This afternoon I was out sitting with Tucker & happened to look down the pen area that Beau had access to 5 of the pens. He was standing in a gate that should have been closed. I went down to see what was going on & his right front leg was hung up almost to the top of a 5 foot corral panel. The foot was caught between the gate & the corral panel. He had been there for awhile, ground was tore up & quite a bit of blood on his leg. He wasn't thrashing around, & seemed to think I would help him.
I tried to find John but didn't know for sure where he was. Got hammer & screwdriver to try to take the corral panel loose, but his leg was so wedged in there, I wasn't getting much done.
Went back in the house & finally found John. The only option was to cut the corral panel, so he had to get a hack saw from the garage. Beau, bless his heart was fairly calm, much calmer than we were I'm afraid.
I went in & called Vic & Lora & they were here right away. Vic & John got the corral panel loose & went he came down you could tell the knee is broke. Of course it's Sunday, but I got on the phone & tried to find a vet. Two out of towns, one left a message, never returned my call & one with no answering machine. That just about exhausted the local vets we have available. Vic knows how to use ropes, & they managed to get him down on the ground, covered his eyes & I gave him a tranquilizer. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing our best to put a Robert Jones splint on him. I had cotton roll & vet wrap, & John had a piece of PVC that hopefully will keep his leg from collapsing. As soon as we got done, he got up, he's not putting weight on the leg, but he is standing.
I just hope I can find a vet in the morning that will come out & has an portable x-ray machine. Unfortunately most of the vets around here are very practical when it comes to taking care of animals, & I don't think we could get him in a trailer to haul him anyway, so we're basically stuck with what's available locally.
I have went over & over in my mind trying to figure out what we could have done to prevent this from happening. Other than not using corral panels for our pens, I don't know what else we could do. And we've used corral panels because if a donkey runs into the sides they give rather than being solid. I would have never thought that one would manage to get a leg hung up like his was. It just happened to be wide enough to trap his foot in such a way that it was impossible to get it out.
John got kicked before the tranquilizer kicked in, a glancing blow to the knee. He's got ice on it tonight, hopefully it will be better by morning. At this rate we're not going to have a pair of good legs between us.
4 comments:
As Roseann Roseannadanna said, ":t's always something."
Tuccsker is the cutest little guy. So glad he is doing better.
Prayers that a vet can help Beau.
I joke that we should all pool resources and build an assisted living place for critters and people with a live-in vet and nurse!! Used to be funny, now it sound practical....
Beau is moving around this morning, I've called the vet, of course Mondays are busy, busy, for her, so don't know if she'll be able to come out or not. We are so limited on vet service here.
I'm with you on the assisted living place, where people could live with their animals. Someone needs to win the lottery I guess.
I'll volunteer to be the nurse!!!
When can I move down there? With my five horses, six kitties and two dogs. I'll leave the child up here.
Seriously - you guys need a communication device so if one of you gets into trouble while out and about or needs some help with one of the donkeys, you can holler for help. Maybe something with a little range so you can get hold of your neighbor if needed.
Didn't say it was going to be here, maybe 100's of acres somewhere, so the animals could just roam around if they wanted to. And plenty of room to have little casitas for the people, & looks like we already have our nurse...!! LOL
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