Crias beware

It’s been a tough few months for a couple of the male crias up at the Arena. First in the days before Christmas Juliet’s little guy, Undici (he was born on 11/11/11), somehow managed to get stepped on or kicked. Though we initially took it to be a soft tissue injury in his ankle joint, swelling and an elevated temperature shortly thereafter proved that it was in fact a fracture, with a small bone fragment in his rear lower left leg having broken off, though thankfully in such a way that it could be stabilized without much intervention. A combination of surgically flushing the injured area (there was some localized infection), antibiotics, stall rest, and splinting and wrapping the leg to help stabilize the fracture brought him around.  Today if it weren’t for the shaved bottom 3 to 4″ of that leg, one would have no idea that anything had happened.

Then a couple of days ago after one of those classic late winter thaw/freeze cycles we had another little guy, Milano (Bellagio’s full brother), come up lame and not wanting to put any weight on one of his front legs. It’s not totally clear at this point what happened but slipping on the ice, getting kicked, or checked into one of the outdoor hay feeders are all possibilities.  Though we had initially feared that we might have had something as serious as a broken shoulder, thankfully x-rays taken at the vet clinic today came back negative. The hypothesis right now is that he is suffering from a nasty deep muscle bruise in the shoulder area. He will be spending at least the next week or so in an isolation pen along with his mama, Bellisima. Fingers crossed that things for him resolve themselves as well as they did for his cousin.

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