Allie and I are at the end of our patience with each other and I'm completely out of my league dealing with her like this. I have now twice been cornered in the back of her stall while she spins and bucks. The first time there was a bee on her and I think she was stung so I forgave her. The second time was when she saw me pull out her bandages to rebandage her, night before last, which she has been very good about. Luckily, I had the pitch fork with me and beat her off with it until Jim could grab her halter and I could get out. She has not been bandaged since.
Lady and Maya spent the night in the pasture last night for the first time as the act of bringing horses in/out of the barn sends her into spinning/bucking mode. Unfortunately, Joey is still in barn so he has to go out and while I was out with him this morning, Allie decided to enlarge her stall.
She's supposed to be walked/grazed daily. It's been probably about a week since that's happened, which is causing a vicious circle. Can't walk her cause she's crazy and she's crazy cause she can't get out.
She's on 3ml's of ace IM a day. 1lb grain twice a day (vet doesn't want the grain completely cut out due to risk of colic but I know I give her less than 1lb) and supposed to be hay every 6 hours but we give her 2 flakes twice a day.
So, here are my options as I see them.
Option 1: Vet's recommendation.
Increase ace to 5ml's twice a day and basically keep her drugged. If that doesn't work, "turn her out and hope for the best." That comment is based on Joey is 4 weeks old today and based on original schedule, Allie is 15 days away from small paddock turnout. However, the schedule resets with infection so her "45 day stall rest" technically doesn't start until vet announced infection cleared which she has not yet done. The "small paddock" we were going to use is the dog yard. My dogs are too old for the heat so we only put them out in the morning and evening anyway right now so figured we'd let Allie use it for the rest of the day. Problem is, we have to get her to it and it's attached to the house, about 200-300 feet from barn. Right now, I hold my breath moving her from one stall to the next just to clean her stall. So, if the increased ace doesn't work, I still have to get a bucking horse out of the barn and all the way to the dog yard without her hurting herself or me. If ace does work, I have a drugged horse which I'm not so sure I like either.
Option 2: boarding
Found a place that will board her that offers specialized care for those with special health requirements for recovering from an injury. http://home.earthlink.net/~cherokeehillfarm/id10.html
The guy sounds nice, two of his children are vets and he has 2 vets living full time on the farm who he said may have some interest in "the case". They are probably within 15 to 20 mins of me and probably within 5 to 10 mins from my vet. I really like that they deal with this so are probably very experienced with horses totally psychotic from stall rest and have vets onsite. But I'm looking at spending about $500/month which is nothing compared to what I've already spent, but still MORE money and hate that she wouldn't be here. My vet's office has never heard of this place, but probably because they have their own vets. When we asked them about it, they gave us the name of another place that I'm going to call also and talk to and get pricing from and see what they say.
So horsey experts...tell me what you'd do. What she's doing now is not in any way, shape or form "stall rest". I'm tired. I'm physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. I considered (for only a half a second mind you) putting her down. It seemed the kindest thing at the moment as I was watching her tear around her stall. She's miserable, we're miserable and this is just turning into a really bad bad situation.
