Josie's Journal

13/05/2025

Grooming time

11/05/2025

11/05/2025

11/05/2025

Yesterday was Josie's first turnout since January. She's been pottering round the patio for the last month whilst our lovely yard owner made her a special almost grass free turnout paddock. Ingrid had said she would need a bare paddock with weeds to prevent a flare up of her EMS and laminitis.

In an ideal world it would be lovely to turnout all on the lovely grassy fields but Josie's health is far too important to risk this.

She's managed to sting her nose on the nettles while hunting for thistles.

10/04/2025

So today Carl came out to Josie to put a new shoe and gel padding on the foot that she refused to pick up two weeks ago. The gel in her right foot made a big difference and she was much more comfortable.

Carl was really pleased with her foot, he had been worried that there may have been some bruising from her putting more made weight on it but it was fine and she had plenty of growth on it too.

After her shoe was on we had a good groom to make her look more respectable 😂. Here she is looking beautiful and a bit sleepy from the sedation and a picture of Hector with his ears forward 😂

24/03/2025

So this morning Carl, our farrier came out for trims and new shoes with the gel pads in for Josie. Unfortunately things didnt quite go to plan.

Josie is still not wanting to put her weight on her front right foot while Carl trims and changed her shoe on her left foot. After some discussion we decided to trim her other three feet and just apply the gel and shoe to her right foot. Hopefully this will make her comfortable enough to the do the left foot in a couple of weeks time.

Carl is not 100% convinced that this is all a laminitis attack, he's wondering if it could be ringbone or sidebone issues. I'm waiting to hear back from Ingrid to see about arranging some xrays to confirm things one way or the other.

Here's some pictures of Josie modelling her feather covers and looking very sleepy after her sedation. She's having the sedation as she's not very keen on the smoke from the shoeing.

24/03/2025

We've had this beautiful girl 10 years now, how quickly has that time gone!

She really is my best girl 💕💕

Here we are having a morning nap, only half in the bed lol

15/03/2025

So, Josie still isn't sound on her front right foot, this was the one she was sore on during last summers lami attack. Ingrid came out to check her over and to take some bloods to see if high insulin levels were contributing to the lameness. She was walking up fine but really unhappy on the turns, almost as if she had trodden on something sharp.

The blood tests showed a slight increase in her insulin levels, ideally they should be under 20, her last test came back as 32 and this time they were 36. So not excessively high. We've decided to try her on a a month's supply of Invokana (canagliflozin) tablets to try and drop the levels, so she's having 1 tablet before breakfast along side 2 bute a day and 32 paracetamol!

When Carl comes out to do their feet in a couple of weeks , Josie will be having her gel pads put back in under her shoes.

Today is the start of her eighth week on box rest, apart for checking her soundness once a week she's been in her stable the whole time. On her trip out of her stable last week, I clipped her again as she was very hot and crusty lol.

18/02/2025

I knew when Josie had her virus that it was going to be a balancing act, grazing without her muzzle for a while to encourage her to eat, and the chance of bringing on a laminitis attack. Unfortunately it seems the lami came out on top.

As soon as she refused to pick her front foot up like she did previously, I put her back on box rest for a week with some bute to keep her comfortable and waited for our appointment with Carl, our farrier. He removed her shoes and gave her trim before replacing them and said they were fine but any signs of lami wouldn't show up until the next trim or two. Another couple of days on bute and box rest, then I reduced the bute to see how comfortable she was, but she's really not happy. Back on box rest and bute and after a chat today with Ingrid, our vet, we've decided to give Josie paracetamol alongside the bute to get her comfortable. So she's having 40 paracetamol a day then will go back to just the bute and see how she is feeling.

She's such a good girl and really not bothered about being stuck in, just as long as the food keeps coming lol.

15/01/2025

Poor Josie has been feeling under the weather. It was our day to turn out on Sunday and as the ponies hadn't been out for over a week, I was expecting a fast jog down the lane and some spectacular moves, but Josie just plodded down and trotted off to graze. I thought maybe she was focused on eating as much grass as she could before I returned with her muzzle. When she came in from the field, she had her dinner and went to bed. I thought she was tired after all the grass.

Kari messaged me on Monday morning to say Josie wasn't interested in her hay and she hadn't eaten her breakfast!! Josie has never not eaten her breakfast so I knew she wasn't right. I rang the vet and they sent Dani out to check her over. Josie had only done one poo in about six hours and had drunk very little. Dani took her temperature, which was higher than it should be, popped her hand up Josie's bum to check for any blockages and gave her a thorough check up and said she has a virus. She gave her an anti inflammatory injection to make her feel more comfortable and said said to take her for a walk and let her nibble some grass then give her some sloppy food. We had a nice walk along the track and a jog back after she spooked at something. She wasn't really interested in any food or hay and even a dash to the shops for some mint tea to try to tempt her didn't really work.

She had a poo before I left the yard but then went back to snoozing. I checked on her hourly via her stable camera and she didn't really eat much but did lay down for a quick nap. When Kari checked her in the morning she'd done a couple of poos and was eating her breakfast. I spoke to Dani again in the afternoon and suggested trying dry hay as well as some haylage and carrots in her dinner. She was definitely looking bright and overnight she managed to eat 6kg of hay and haylage!!

She went out again today without her muzzle on for a couple of hours then had some dinner which she left in favour of the hay and haylage again. Dani did say there's a lot of horses coming down with viruses this winter.

22/12/2024

Carl, our farrier is really pleased with the improvement in Josie's feet. We're finally heading in the right direction.

15/12/2024

Super pleased with Josie, we had Catherine from Baileys feed come out with the the weighbridge and Josie has lost 45kg in 7 months !!
Her body condition score has dropped from 8 to 6.5 so we are definitely heading in the right direction. Hopefully when I can start riding again the exercise will help.