Silas day 17, Pt II

The vet just came to give Silas his last shot of oxytetracycline and brought some Vetpro milk powder with him. Unfortunately Silas did not want to drink very much and we only got 300ml into him but rest assured, we will be trying again and again and again tonight! He has had another day with his temperature remaining nicely within the normal range too.

Poor wee Rory is feeling off colour and has an umpshee tum so has not been feeding much and Hooty was leaking milk profusely so, I grabbed a milk bottle and milked about 500ml off her - GOLD! We will feed that to Silas later and I will milk some more off her if I can when she gets her dinner. Silas is still constipated however his poop now has individual parts rather than being one solid clay like lump - this is a good thing but it still needs to get better and soften up a lot. He has had another 60ml of olive oil tonight so hopefully the combination of that, the Vetpro milk powder and Hooty's milk will help things along for him. His poor little bottom is very sore and quite cracked so I have also started applying Lucas pawpaw ointment to it - the things we do!

All this said, the most worrying thing for us right now I think, is his stifle and the obvious pain he is in because of it. Four out of five times we have to help him to his feet and this is very depressing. But, we need to address the constipation issue first and, once that has been sorted, if the stifle is still giving him trouble, we will look at investigating it more closely. I just hope and pray that it is nothing truly sinister. Silas continues to fight the good fight.

Silas day 17, Pt I

Hmmm, this morning is OK, just OK. He's still shi**ing bricks, despite the acidophilus and weakened milk. He drank about 1100 at 4.00am and at 8am downed 1100 but I went back up 15 minutes later to check his temperature (38.4) and he finished his bottle but he would not get up. I also gave him 100ml of olive oil (no paraffin or cod liver handy). Now will wait for that to pass through his system. Hopefully we will have some Vetpro milk to try soon, just got to work out how we pay for it, although, we have had the most wonderful support from so many people that it is going to be a lot easier than if we were doing it all on our own.

To all the people who have helped us, I know many of you read this blog, please know that your help means everything to us and we are more grateful than I can express in words here. When we get Silas through the other side of this, we will have a huge party and you are ALL invited!

Silas day 16, Pt II

Just got back from the 11pm feed. Silas was hungry! He stood unaided and drank 1 litre straight down and another 500ml in a couple of efforts, after a couple of pees and a bit of a walk around the paddock. He also had 40ml of strawberry flavour acidophilus yoghurt (all we had in the cupboard - a trip to the shops tomorrow methinks!). His temperature has been under 39 ALL DAY - it was 38.4 at 11pm. The thermometer was also easy to insert which means that his 'back passage' is clear. Please let this be him turning the corner. The milk mixture has been diluted to 50g/litre which is 1/2 the recommended rate but maybe his wonderful Clydesdale constitution is demonstrating that it really does not need lots of fat, gawd knows his mum used to do frighteningly well on grass alone for all but the last couple of month's lactation! He also downed a litre of electrolytes earlier tonight as well as having three litres of milk in a three hour period in the afternoon. He's still very sore but he has not been grinding his teeth today so something at least must be feeling a bit better. I am going to bed hopeful tonight ...