Yesterday was a long day. Rosie hadn't eaten her supper and was lethargic. She is extremely overweight, has always been overweight, but the mesquite bean season really sent her over the edge, before we even realized it.
Dr. Jeremy Alltop was out here all afternoon working with her. First we tried tubing her to get hydration. Donkeys have a much smaller opening than horses to put the tube thru. Unfortunately her opening is even smaller than a "foal tube" and it turned into a bloody mess.
We progressed onto IV with 5 liters of fluids, which went well. Unfortunately the bloody mess was continuing to bleed. I did learn lots of ways vets use to try to stop a nose bleed on an equine, most of which weren't working. We finally thought of using flour, which I have used before and FINALLY got the faucet to shut off.
Dr. Alltop has kept in close touch, but she is not interested in eating or drinking on her own. We are dealing with hyperlipidemia . The simple explanation is, she is way too fat, her liver has fatty liver disease, and we are feeding her a minimum diet, although she is out on the 30 acres and supplements what we feed her. Her body is telling her she is starving, so her liver starts releasing it's stored up excess fat into her blood stream. If she doesn't eat, it keeps releasing fat until it basically takes over the blood stream and there isn't enough oxygen available to keep her alive. We've drenched her with Karo syrup which is an emergency treatment, to shock her system into thinking, it was wrong there, is plenty of calories available.
So the options are, to either put dextrose into her with IV's here or take her up to the clinic and let them attack the problem. We've opted for hauling her before it gets worse.
Will update later.
So the options are, to either put dextrose into her with IV's here or take her up to the clinic and let them attack the problem. We've opted for hauling her before it gets worse.
Will update later.
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