2011 – Rock & Roll – 9-29-11 – MASSAGE

9/29/11: Rock and Roll both got massages today. However, Rock came up VERY lame yesterday evening and was having problems walking. By morning, he could not walk at all and was standing in his pen not able to put weight on either of his back legs and his knees were shaking in front from all the weight shifted forward. We could not put on his front booties because he could not lift the front legs without falling down. It looked like he had rolled sometime between last night and this morning because his hock sore and knee sores were freshly bleeding, so he could have hurt himself getting up and down. We had Greg Farrand out to check him in the morning. He checked the pulse in all four feet and decided it wasn’t founder. He thought it was coming from the sacrum area. We put Rock on bute and will continue this for 9 days as well as Gastro guard to protect his digestive tract from the adverse effects of the bute. Walking slowly does seem to help. Dave McClain came out in the evening and adjusted him. He said the stifle in the left hind was locked up and after he got it adjusted, Rock seemed better, but still in some pain, probably from being out of adjustment for the full day, but it could not be helped. He did respond well to a very guarded massage though we did have to make sure he was standing downhill. He was very uncomfortable otherwise. Rock and Roll will now have to be kept separated during turnout. Since they are both generally feeling much better, we think he may have overdone and Roll could have precipitated the trouble. Dave McClain came back the next morning and did acupuncture on him and he is relaxing in his pasture today (September 30).