We have been struggling with this guy. We got him in January, and it's been a little bit of a rough road.
This is why even free horses are not free.
In this photo he's been with us about a month, during which time we've struggled to get his persistent diarrhea under control. His former owner said he'd had it on and off for several years. What you can't really see in this photo is a slightly underweight horse with zero musculature.
We got the diarrhea under control within about six weeks, did a de-worming as well as treated for several other health issues he was having. During this time he dropped some weight, and we thought it was due to all the changes. We knew he likely needed senior feed or at least a ration balancer to add in to his diet, but with the tummy issues we were trying to only change one thing at a time, and with the deluge of medications to get everything resolved we left his feeding at just alfalfa (what he was previously eating) and added in the slow feed hay bags of bermuda to keep a good gut fill.
Eventually, we added in a ration balancer to see if weight could be maintained on forage alone. We discovered it could not, and so we moved him to eating a senior feed along with the forage. We had started increasing the amounts to get him to a healthy weight to start building muscle on him. At the start of summer we had FINALLY gotten to a BCS of about 4.5-5. Our plan was to continue adding weight throughout the summer to get to a solid 5-5.5 before starting exercise in the fall. He is on 24/7 turn out.
Then in September, I started to feel like he was "off". There wasn't anything specifically wrong, but I just felt like he wasn't himself. He wasn't running to greet me when I came out, and he was just a little lackluster. But he had no temperature, he wasn't off his feed, the only thing that did happen was a small abscess on the bulb of his heel that he never took a lame step about.
We continued checking on him and during the second week of September, we noticed he did have a fever. We took him to the vet for the first time on 9/13. He didn't have any outward symptoms of anything, so they checked him over, ran some blood work, and looked around for a sign of infection. There was nothing that lead to anything. He was diagnosed with "fever of unknown origin" which most likely indicated a virus. The vet put him at a BCS of 5 at that time. We left with banamine to treat the fever, and they thought he would be better in a few days as his body fought whatever virus it was.
After a few days of meds, he seemed like he was better. The fevers were gone, and we figured he was over it.
Nearly two weeks later, we were back. He had started to just pick at his food, and one day we went out to do midday feeding and clean water troughs to find Hootie down, covered in sweat, and having difficulty getting up. We called the vet immediately, and they asked us to bring him in. By the time we got there Hootie was in shock. He was shaking and showing neurological signs. That time at the vet he got fluids, a dexamethasone IV shot, a shot of IV banamine, and we ran more blood tests. We also ultrasounded his heart, lungs, and abdomen We did that both before and after the meds. This time we went home with more meds, and the thought that it was a virus which would need to just work its way through his system. This time his BCS was put at a 4.
A week later we were back at the vet. The fevers had been making their way through his meds, and he was no better. At this point he had fevers pretty consistently for 21 days. By this point his BCS was put to a 3.
This time we sent off panels to Cornell, as well as sterile blood cultures to the U of A vet school, and we did all of the in-house labs that our vets could run at their facility. We also added a broad spectrum antibiotic along with NSAIDS and steroids.
It's now October 15th. We are five days fever free. He went off the steroids awhile back, and we went from 24 mL of banamine orally daily (split AM & PM) to only 6 mL per day in the PM. We will be finished with the antibiotics on the 17th, and the past two days he has started eating his senior feed again. He never really went off eating alfalfa and picking at the bermuda.
The blood work all came back normal. We have no clue what mystery ailment he was fighting, but we are just grateful that we are on the road to recovery.
Now to start back over with helping him get to a healthy weight. We spent around $2K in vet bills during this ordeal from September to now. The first visit on 9/26 was over $200. Then the emergency visit on 9/26 was just under $700. Then the final visit on 10/3 was just under $1K (when I say just under I mean like $5). This does not include all of the extras we bought to keep him healthy, like the massive amount of electrolytes, special high calorie low volume feed to feed him while he was barely eating, and probiotics which was several hundred dollars as well. This does not count the expenses when we first got him to get him healthy and get his tummy troubles settled.
I share this with you in the hopes that a beginner horse person or person who wants a horse will understand that even though Hootie was given to me for free, that he is still not free. He has cost us over $3000 in veterinary care and medications alone this year. We got him in January. This doesn't include all the farrier visits, the routine feeding costs, or the routine veterinary care (vaccines, dental, etc). It sounds great getting a free horse, but in my experience they often end up costing more than buying a well maintained horse that has had regular care. Not that those don't get sick or have accidents.
The thing is that most of what Hootie is dealing with likely would have been covered if he had been getting preventative care previously. The thought is that this virus is something that vaccines would have covered. We didn't test for everything vaccines cover, just the big ones and that test alone was $400. The culture was $200 which covers three sensitivities.
He likely would have gained weight faster if he wasn't recovering from intermittent diarrhea that was left untreated for the "past few years". We definitely wouldn't have had to try multiple medications and feeds before finding the combination that worked for him.
Routine maintenance and preventative care is key. And often when you're given a free horse they haven't had those things. Just be aware that although it's a beautiful thing to give an unwanted horse a home that it's likely you'll also be pulling out your wallet to get them to a healthy point again.
Will I do it again?
Absolutely.
