Saturday, April 21, 2007

More About Vaccinations

I've been vaccinating my horses for as long as I've had them. A steady 7 years. And there has been a fair few here. I come home from work this morning after a 12 hour shift and a 45 minute drive both ways to find Kola extremely lethargic. The girls were vaccinated on Monday and she's been increasingly lethargic throughout the week. Laying down more and more. So I check her out and call the vet because she's just not right. We concur over the phone that it might be a reaction to the vacs and I go out and give her a little over a gram of bute. She gets gaggy and even more sleepy. I call the vet back because now she's wobbly on her feet and unbalanced after about an hour and a half of watching her. So the vet comes out to see her because now I'm wondering if she's collicking because I've seen Misty drink at least five times in two hours and Kola not a drop. She hasn't pooped or peed and I am confused. He checks her out. Of coarse now she poops in front of us, but it's loose. He takes her temp......normal. And he really believes she's wiped out from these vacs and it's not collick which relieves me and suggests a gram of bute a day for the next three days. Says they both look good and healthy. It's another Saturday vet bill. Crap! And right after the vet leaves she walks into the lean-to and pees. Good grief! Why did she have to wait? If she had done her bodily functions earlier, I probably would have felt better and handled it myself. On top of that, in the five years I've had Misty, I have never witnessed her laying down, never in five years, especially in broad daylight. And I am always watching my horses as evidenced by the numerous pictures I have of them. While waiting for the vet I glance over to check on Kola and low and behold Misty is laying down.....flat.......farting and twitching in R.E.M sleep. They're testing me . I know it. I've never had a horse react so strongly and so long to a vaccination. The vet said more than likely the West Nile is the culprit. I do know a lot of vets are changing vaccination companies because there's a brand out there that is an old standard which is causing issues, what those issues are, I can't remember. I wonder if these new vacs are stronger. I'm wondering if anyone out there has experienced this sort of reaction?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooof, that must have been terrifying. I find it rather funny though. Probably because I'm not the one that is shelling out the vet bill. That's a bummer.

Midlife Mom said...

Yikes! We have the vet coming tomorrow (Monday) to do spring shots and check ups! I hope we don't have any reactions like that. Yeah, don't you just love it when they wait till the vet gets there and then p**p and p** and you've been waiting for hours for them to do just that! GRRRRRR! Especially on the weekend or nights. When we had our strangles outbreak this winter we had the vet many times and it seemed like the emergencies were always at night or on the weekend. One gal with two horses had a bill close to $1,000 and I have five but luckily only had one of them that had it real bad. Have you ever had to deal with strangles? NOT FUN! If you go back in my archives I wrote about it in detail, probably made my non-horsey blog friends gag! I see you have a ferret. I used to have three and I loved them! When they passed away I felt soooooooo awful but they all lived to about 8 years old and I guess that is pretty good. Aren't they little rascals?!

Rising Rainbow said...

there have been lots of reactions to west nile vaccinations. I don't know if the newer vaccines are better or not but do know the older one could be a killer.

Kathy C said...

One of the horses at my friends barn had a reaction. He was quite uncomfortable and off feed. They gave him some bute and he came out of it fine. The owner had give him a five-way the night before.

Glad she's feeling better.

Callie said...

Bute's a wonderful thing most times. Thanks everyone for commenting, advice and experience.