Draining Rico's Abscess

Well, on Friday, the vet came out for Rico's abscess and we were able to drain it! My vet was WAY faster than I was (I live 45 minutes away from the ranch + post Thanksgiving traffic) so by the time I got there, it had been drained already. That was actually great, because it was described as "like a geyser" and to be honest, I am not interested in watching something like that. 

The vet thinks that it was about the size of a tangerine on the inside, which is truly disgusting and enormous. I can't believe my poor boy was dealing with that for so long! He got his inoculations in October, so it was brewing for a while. Luckily, this explains any weirdness that he seemed to be exhibiting this fall, so as much as this was terrible for him to go through, I'm glad it was this and not him deteriorating. 

He and TC are so cute together, before
this he was nickering at TC but then after
this he bit TC, then whirled around and
threatened to kick at us (???)

Right away, Rico seemed to feel MUCH better, I actually caught him cantering around in his pasture riling TC up in the afternoon. He's very itchy still, and he kept inching the gross opening toward me as I scratched him. The protocol is antibiotics to keep it from getting infected, rinsing it out with antiseptic twice a day, and washing the skin under it. If it gets scabbed over, we'll have to soak the scab off, since we want it to heal from the inside. 

By the weekend, the swelling had gone WAY down and he was feeling more and more normal. He's actually really good about rinsing it out and getting all the nastiness washed out of his neck below it. He has been pretty nervous in the barn and wash rack though, so I've been relying on bribery. I think he's gotten more cookies in the past few weeks than he has got in the last year or two. 

We're expecting it to take about 1-2 weeks to become more normal and close up. I'm so glad that it's just cold and that there's no rain in the forecast for at least a week since it'd just be so much grosser to deal with if everything was wet. 

Two days before we drained it? I
won't post pictures of it now, it's gross

All in all, I'm happy that he's feeling MUCH better, and mostly happy that this was all that it was. Hopefully he has a very uneventful winter/year ahead since this is all the stress I can really take as we get closer and closer to his 30th birthday in February!