Today we celebrated Seamus' six birthday. He had a space-themed party with strawberry rocket pops, galaxy popcorn and real astronaut food - freeze dried fruits and ice cream sandwiches. We made homemade pizzas and watched the movie Space Jam. He had a great time.
The only damper on the day was me noticing that Charlie was lying down outside in the sun like she was dead. I happened to look out the window when putting Alistair down for nap and nearly had a heart attack that she somehow died. I rushed outside only to find that Charlie was not dead but that something was not right either. When she had trouble standing up to greet me, I called the vet.
For the past week and a half, I had noticed that Charlie was lying down occasionally. I mentioned to Ian that this was odd because in the seven years we have had her, I have never once seen her lie down. My google search indicated that she either had sore hooves and needed a trim or she had an upset tummy (called colic in equines). I could think of no reason for her stomach to be upset so I had scheduled a visit from the farrier. Our farrier came last Friday and noted that Charlie's hooves were in pretty good shape. Immediately following the farrier's visit, Charlie was lying down again.
Fast forward two days later to today (Sunday) when the vet did a full check up and reported that Charlie is very, very ill. The vet's best guess is that Charlie has a blockage in her intestine. She thinks that over the past seven years Charlie has been ingesting small amounts of sheep wool which has formed a ball in her stomach. Despite this longstanding problem, Charlie is only now showing any symptoms of being sick and unfortunately, the changes of her getting better are very slim.
And so, Seamus' birthday party day concluded with me making hourly trips out to Charlie's barn to feed her warm water through a syringe to try to loosen up the ball of wool in her stomach enough for her to pass it. Good goods and bad bads, indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment