The Vet comes to visit

Last week about this time I started to worry about Emmett's front legs. He was three weeks old, but in my opinion a bit too up on his toes. He'd been over at the knees at first, but that was slowly straightening itself out.

I called in my faithful friend Tammy for her opinion, she hoped over the next day and said "call the vet."

The vet couldn't get here until yesterday. In the mean time we gave Emmett 15cc of vitamins each day starting on Saturday, the day the vitamins appeared in my mailbox.

It's these little blips that I often find as blessings to keep working with our horses. While we had done a little work with Emmett, we were slacking off. So each day this last week we haltered and led him around, picked up his feet, made him back and played with his ears along with administering the vitamins.

Being our first foal, I am unsure how foals should act. I know how yearlings act and how 2 year olds act from experience, but foals are an unknown to us. Emmett is a little stinker, but he will calm down with a soothing voice and a friendly rub on the neck. Let's just say he's become better at not nipping at us. Last week he would run up to me, take a nip and run away! This week he runs up, sniffs, nuzzles and then I gently tell him no when I can see he can't contain himself anymore and wants to nip.

I also am unsure what they should look like at one month of age. I know his legs should be straightening out, and they are except for the on toes issue. The vet arrived and said, boy he's a big one eh? Me: Um, okay. (so unknowledgeable here). He checked him over good and administered an IV of tetracycline. This morning when I went out for the first time since foaling Emmett is down on his front heals. He is not completely where he needs to be, but the improvement is quite noticeable. What a relief, because it was like a chipped tooth or canker sore, you know, those can't keep your tongue away from it spots? All N and I could see when we would go to work with him was his front legs.

The vet also recommended that I wean him at 3 months. He is just growing SO fast that he will need to be kept back a bit to help stay correct.

Jack says that all makes sense because that's what we do here...grow animals.

Blogger is fighting me loading a picture so I will do a before and after shot later this week.