What a Day

I am on night duty tonight, because we have had just one of those days, fortunately at the moment it hasn't ended in a tragedy. I try and grab Sunday's off, which usually works but nevertheless I remain on call. Sue got hold of me this morning to say that Warren Knight was completely immobile in the field. Some of the horses in one particular field were being bothered by the flies and there had obviously been some sort of fracas resulting in a few injuries.
Having looked at Warren, it was clear that we needed a vet. Warren was in extreme pain and unable to bear weight on his right hind leg. We treated Warren for his pain whilst we waited for the vet to arrive. Our vet, was already out on another call, so poor Lucy stood with Warren for an age to keep the rest of the horses away from him, and Coudy, Dan and Sue dashed around with fly sheets and fly spray for the rest of the horses until such time the vet arrived.
One look at Warren confirmed our worst fears; there was no way that we could get him into the yard without some sort of transport...which we don't have. I telephoned Nickie at Marlborough Horse Transport and she kindly agreed to come over to try and get Warren down to the yard, but she was at a show with her son and it would take a bit of a while to get to us. We then waited for Nickie, and greeted her with relief when she arrived. Warren was still uncomfortable but his pain was being managed. I hopped in the lorry and up we went to the field. I suggested to Nickie that it would be best to turn the lorry in an entrance so that we could try and load Warren facing the right way to the yard so that it would be the least possible movement for him.
Blow me down, the lorry got stuck in a rut, and we had to ask our neighbouring farmer to come out and tow the lorry out. We then had to wait for Gerald to come. In the meantime, Lucy was still holding Warren...this whole excercise took up about three hours.
One of worst fears when eventually the lorry was finally in a position to load Warren, was the very real possibility that he would be too unsound to manage the ramp, however with another load of painkiller we managed to load him without too much trouble and then we set about x-raying him.
It had been our initial fear that following an x-ray it would be clear that Warren had fractured his hock, but despite many pictures, and that Mike had managed to send over the pictures for a second opinion this could not be confirmed.
Warren is now in for the night, he is comfortable, and it does look now as if he will recover.
Sadly, I missed a day with the family to celebrate Michael's birthday; what with one thing and another we were waiting around for about six hours, but hey ho that's horse's for you!
I have just come in again from looking at him, thankfully he appears to be alot better and is dozing....lucky old him.