ready to be drained soon. Poor guy deserves to feel his best! I'm at least glad that we don't have a lot of rain in the forecast, luckily he can hang out in the pasture for a while longer.