Rural Gardening: How cold is too cold to incubate eggs? , 1 by mcamden

mcamden wrote:
Hey Lora, Yes. I am better today knowing that my colt (Pablo) is no longer in pain. He was born with a congenital birth defect. He has oversized growth plates in both of his front legs, and the bones on top of those plates were pointed rather then flat. Therefor...his legs could not sit straight. The bones would basically 'slip' off the grown plate causing him to walk crooked.

I knew something was wrong the second he was born, but several vets came out and said that this happened all the time, and it would heal itself. After 3 weeks I called the vets again to come out and said this was not normal. When they came my vet was brought to tears. He said that he believed nothing could save him but surgery. They left that night and came then brought about a bone/leg specialist and took x-rays. The other vet said he could feel how deformed they were and didn’t think we would be able to do anything.

After the x-rays came back they said there was some hope, and they wanted to try casts. They said if we could get the legs strong enough he could possible support his body while the bones were corrected.

The casts came off Thursday after Christmas, and there was no improvement. We gave him 24 hours to see if he gained any strength...but it was no use. Friday evening he was down, and did not want to stand again. I called the vets office in tears and asked them to come as soon as possible to put him out of his pain.

It was a horrible experience for me, and I loved him dearly. It was also sad because I had waited to geld my stallion until after his birth because I was worried that this foal may not be healthy. We didn’t know my mare was pregnant until June this year. Since 3 vets said he would be fine, and this was normal...I went through with castrating my stallion. This colt was my last horse I would have, so it is very sad that I had to put him down at only two months old.