Spring...

Yesterday was the first full day of spring. We had several inches of snow on the ground and are getting more today. Tristan has not shed one single, solitary hair of his winter coat. I am torn between worrying and admiring his good sense, because it's not meant to go much above freezing for at least another week. (To be fair the poor pony also hasn't seen sunlight in nearly a month, so I'm sure that's thrown him off kilter.)

Healing continues apace. He has had three days of 5 minutes of handwalking and is doing beautifully, very eager to move out, sound to my eye. The drainage is, knock wood, slowly decreasing. When I sent the 2 week pictures to the vet hospital they said it looked good and suggested that the local vet could take a hoof knife and pare off the top blood clot to get a clearer sense of what the wound looks like underneath.

When I flushed last night, I used the tip of the syringe to move the blood clot (it's basically a scab) aside a bit, and there was bright pink flesh underneath. Yay for that. Tris was not wild about that, which leads me to think that we'll have to tranq him a bit if the vet's going to do that on Monday.

He'll also get the first half of his spring shots on Monday, and if the vet clears everything we'll decrease the amount of wrap I'm using and try to get him into the smaller size boot so a) it's less likely to fall off and b) he can possibly go on light turnout. (I'm fairly certain the larger boot would be destroyed in short order if it ventured outside, as it flops a bit.)

He's now eating his antibiotics as dressing in his regular supplements, mixed in with some mints for intermittent reward, and hasn't had them syringed in 5 days. They run out on next Friday, and we'll talk about getting another bottle and keeping him on them. He's down to 1/4 quart of grain a day, half in the AM and half in the PM, and holding his weight steady.

So hopefully on Monday we'll a) cut away the blood clot and take a good close look; b) get the ok to do 10 minutes of handwalking at a time, and possibly light turnout the week after that; and c) get a judgment on the antibiotics.