26 Dec Eryka & El Dorado
All About Eryka & El Dorado!
This is Eryka and El Dorado (Ed), when they arrived at Twin Oaks on September 10, 2016 they were severely underweight. Eryka is a gorgeous flaxen chestnut colored Trakehner, which is a warmblood bred and El Dorado is a handsome Palomino Quarter Horse. These two beauties were deliberately starved by two different local boarding stables when their former owner could no longer afford to pay their board. We were asked to take them, one look at them and needless to say, we could not say no. We do not know how can you feed all the other horses in your barn, and not feed these two lovable, sweet horses, but it goes on more often than people think. We rehabbed them, and they quickly started to gain weight and within two months they had gained almost all the weight they needed to. Come November, Eryka all of a sudden is lame, with a swollen hock. The vet came and diagnosed it as an infection. He treated it with antibiotics. Nothing was working, X-rays were taken, we were hot compressing, cold compressing, rounds of antibiotics, muscle relaxers, reiki, you name it and we tried it. She stopped eating and lost all of the weight she had gained. After weeks of not being able to put weight on her leg everyone was starting to lose hope. One night during her nightly hot compress, a little splinter popped out and the infection started to drain. Talk about relief! Not only for poor Eryka, but for us as well! It took months to get her system back on track due to all of the antibiotics and medications she was given. She has finally gained all of her weight back but she will most likely have a weakness in her hock for life. Before Ed & Eryka’s string of traumatic events, their previous owner had owned them for almost 20 years, using them to give lessons and trail ride. Today Ed and Eryka are two fat, happy, healthy, horses that like to sun bath with their new friends Jan & Attila.
