So a few weeks ago I went away on vacation right? Well, when I came back, Gogo had a weird little surprise waiting for me: one side of her udder was super swollen. The other side was normal as always. I poked, prodded and pulled for a few days, and nothing happened. It didn't change or go down. She didn't have a fever. It wasn't uncomfortable for her. When I consulted the vet, he suggested trying to express it and that it might be a weird hormonal thing. Since I had been trying to express it for days, I wasn't convinced anything was going to happen. That night, after quite a lot more tugging, pulling, and milk-attempting, I gave up and fed the Mami her dinner finally. When I sat back to watch her eat, my eye was drawn back up to her udder.... which was now leaking white fluid. Holy milky fail, Batman!
Yes, that is me milking my horse. Good thing I milked a cow at summercamp one time about 15 years ago and remember how to do it. Wasn't I a breeding major in college?
Gogo, weird woman that she is, stood perfectly still with no halter or anything (and a giant tempting grassy field all around her) while I expressed it. The following day, the udder and teat were quite a lot smaller. I expressed it again, and again, the following day it was even smaller. I couldn't really get anything out of it at all the day after that, so I figured the vet had been right and it was just some sort of funky hormonal issue.
And then yesterday, it came back. My concern at this point is that it is a mastitis. (Really, Gogo? A open maiden mare?) She is still eating, drinking and doing her thing, and at this point still doesn't have a fever, so I don't think we are dealing with an emergency, but I'll be giving the vet a call tomorrow so we can get her on some antibiotics. I read somewhere that rubbing castor oil on the udder and then rinsing it off a few hours later helps to clear it up.... never heard of that before but it might be worth a try.
Oh, Gogo. Seriously.
In other, much better news, I put Gogo in the roundpen yesterday to see how lame she was. I hadn't really seen her trot much since she blew the adhesion a few weeks ago, and I was under the impression that she was still quite lame. Apparently I was wrong, because she trotted out VERY well. She looked great! I'd give her about a 95%. She is as sound as she was post-vet when I sat on her a few times. Which is not to say she is SOUND... but she's close to it. Sounder than the dang Irish horses I've been riding for the past few months, that's for sure.
I think I will go ahead with what Dr. H recommended and sit on her a few times. If someone is around to watch, I'll trot her a bit and see what they think. At this point I am ridiculously honed to the feel of hind-end lameness, so I'll be able to feel what exactly is going on as well while I am in the saddle. Mostly I want to sit on her so I can peel off some of those ridiculous pounds she is carrying around with her.... she's easily 200lbs overweight. Not exactly good for a pair of questionable hind legs is it! Ever hear overweight people complaining about their ankles, getting surgery on their knees, riding around in carts because it hurts them too much to walk? Same basic idea.... excess weight is damaging to bodies. ALL bodies.
I mean look at her.... DANG!:
That is one big momma. I'll have to get some sort of a game plan in order in terms of sitting on her... I really just can't do the willy-nilly ride-when-I-feel-like-it thing, not with an injury. My slightly OCD brain can't deal with that.
Good lord though. If I can't get some of this weight off of her, she really might just explode.
Good grief... that belly, and bootay....
ReplyDeletethat said, a friend of mine is having issues with her mare who won't stop lactating. She foaled out well over a year ago, but just won't dry up. Weirdest thing ever.
Mastitis isn't uncommon even in maidens. Glad to hear she's looking so much better soundness-wise!!
ReplyDeleteAndrea, I don't mean to give you something else to worry about, but the only time I've heard about something like this was on a mare with ovarian cysts. It could be worth checking out...
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly horses don't get actual ovarian cysts like humans and cattle do. What they DO get are tumors that are sometimes referred to as cysts. We actually checked her for granulosa tumors at her vetcheck 5 years ago, when she was the right age for their usual development... but that was 5 years ago and anything could have happened since then.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't suspect it at the moment, seeing as she isn't displaying the behaviors I would associate with ovarian malfunction... but you never know. And again, this is me dusting off information from my repro degree that I haven't even thought about in 3 years, so I could be wrong... lol.
Far out idea but fat produces estrogen. She is a wee-bit chuncky.
ReplyDeleteFat cells do produce oestrogens (an estrogen compound) but the primary source of estrogen is the ovaries, placenta, the corpus luteum, and also the lutenizing hormones which stimulates production of oestrogens and estrogens in the ovaries. Fat cells producing estrogen primarily affects fertility, potentially why underweight and overweight females are usually infertile, thus it would be odd if Gogo is overweight that adipoctye-produced estrogen would cause her to produce anything at all in her udder (although I don't think she is THAT overweight, but she could afford to lose those pounds!)
ReplyDeleteMastitis is usually caused by a bacterial infection, and usually only on one side of the udder, so it sounds exactly like what you think it is. Here's a good article on it: http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/horse-health/1994/december/31/mastitis-in-mares.aspx. So yeah, a vet call and antibiotics should help. But I've never dealt personally with mastitis before, much less milked a mare haha, although a friend did have a maiden mare who got it once and the vet told her that it usually happens during the fly season and bacteria can get up into the teats just like in a UTI. Hopefully antibios will help!!!
Is Gogo really barren?
Sorry, wall of text there :D
Yow I said barren... I meant "open." NOT barren as in totally infertile lol.
ReplyDeleteAlso I TOTALLY think she is violently overweight.... here is her ideal weight in my eyes: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XJPVbyyr-oY/SXvZ8r5Z0-I/AAAAAAAAARg/wVykDh5rITk/s1600-h/DSCN0149.JPG
ReplyDeleteFO SHO a 200lb difference! ;)
Weirdo mare...
ReplyDeleteShe does look great in that pic you posted at the bottom. She is quite ahem, rotund, at the moment. The new place looks sweet!! Congrats on that!
It's unhealthy, but I think the fat works for Gogo. It gives her sort of a baroque horse look minus the intense muscling.
ReplyDeleteBaroque horse:
http://th05.deviantart.net/fs70/150/f/2011/118/2/5/bay_andalusian_stock1_by_geoera-d3f3car.jpg
For comparison:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2qyf4of8c-I/ThmuZNo_X7I/AAAAAAAAC5Y/Unna336AwTk/s1600/IMG_0182.JPG
I'm not familiar with mares as I've had gelding my entire horse life, but that is a bit puzzling.
ReplyDeleteOn the fatty front, I do know what you're talking about. My 20-yo QH (with heaves)is out in pasture right now getting fat because I'm preggo and can't ride. I know how to fix that one with him, but that's gonna require this kid getting out of me (only in Oct), then I'm back to riding.
Good luck!!
Did a stallion jump the fence? She's glowing. ;)
ReplyDeleteYoung Equestrian, fat is a SUPERB way of hiding horrible comformation faults AND simultaneously giving the image of a big strong powerful topline.... hence alllll those hunters and dressage horses out there who are morbidly obese!
ReplyDeleteEvery so often the same thing happens to my mare. She doesn't seem uncomfortable and never goes off her feed or anything, but she'll just swell up for no apparent reason. She has also never been bred, so we did a whole bunch of tests, put her on antibiotics, and none of it seemed to make a difference. The vet has assured me that it's just another "weird Lilly" think most likely related to hormones.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Gogo's is something similar! Mares!!
She is a *little* poofy. (Females can have sensitive feelings about weight, you know.)
ReplyDeleteIf it's mastitis the swollen part will feel really hot and the fluid will be thick and gluggy or have clots in it. A clean fluid is probably more likely to be hormonal.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm....I'm with Val... does Gogo have a secret boyfriend we don't know about? It was a biiiig ranch out there in Texas...
ReplyDeleteHave you looked around her pasture for any strange plants? Some can supply ectopic hormone effects (e.g., red clover is an estrogen mimetic, but it's probably not the only one).
ReplyDeleteAA, I thought about that but I don't think so..... she switched barns in the middle of all of this and was in one pasture for the first episode, and the other (many many miles away) for the second. Although you never know... she certainly hasn't lived in the south for very long so perhaps she is sensitive to a new type of plant/allergen/something?
ReplyDeletePoor Gogo. I hope it's just mastitis and the antibiotics clear it up. Congrats on the almost soundness :)
ReplyDeleteI saw the picture of Gogo at the bottom and was like "holy crap I've never seen a horse that obese look at that crest!!!!" And then remembered she has a mohawk lol.