Silver has definitely reached the terrible twos. Since kicking me, I hadn’t worked with him much until the evening of the 21st. I longed him around for a while, reminding him of what he had learned before. He was definitely rusty and tried to see what he could get away with. However, overall he did pretty well. The next morning, I tried to work with him again and noticed that he had a piece of skin laid over on his chin and another big hunk laid open on his lower neck, in front. I got some wound spray and tried to spray it on as best I could, but he was a little jumpy, especially around his face. The last few days he had been running around with Rebel a lot and they had been “playing” some. I guess some of the playing had gotten a little rough. I expect that he is trying to make a move for the top horse position since he is a stallion and Rebel won’t have it.
I decided to leave him be. Dad was coming the next day so he got some penicillin. We took him behind the barn and I held his rope and Dad poked him with the needle. I’ve seen horses that don’t like a shot, but Silver hit the wall. He bucked and reared, took a look at Dad, turned his back and kicked him in the hip. Dad went over and I dropped the line. Dad was fine, as it was a glancing blow, but he jammed his thumb when he hit the ground. That’s two times where Silver has kicked and gotten away with it; once because he lamed me and the other because he knocked down my Dad. It is no doubt time for his little procedure.
Thursday morning, the vet came out. He’s a new guy, an Aggie (Whoop!). Silver didn’t care where he graduated from, he would not cooperate. The vet stuck him once, and Silver got away fast and out from under the needle. After that, we could barely get near him. I managed to get a few cc’s in his neck. It was a pretty strong sedative, but he just blew right through it he was so jazzed on adrenaline. We tried twitching him, but couldn’t get the chain on his nose. We also gave him a tube of oral sedative. That didn’t make a difference either. Then we tried tying him to his old snubbing post. I’ve been wondering how to pull this post out of the ground and he did solve that problem for me. I waved the vet off before he pulled it all the way out, but he sure loosened it for me.
We thank God for His continued protection. No one was hurt on Thursday including Silver. That’s a victory of sorts.
The doc explained that a sedative should calm him. These can be done intramuscularly, which is the easiest to administer. You just poke it in and press the plunger. The tranquilizer won’t knock him out, but he is pretty unaware of his surroundings and the pain won’t really register. That can also be given IM, but it takes more medicine, so you can’t give it while he’s pulling away. Finally, the anesthesia can only be given intravenously, which means you have to get the needle in the right place and be able to take your time pushing the plunger. Obviously, this is a real problem if the horse won’t stand still for the simple IM sedative.
There are a couple of ways around this. We could give an oral sedative, but I don’t think that will do it. The other way is to restrain him in a way that won’t hurt him or us. This would involve some heavy panels and two posts on either side of his head that we can run a chain from one post to the other and through his halter and over his nose. This might do it.
Either way, we judged that his wounds are healing nicely without much help. We are going to let him heal and build back the trust. A friend of mine and I were watching him eat on Saturday and he was still pretty jumpy. I will just stand there while he eats for several days. He and Rebel are still chasing each other around, stopping periodically and nipping at each other. Scout just watches them curiously. Hopefully, Rebel won’t kill him before we can get the vet out and try again
