After the ride

When we got home from the ride Abby and Cat where standing in the pasture. Abby was in the round pen and Cat was by the big bale. I thought it was odd that Abby didn’t run to the trailer but at the time thought nothing of it. As Chase was trying to get a picture of Lucy and I with our ribbon, DH yelled at me that Abby had stepped on something and to get down to the barn. When I approached the barn I noticed she was holding up her left front leg. As I walked around to her side, this is what I found.



I thought it looked like Cat had maybe kicked her so we put all of the horses in the barn so we could inspect it better. As we started looking closer we notice the hole went deep and deeper. As I ran out of the barn to grab my phone to call the vet I noticed my fence between my dry lot and my front pasture was on the ground. The wood post that held it up had been snapped off at the ground.



When I called my vet I got a message that he was gone and so was the other vet in his office so we panicked to find a vet close by to look at her. We finally found a cow vet about 15 miles away so we loaded her up and headed out.

When we arrived the vet cleaned it up as good as possible. He said it was very contaminated w/hair. I’ll bet he spent a good 30 – 45 min. just cleaning it. He said she went through both the first and second layer of muscle and almost completely through the third. Had she gone through the third she would have collapsed her lung. He said it is still possible she has a small pinhole in her lung but she was breathing fine so he wasn’t worried about it.

Before closing it up -



I thought he did an exceptional job of closing her up.





We took her to MILs because I have no way to keep her separated from our horses right now. I went and checked on her yesterday and she seemed to be doing better. We turned her out for a bit with Black and she seemed to be very happy. She is still very sore on her left leg so I’m worried about it.

Here is what I think happened. We have a gate w/a sure-latch gate latch on it. It was partially opened to the front pasture. I think she was in the front pasture and tried to run through the opening (Cat chasing her???) and got the gate pin in her side. As she continued forward the gate would have come with her digging and ripping deeper into her side. Her left shoulder would have hit the gate post causing it to break.

You can see from this video that she really doesn’t want to put any weight on her leg.



We have to take her back on Friday to have her rechecked and possibly for the staples to come out. After that she is going to a friend’s heated barn closer by so I can keep an eye on her.