That's Never a Good Sign...

Went to the barn after work on Wednesday and found one of Nilla's legs to be twice the size of the other. There was heat too so I started getting a bit panicked, but she was trotting sound on it and running around of her own free will so she's not feeling that bothered.
One of these legs is much bigger than the other...
so swollen

I basically just trotted a bit to establish soundness and then walked up to the arena watch my husband ride and didn't do anything else with Nilla. My best guess is she banged the leg jumping in and out of her paddock to eat grass in the turnout. We really need to fix the damned fence. I did poultice and wrap her leg after and I'll check on her tomorrow. I'm sure this is fate jinxing me because I have plans for this weekend. Never make plans, people. Horses will find out conspire to ruin your plans.

I also managed to break my camera - I am on a roll - so I only had my iPhone. iPhone pictures in the very limited afternoon light are just terrible, so I don't have much to share. Shasta is really getting a lot better about not rushing fences. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Most of the shots were worse than this
While I had been testing Nilla's soundness in the smaller arena, one of the older ponies was lying down even though it was dinner time and everyone else was eating. That is never a good sign. I alerted the person feeding and she went over to check on the pony who got up at that point and started eating some of her hay. When my husband and I got back from the upper arena, the feeder had gone home and the pony was back down. She was alternating between lying splayed out and curled up and throwing in some little attempts at rolling. So my concern factor was going up by the second. We checked and she still had a bin full of grain...



I drove up to the barn owner's house and told her and asked her to call the pony's owner. She agreed it was concerning and said that pony doesn't really lie down much and never leaves her food. I wasn't sure if this might possibly be normal behavior for this pony that I don't know very well, but I was not alone in my concern. She was going call the owner so I went back down to finish with out horses and head home. She's such a good little pony - rides and drives and can be trusted with children clambering all over and around her. Seriously worth her weight in gold.

I got an update Thursday morning saying she was walked and given meds and mashes and was doing much better. They think it must have been a gas colic.

Don't forget to enter my 100th post giveaway. You have until the 23rd to enter and maybe win a wooden stall sign. 

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