Wordless Wednesday

 

Back in action

 I have been rather busy this last week with a family affair, so my apologies for not getting around to reading and commenting on your blogs. 

On Sunday, I finalized the agreement on the red mare, I will be buying her outright and sending her to that lovely palomino stallion. She will be headed there the last week of May to spend 2 months and I get her back mid August. So over the next 3 weeks or so, I will be going down to help work with her on trailer loading and picking up her feet. 

Gussie's leg seems to be much improved, I unwrapped it today and am giving her the rest of the day without it to see if she is still tender and if the joint has stopped clunking. She will stay on the antibiotics until the bottle is finished. 

I think those nicks are just from when they clipped her leg for the ultrasound. 

I finally figured out how to access the photos from my Nikon, thanks to help from my brother in law. Yay! Here is a moon shot I took the day after the full Strawberry moon.

The actual day of the full moon we were clouded in

So now that I have all that figured out, I will get back to using the Nikon instead of relying on cell phone shots. 

Dallas and Rex

 Thursday I hauled Dallas up to Shayla's. She loaded and hauled well. She was turned out into a very large pasture, and then Shayla sent Rex in.

This is his first mare of the season, so he was quite pleased!

Dallas knows all about stallions, so she made him keep a respectful distance. 

Rex: "Are you sure?"

We noticed that she didn't put the boots (hoofs?) to him so figured she is close to coming in heat. 

Rex doing Rex things

That stride though!

Dallas is shedding out to her black buckskin summer colour.

After a bit of sorting out and exploring the boundaries of the pasture, they settled down and the show was over. And then today we heard that Rex covered her already! So we were right that she was close to being in heat. 

As far as the red mare goes, I got her panel test results and she is clean on all counts, so tomorrow I will be talking to her owner and see what we come up with. If I go ahead with her, she may well be going to this stallion:

The vet appointment

 The morning of her vet appointment this is what Gussie's leg looked like. Very not good   Her lameness actually increased since the original incident so I was very glad that she would have this looked at too.  

My lovely nervous nelly doesn't like hauling, by the time we got to the clinic, a 25 minute drive, she was sweated up from her ribs to her ears. 

Tell us how you really feel, Gus !

I was actually glad the vet was late; he is super busy with breeding season being still in full swing here. It gave Gussie time to decompress and relax in these surroundings. 

Oh so watchful!

By the time the vet got there an hour later she had relaxed considerably and was very well behaved in the clinic. The breeding exam ultrasound showed no issues but we took a culture just to be sure; should have those results in 5 days. So she will be going to the stud in mid June. 

As for her leg, the first thing he did was test her hoof with the hoof tester- there was no sensitivity.

So it was on to xrays.

She stood very still, no sedation, and they said what a good girl she was

Again, no problems there; in fact he was quite surprised that she shows no sign of arthritis or ringbone in a 22 year old horse. 

Then it was ultrasound time again. And that's where the issue was found, right where it shows in the photo above. He figured the original ligament injury  escalated with some kind of puncture that allowed infection to set in. That was confirmed with the ultrasound. So antibiotics, bute, and her leg wrapped at the vets and he sent me home with a tetanus shot and oral antibiotics, as well as more bandaging supplies.  

The bandaging seems to have given her the support she needs; the joint isn't " clunking" any more. I figure she will be sound again in a couple of weeks. 

So maybe she won't be retired from riding after all!

Today we moved Dallas to Shayla's place and turned her out with her stallion, Rex. More on that next post!

Say it isn't snow!

 We have a lot going on these last few days what with company over the Easter weekend. I will do a better post after Gussie's vet appointment tomorrow, but for today here is a look at what we woke up to this morning. 

Overnight Alberta got hit with spring snow, much needed moisture for the most part. It is heavy, wet and crusty. 

Back in my winter coat and boots!

Velvet, you are always a ray of sunshine!

Cue the music, "How much is the kitty in the window? "

Thumper was eager to go out, until he got out.... He climbed up on the window ledge and was meowing at me. He was Not Impressed with the snow. But it will all melt by tomorrow!

What's up

 When I brought the mares in a few days ago, i coukd see that Gussie was favouring her left hind a bit. There was some puffiness right in the ankle joint but no heat. I checked her hoof for any signs of puncture or abscess, no visible issues there. So I put the Streamz bands on her to see if that could help. Next day the puffiness was gone and she didn't seem sore, but this was happening :

It looks like what the stifle joint does when a horse has string halt.  Her vet appointment is in 9 days so I am hoping that he can help me understand what is going on. Either way, it looks like her riding days are over, so she will retire to being a mom for a couple of years. 

In other news, Shayla is taking over Dallas for her mare herd, so I found another mare to check out locally. I like her bloodlines and so I went to see her. 

She is a big mare, around Gussie size or a bit shorter

Her owner is an elderly rancher who raised her, but at 10 years old, she has slipped through the cracks. I like her build, and the fact that she was standing tied- although he said she is hard to catch, that doesn't really bother me. 

She reminds me of Jayne, but totally different pedigree

Her feet are in horrible shape, I think they have never been done and have just been allowed to wear off in pasture. The rancher said he will get his daughter to work on her getting better to handle her feet.

I handled her a bit, she was very light on the halter, never tried to pull against it either tied up or in hand, although I could see she was a bit worried about what all this attention was about after 10 years of being on her own. Overall, I think she will be a nice mare, and I may go into a breeding lease on her- pending the results of her DNA disease panel test. I pulled hair on her and sent it to Animal Genetics, so once I have that info it will determine whether or not I go ahead with taking her on. The rancher is thinking he may have made a mistake in not starting her under saddle when she was a younger horse! Her pedigree is a mixture of run and cow, so if I do go ahead with her, she should cross well on Shayla's stallion. 

Out

 Now that we are getting more spring like weather, and the ground has thawed some, it was time to fix fence on the 15 acres  so I could let the mares out for grazing. 

The winter winds and possibly wildlife had broken the top strand of the white electrical tape, so we patched that and totally replaced the bottom strand which had been patched too many times. I also added pickets to help with wind resistance, as the fence posts there are 30 feet apart. 

I was a bit concerned about that 4 ft. gate, 

hoping Dallas wouldn't get trapped there- but they are all good.

One must fly when one can!

The mares were sure happy to get out! They did their exploratory gallop before settling down to find the green grass hidden below all the dead grass. 

Since then, I have been turning them out during the day, and keeping them off it at night, giving them hay instead; it's a bit too early for full time grazing, but I want them to have some to get their systems accustomed to it as the grass comes in, to avoid spring grass colic. 

I did see Gussie laying down again the day after her episode- she did lay flat out for a short while, and wasn't as worried once she got up. I think something flipped a switch for her, but I continue to keep watch to see if she continues to get that REM sleep, or if she regresses. 

What was that

 Remember how I have mentioned that Gussie does not lay down to sleep and how she will sleep standing up until her knees buckle  and she wakes up? 

It has escalated. You know the yoga move, Downward Dog? Well picture Gussie doing that- butt in the air, legs stretched out in front and head on her legs. Asleep. Then she startles and wakes up and jumps to her feet. Looking discombobulated.  I haven't been able to get video of it because it happens so quickly. 

Well, today we had been gone until the afternoon on a beautiful warm sunny day and driving in what do I see but Gussie all stretched out, apparently having a nice flat out nap - the kind she hasn't done for 2  years to my knowledge. 

I thought finally!

And then she does this.... As I was watching, her legs started flailing, and her body twitching and bouncing. My heart sank, thinking she was having some kind of seizure; 

By the time I got to the fence she seemed normal. She spotted me and came over for a visit. I couldn't see any issues. 

I stayed in the pen for about a half hour just observing. I watched Gussie who seemed to be a bit disoriented, you know like how you go to sleep in one place and wake up in another?  She looked alertly at all points of the compass as if to check and see if the world was still a safe place to be after being unconscious. 

All is well over there... 

And over there...

And waaay over there too....

And even straight ahead.

She was very concerned about where her friends were even to the point of not relaxing enough to eat the hay I had just put out. I figure it took her about half an hour to come out of whatever was going on with her. By the time I left she was pretty much back to normal .

It sure spooked me. I do have a vet appointment for her on the 23rd for a breeding soundness exam and will talk to the vet about this. And you can be sure that I will be keeping an eye on her. 

This is also a concern for me when it comes to riding. I have heard that with sleep deprivation they can fall down unexpectedly. So that is also something I can discuss with the vet. 

There is other stuff going on around here, which I will save for my next post.