Another Sunny Update (new news 5/7)

Hello fellow EV'ers! I have another Sunny update for you but it is one I wish was not the one I am sharing with you now. (Here is the last update I shared.)

Things were great until...well, they weren't... Sometime at the beginning of April, Sunny fractured her near-side carpus. No idea how she did it. Went to feed one morning and her knee was huge; my gut told me it was bad and it was. The vet came out that day, radiographs confirmed my worst fear.

The best option was surgery (of course) but athletical soundness could not be guaranteed. Surgery base price started at $3,000. Sunny's fracture is considered "a-typical" because apparently she is crafty enough to injure her carpus in a unique way, so surgery would probably be closer to $4,000. Plus, if a ligament was involved with the injury, that would require even more money to repair.

The other option was stall rest for 4 weeks, recheck and go from there. Prognosis for soundness is less than surgery but being there was no guarantee Sunny would be sound with surgery, stall rest seemed like the better option. (We also did not want to pay $4,000 for surgery, Sunny is wonderful, but we can't afford that expensive of a procedure.)

Our recheck is in 1 week. Sunny has done well with her stall rest and has done reasonably well taking care of herself. She gets turnout in a 1 panel x 1 panel paddock on green grass as often as our weather permits. She is in good spirits and has stayed fairly calm, despite being confined and a baby horse to boot. So thankful for her quiet nature!

My worst fear is at the recheck, the vet will rate her quality of life poor or advise her as unfit for being a child's horse (I had intended on using Sunny as a cow horse/roping horse but that is out the door after this leg injury). We are hoping Sunny will be sound enough to pack our daughter around when she is older (Sunny isn't quite a year old yet so she has plenty of time to heal). If Sunny can not have a light-work job, we really can't afford to keep her.  :(    If she can't have a light-work job because of her knee, good chance she will not be able to be bred either as horses carry 60% of their weight on their front end, add a pregnancy on top of that and that is a lot of stress to put on a compromised knee. Leaving her to be a pasture ornament. But if her knee is so bad that she can't have a light-work job or be bred, than what kind of quality of life would she have? A poor one, so the end would result would be putting her down. Worst case scenario, I know, but you know how minds like to wander when they are faced with the unknown.

I am so nervous for the next vet appointment. Sunny is in good spirits, not depressed, not in pain, and I have been trying to keep her quiet but she is a baby so every once in a while she will jump or take a few excited steps and she actually looks good when she does these things, all things considered. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that the prognosis will be good. Her knee will probably be ugly on radiographs, I hate looking at it as it is with a naked eye. But if Sunny can be reasonably sound and comfortable, than that is the best we can hope for.

This is Sunny's carpus about a week after the initial injury.


Getting some grazing time in!


Indigo sure loves her Sunny.  ♥


Wish us luck with our appointment. Here's to hoping that things will turn out for the better!

Last edited on 2020-05-07 at 21:06:26 by ᏋᏉᏋᏒᎷᎧᏒᏋ

Aww :( I really hope she is better before the recheck! She's beautiful ♥

Thank you!

I hope she heals up really quickly! It's so sad to see them hurt, hope she heals, and can be back to normal and have a good life! ♥

Hi, 

I’m so sorry that happen, hopefully she will make a full recovery. Good luck and she’s Beautiful! She looks like she is still shedding her fur or hair. I don’t know the term for it. 
Do you think she tripped on something, like a tree branch or was laying down and got up wrong?

Thank you, ladies. Your well wishes are appreciated!

I assume Sunny thumped her knee on something. Maybe she tripped? It is an expensive and scary mystery. Horses are the masters of the impossible.

I wonder if maybe another horse kicked her in the knee? 

Awww poor Sunny!  I have had so many horses injuried and have no idea what the heck they did to themselves. That's the thing about horses tho, a horse can't tell us what they did it on so it is up to us to find out what they did and even then sometimes we can't figure it out. 

Sending my love and hope that gets better real quick! ♥

Thanks, Tall Oak.  ♥

I will keep you all posted on how the appointments goes (hopefully, depends on how it goes....).

I am so very sorry to read this...such an unexpected turn for you and beautiful little Sunny. I know how worried you must be and how powerless it must feel! Any kind of medical waiting is the absolute worst. But there is hope...you have done everything you can and now you just have to trust it will turn out ok. I just want to believe that she is meant for something special. Nothing but that to say to help the waiting...except to say we are all rooting her on. She needs to make that birthday coming up soon! Hang in there, and if you can, or when you can, let us know how it goes. Hugs!

@PaintedBlonde, thank you very much for your kind words. I will try to let you all know how the appointment goes. If it doesn't go well, it may take longer for me to update everyone. Took me almost a month before I could write this one. Something about putting it in writing makes it all the more real, final.

Thank you again, everyone who responded. Your well wishes and kind words are helpful.   ♥

We are here for you no matter how long it takes, don't give that a thought, we understand.

Aww poor baby Sunny. Definitely hoping for the best for her! 

If the prognosis is bad (hopefully her rest/being a young horse will allow it to be a good prognosis!) and you can't bear to put her down, you could always look to sell/give her away as a companion animal for someone.  I don't own a horse myself - but my stepmom and stepsister have a tiny farm for their personal beef cows and keep two horses in the same fenced area as them (it's rather large, though I don't know the exact acreage of what's fenced in).  Both the horses they have on it they've gotten for free or cheap, they only ride one of them as far as I know, and they pretty much got them because they had horses when they were younger and enjoy looking at them out in the field.

Hopefully Sunny is young and comes back to a full recovery like you wish, but if not, I'm sure there is someone out there that would like to just have her be something nice to look at or as a companion for a current animal.

Thank you, Magnolia! We are to. Vet visit in a few more days... So nervous!

@Nittrous, thank you for your response and the suggestion. I do greatly appreciate the thought and it has crossed my mind before you suggested it. In a perfect world, that is a better option to, well, putting Sunny down. However, here is how I see it.

(This is my hypothetical worst case scenario explanation where Sunny is permanently lame with chronic knee issues.)
There is big difference between a 1 year old pasture ornament and a 15/20 year old pasture ornament. Horses are very expensive just to maintain and Sunny would require expensive joint injections and/or daily pain maintenance in the form of bute on top of regular horse care. Finding a suitable home for pasture ornament is difficult enough, but for a 1 year old with its whole life ahead of it, not just a few golden years left? That is asking a lot for someone to take on. And if I  somehow did find a place where Sunny could live in someone's field, I have no guarantees that Sunny would receive the care she would require for her knee. What would happen if that home's situation changed and they had to sell Sunny in a few years? Where would Sunny end up? Would the next person take care of Sunny with her bad knee? Maybe she would end up on a slaughter truck by the time she is 10 because of her bum knee and she gets passed around home to home?

Yes, maybe this is a little bit eccentric but these are the kinds of things I have to consider before making such an ultimate decision. I do hope with all of my heart and soul that the vet visit will go well for my cute little Sunny, but if it doesn't, I am the one who is ultimately responsible for Sunny and her well being. I know that Sunny has had the best life we could provide her and that would be what I would want her to know and remember.

I hope this makes sense. I do appreciate the thought and you sharing your experience, Nittrous. That is wonderful that those 2 horses are so fortunate to have a home like they do. If all horse could be so lucky!

I tear up thinking about it. I really hope that I don't have to make such a choice for Sunny. I am trying to stay positive and hope for the best. Aim for the moon, right?

Sunny got to spend the day in her tiny turnout today, which she enjoyed. She also got brushed and curried, and a fancy new bridle path with some minor ear clipping (gosh, such long ear hair was not lady like at all!). Having never been clipped, she gave no fuss whatsoever. Such a good girl! Oh, and lots of fly spray. She can't stand the flies.    ♥