Vet Visit Redux

I hope this isn't too boring of a post - this recap is more for me to refer back to when I start to wonder just what it was the vet said or the test results came back as :)

Favorite vet showed up today to give Ginny her spring shots so she's all prepped and safe to move to her summer camp. I got totally paranoid and she had the regular 5 way plus the West Nile and Strangles vaccines as well.  He's impressed with how much better she's looking and even had our long awaited test results in hand!

The results came back normal, except for the selenium, which if memory serves me right, is in the normal range at 12-24 and hers is at 11. He's recommended supplementing her, because even though the result is technically very close to normal, he finds most horses showing signs of general soreness  improve with supplementation even when the results come back as a low normal. In his experience, some horses may naturally need to be on the higher side of normal to feel really good and will need to be supplemented all the time, while others do just fine without for their entire lives.  He's not thinking she's ulcer-y (is that a word?) since she's not over reactive to the touch anymore, has picked up a good bit of weight and her coat is looking much improved from the last time when he did her teeth.

The good news is that the grass/hay in the interior of the province is not deficient in selenium, so he's said she should be fine while she's there, particularly as she'll be on vacation. When we come back here, I'm to go ahead and give her a normal mineral supplement with selenium and we'll retest next spring. Thinking ahead, my other option could be to buy my winter hay from the interior and bring it back with her it she's doing well on it.

I feel bad for not supplementing her with the special selenium blend from the start - I've never had a problem with just hay and a regular ration balancer so I guess I didn't see any reason to change.

Since she's feeling better after the little break she's had I'm fine to get back to riding her lightly, just been advised not to overdo it as she will be inclined to get more stiff/sore than 'normal' until we get her selenium levels up.

The hauler has a couple of openings on her trip next week, so Ginny may very well be moved before we drive through the area. It would be nice if that were the case, I know it will give me a lot of peace of mind to see her all settled in in person.

After Ginny's visit, the vet did some work on one of her barn buddies. (I'm a total geek and find this stuff interesting, so stop reading now if you're a normal person and equine dental work isn't on your list of afternoon blog reading must-haves.)

Mr. Chilly the Paint Pony has the biggest parrot mouth I have ever seen hiding in that cute little face. It's funny, because if you look at him from the side, you really wouldn't guess. Once you open his mouth, though, WOW. I guess when the barn owner took him in last year apparently he was skin and bones because his teeth were in such a state he could barely eat. Since he's still on the younger side (3?) the vet has been able to do some pretty significant work and Chilly's teeth have been growing in much better. He actually had to grind down his bottom incisors and remove some teeth to prevent them from growing into his palate (ouch!) Ditto for his top incisors, they just don't wear normally since they don't meet his bottom teeth at all. His mouth is also super crooked from left to right and his top and bottom molars don't line up that way either so again, some serious work was involved removing some teeth and grinding others down that he can only partially use. The vet said that if Chilly was a person, an orthodontic surgeon would "just" break his jaw and reset it. Double ouch! It's amazing to me that he packs a bit around quite happily - it can't possibly be sitting level in there. Today was just a maintenance visit - it's going to be super interesting to see where he is in another 6 months time. He's fat and happy these days, so it would appear his dental regime is working for him. He's lucky he's landed in a really good place (and is just generally such a good boy that everyone loves him).



Random pic of the day. Ginny has become kind of the barn mascot - we let her wander around the barn and mow the 'lawn' while I'm busy if the barn is quiet. The horsey part of the farm has a perimeter fence so she's always safe, but she always stays within eyesight of me and comes back when I call her. So cute. She's a smarty pants Welsh so she probably knows her special privileges would be revoked if she ran around acting like a dummy visiting the other horses or made me hike to the bottom of the property to find her ;)

Don't worry, I take the lead rope off when she's unattended- I was originally trying to get her to pose nicely by holding the leadrope in one hand and taking an iPhone pic with the other. For the record, it doesn't work.