Crud

It didn't occur to me that the feed stores would all be closed today because it's Labor Day. Dang.

Took Louvin into the round pen tonight, he was stepping a bit short trotting to the right. Double dang.

And now for something different, something not exactly about Louvin.

Linda's mustang mare passed away. I was out there pretty late last night, stuck around in case there was something I could do to help. She went downhill quick- it started out looking like colic, then bam- neuroligical symptoms. Staggering, aimless wandering, balance was off, etc. She'd lost her vision and was becoming paralysed (couldn't lift her head up) by the time I went home a few hours later. They couldn't get a vet out but I don't think it matters in this case- that mare was too far gone too quickly, even with heroic measures she wasn't going to make it. (She was a very stoic mare, things probably didn't progress as fast as they seemed to- I think she was a tough guy hiding her pain until she was completely physically incapable of doing so).

I was racking my brain trying to help figure it out when I joined the group when it was first beginning to look like something other than colic. Poisoning came to mind, her pasture had a fenceline along a fairly busy street so plenty of opportunity there. I started to do a little googling which lead me to ask when was she last vaccinated.

Shit. Not vaccinated. It hadn't even crossed my mind that this mare wouldn't have been vaccinated, this gal is more devoted to her critters than 90% of the people out there. Anyway, long story short, even though I'd never encountered it first hand before I'm almost certain this mare was killed by equine encephalitis. Her symptoms were textbook. Scary stuff.

I mean, this is southern Louisiana. It's not exactly shocking when encephalitis or west nile is found in mosquito populations here- there's no way to completely eradicate them. It's still horrible to see it pop up like this though.

Sigh.

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