This 'n That

[jetmech]

Todayy I went to the U to see our Judy,Judy,Judy. She had her nose right up against the door opening when she heard her name being called out. Once in her stall, I combed her all over again and then used the mane and tail "brush" on her. (don't think it is much of a brush). Then I used the soft brush and that seems to be soothing. She would move around so different parts were at hand that she wanted brushed!!!! One of the keepers came in and pulled apart the hay in the hanging feeder and boy she lit into tha in a heartbeat. She had been eating what was pulled apart in the corner of the stall, but the hay in the hay bag must have been pretty special. She would get her lips around some and then give it a yank out and just chewed away on it. The way she kept pulling the hay out, I thought that her mouth must be getting full but it did not seem so. She was really enjoying it and the girl told me that she had eaten the feed that they gave her as well. How wonderful it is to see her enjoying her food so much. She is such a beautiful girl and when she fills in again, oh my!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When she gets home she will be able to give the others a run for their money when it comes to the hay department. She is special and she so appreciates anything that you do for her. Even when she had to pee, she made sure her backside was away from me and her head next to me so that I could scratch between her ears. Just before I left, I just rubbed her all over with my hands and I think she like it! She kept turning her head to watch me. What a special girl she is, definitely one of a kind.

[SandyG]

Thanks, Pam, for your thoughts about Judy!Judy!Judy!. She is rather special, isn't she?

My head is spinning trying to figure out who to move where and when. Isaac is here this Thursday and Friday to trim everyone and so I need to rotate the big, wild herd into the new barn to hook and feed a few times. Can you say "Yahoo!!!"?

Remembering where the rich hay is and where Miss April cannot be...remembering to keep at least one pasture between Dudely and Handsome and PONY!....remembering that Isaac likes to work on the bigger ones on the first day when he is the freshest....and remembering the ice. Always the ice!

It will be good to get Jeri-Ann's shoes reset and the rest of the herd trimmed. This rock hard ground tends to chip and crack their hooves. Hooves that get brittle in the frigid temps.

So, I need to get my paper out and draw and draw and draw. Good thing I took statistical analysis in college, eh?

[SandyG]

The journey took six hours with the slippery snow, but we are safe and sound and Judy!Judy!Judy! is home. And guess what?

She is eating her feed in the barn with all the others!!!!!! What a victory this is! I am so happy for her! No drooling and very little dropping on the floor. And she is eating. Bless her hungry tummy!!!

And let me tell you something else - the timid, withdrawn, compliant little girl is somewhere else. The mare I brought home is alert and her head is up and she is actually a bit pushy! I was standing with her in the hallway before we loaded and one of the techs was asking about Laddee. So we talked for 3 minutes. Literally.

Judy began to paw the ground and push at me with her head! Oh, the laughter that brought! There is a personality in there!!!

So, let's proceed with caution and hope to fill out that skinny frame of hers. She has 400 pounds to go before she catches her twin, Sandy. But at the rate I'm seeing tonight, she'll make it there this summer!

[SandyG]

I am such a happy camper!!!

Gerrick just left and the pellet stove in the parlour is once again operational! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Seems a control board was the fault and once that was replaced we are once again generating heat! Just in time, too. I was losing about 2 degrees per day and it was 52 in the dining room this morning. Long underwear, wool socks, and a down vest were the normal attire for a while. Sure makes me appreciate the heat when it is here, that's for sure!

Horses continue to need homes - please see the bulletin board if you or if anyone you know is looking for a horse. So many out there are days from euthanasia......so many.....

[SandyG]

HAH!

* 10ml of Vitamin E supplement to help build back muscles that had atrophied

* Thirteen 150 mg tablets of ulcer healing medicine dissolved in warm water

* 1.5 scoops (9 quarts or so) of Equine Senior high fat feed

All gone! Taken and eaten just like a hungry mare should. I scratched her face and then watched Judy head over to the stock tank to consume that precious water. Uh-Oh! Head up! Sandy left the barn! Out to the pasture Judy goes to be with her twin!

It does a heart a ton of good to see her coming along. A long, slow process on a mare that is that aged and that depleted, but I am so happy to see even the smallest step forward. Her head is up and there is a personality in there! Good to see!

And on the other side of the barn is 2,100 pounds of success. Laddee, the Little Belgian Mare consumes her feed, as usual. Eating is one of her greatest pleasures and I am only too happy to supply her the feed that brings her such pleasure. She is steady and solid. Happy to be alive and working on getting that big Handsome to accept her . . . away from the feed bucket, Laddee. Approach him away from his feed bucket . . . . Remember, Handsome was once starved, too . . . .

Somebody once told me I feed these horses too much . . . spend too much money on feed. I would suggest anyone who thinks that be with me at feeding time. Contentment. Pleasure. Calm. Gratitude. Safety. Pure joy. Come and see what a little bit of feed does for these forgotten ones . . . . It is the magic that we can give them. It is truly the best part of the day.

[SandyG]

A slight change to the schedule for Isaac -

He and Betty will arrive Friday morning and will spend Friday and Saturday trimming horses. Betty had plans for Thursday and so Isaac was planning to come without her. I called him back and suggested that we delay one day so Betty would be available.

It worked out for the driver and Isaac and so all three will come up this Friday morning. We will eat dinner Friday evening at Menomonie Applebee's if anyone cares to join us - time will vary depending upon how the day goes. Our first day will be the big herd: Beauty, Babee Joy, Jeri-Ann, Unit, Spirit, and Dudely. We will also try to trim Handsome and Lanna so that the second day of trimming is a bit easier and the feet are a bit smaller.

Everyone will be dewormed, as we usually do during trims but no vaccinations this time. That will be in the spring.

And I must add, it is so very nice to have a house that is in the 60's in the morning.....oh, the blessing of heat!

[SandyG]

Do you remember the woman who had a show horse and another horse? Her original show horse and he had come up lame? Do you remember she asked for our help in re-homing the lame horse?

We emailed and she ended up selling the show horse and keeping her lame horse. Walking with him like you would walk your dog, she said. She kept him because she loved him. She kept him for all the right reasons.

Well, I just heard from Jeanne. What a story of love! Read below:

Hi Sandy ~

How are you doing? Jeanne & Sol here! Just wanted to give you an update on Sol.

Well, you won't believe this....He is sound!!! I had a gal at the barn where I board just saddle him up with a hunt saddle and ride him at the walk a couple of times a week. Kerstyn is a twig, so there is not much weight to her, so she is safe on him. I wanted to see where he was at, so I was down at the barn on a Sunday watching her ride him at the walk and I said "Lets try trotting". Ok, so she trots him around and he is fine! So she trots trots trots and he is still fine. So I said "Lets try cantering". Still sound! My jaw falls to the ground... He has been fine ever since! We just work him lightly twice a week so as not to stress out that fetlock. He is much happer being back working again. In the spring, will work a little harder and see what he can handle. I am being very careful with him. He is precious! =)

I guess maybe my prayers, faith, hope, lots of great care and love has done it! You were so kind to me and I wanted to let you know how he is doing. Not sure if he will come back as a show horse, but you never know. If he can't, thats ok too. I love him as he is. Sound or not. This has brought me to tears several times. Gosh, what a big baby I am! LOL!

I hope all is well with you and that the Refuge is doing well.

Take care, Jeanne & Sol

[tracy1]

That's a wonderful story, I'm so glad for all of them, thanks for sharing.

[SandyG]

Here we go.....!

The first hoof will be raised at 9am this morning. Our specialized farrier, Dave, will be here to reset his Miss April's shoes. Notice he is resetting "his" Miss April's shoes. That's what I'll hear for the 90 minutes.....

"That's my girl. What a girl. You are my girl. Good girl. That's my girl. Isn't my girl just something else?"

Then tomorrow Isaac and Betty will arrive and we will trim 36 hooves tomorrow - 9 horses. Probably the big ones first. Then on Saturday, we will trim the remaining 32 hooves - 68 hooves in 2 days. Isaac will be tired and sore and I'll be tired just from watching!

And I know from history with this man that the very last hoof will be trimmed as carefully and gently as the very first hoof. Isaac has a gift and we are so blessed that he shares his gift with us. The horses love and trust him. As do I.

[SandyG]

Well . . . . . .

Tomorrow morning will be interesting. I just moved everyone around and all are doing very well indeed except for the big herd! Of course they are wound up! Dudely, Unit, Spirit, Beauty, Babee Joy, and Jeri-Ann making the earth move as they run and play and chase each other. Hooking them in the morning may or may not happen. We'll see . . . . .

I fed Spirit tonight in a stall so she got a taste of feed. Everyone else was hanging around pleading for some, too, but I wasn't about to go in there tonight and attempt to halter and hook them! Hah! Not tonight. But maybe in the morning. We'll see what 12 hours brings. Hopefully boredom!

Worst case, Isaac does the big herd on Saturday and we get all the "little ones" done on Friday. It will all be told in the feeding in the morning.

Oh, and Miss April is in heaven! I had to put her in the corral to keep her in an area with only grassy hay. With her in the corral is Laddee, PONY!, Blaise, and Handsome. April literally started dancing when she saw him walking into the corral to join her! Dancing!

[SandyG]

I don't mind telling you that I am tired. My body isn't too bad except the legs and the arms. Isaac must feel like he's been through a grinder, however.

We did eleven horses today - most of them big ones using the shoeing bed. Beauty is even more awesome than last time. She was so calm. Offered her feet to us instead of us having to winch them up. Babee Joy just rested in the straps. And Jeri-Ann stood while we reset her shoes. Still no problem with all that hammering. Amazing.

Everyone is back in their proper pastures and that helps. Something new is always a bit frightening, you know, so we are all off of our feed a bit. I'm expecting tomorrow morning will be feedings as usual.

We will put shoes on Handsome's front hooves next visit. He has a center crack right below the blow out of an old infection site, so the crack will hit the blow out and we risk a full crack of his foot. So to prevent that, we will shoe his front feet for the time it takes the blow out to grow out - a year, perhaps.

Jeri-Ann's feet look better already with just one cycle of wearing shoes. I had thought that but Isaac commented on it also, today. Good to hear that someone else sees the improvement.

We finish the herds tomorrow and then Isaac will help me get the 20 foot gate out of the snow so I can make a stall for Judy. But we both think the day should go pretty well. Only 36 hooves to trim!

[SandyG]

I'm in the house only long enough to get fresh socks and boots on these stumps I'm calling feet and to change jackets and gloves. Dr. Brian just left and I have work to get done yet out in the barns, but it has been a tough 24 hours.

Last night during chores, Judy went down. She fell asleep at her feeder and her legs just collapsed. She woke up when she hit the ground and then it was the job of getting her up. She was tied in the corner next to Sandy and she had a blanket on. And yes, she was still tied to the wall.

I managed to get her up without anyone getting too bruised. But it was terrifying for her and me. I chalked it up to exhaustion from the stress of the trims and being dewormed. I watered her and watched her for a while and she seemed tired, but calm.

When I went out to the barns at 4am this morning she was down in the pasture. Lieing there looking up at the sky, watching the snow come down on her. Sandy was standing next to her. The ground told me she had been trying to get up but obviously had not been successful. I rolled her over onto her other side and she was able to keep the momentum going and right herself.

Throughout the day today, she appears to "short circuit" when she falls asleep. She stands and begins to doze, her head slowly drops to the ground and then her legs just fold up. She awakes when she hits the ground.

Dr. Brian thinks it could be a heart issue creating a shortage of oxygen and blood to the brain or a neurological issue. Neither issue is really anything we can do anything about, but we need to prevent her from breaking a hip or causing herself injury. We did pull some blood to see if anything had changed significantly from our last blood panel.

She did colic slightly after the deworming, as well. Manure found its way out - finally! - late this morning and so she has begun to take in some hay and water again. Her overall condition could also be accentuated due to weakness from not eating, too.

So, Isaac helped me hang gates before he left on Saturday, thank heavens! Because of those gates, I have a stall in the big barn with a stock tank in it and I can feed her there and observe her without being outside in the wind. Judy does well when Sandy is near but I will need to see if she can stay inside even if Sandy goes outside during the night.

Judy remains calm and continues to be gentle and compliant. She is not in pain that we can tell. Her heartbeat is at 50 or so per minute which is ever so slightly elevated, but there is some stress in falling over, I'm sure. So, I'll go out and get evening feedings done and then observe her for a while to determine if I keep her in tonight or let her go outside. This storm is lousy timing, for sure....!

I'll post the next time I'm in the house.

[SandyG]

Late this afternoon Dr. Brian talked with the vet from the U of M about Judy. She is slightly anemic but otherwise, her bloodwork today looked good. No one really had an explanation for the low blood count, but all agreed that her kidneys and liver were still working well.

From the symptoms she is showing, it seems that we keep coming back to Sleeping Sickness. The head dropping, the "folding up" of the legs upon dozing, the awakening when falling, and the continued attempts to sleep while standing. The cause is extended sleep deprivation.

So, I spent some time thinking about when Judy was last eating and seemed content. When was she last "healthy". And I came up with the time when she and Sandy were not yet integrated in the herd. When Judy did not have to spend her time chasing Sandy and watching to see if Sandy was being approached by another horse.

After all, 33 years together with just one other creature, alone in a pasture, is a long, long time. Then you are suddenly uprooted and moved to another pasture and, on top of it all, there are other horses to contend with. Too much change in too little time? Too much to guard for so you can never sleep?

So, I spent the time to hook everyone and move a few horses around so that Sandy and Judy could once again be in the corral. Alone. In their shelter with their water and their hay. When I came in just now, they were standing like two bookends looking out at the drifting snow.

And just a little while ago, I hooked the two of them and fed them. Sandy, of course, inhaled her food. And Judy, to my grand and grateful surprise, at 2.5 scoops of feed. That's more than she has eaten in the last 3 days combined.

So, no certainties but some ideas. I will watch her and hopefully, just hopefully, sometime tonight she will put herself on that bed of hay in the shelter and take a nap. A much needed nap for a wonderful little mare.

[SandyG]

Sandy and Judy are an interesting pair. Much like a divorcing couple from River Falls that I dealt with these last two weeks - he had moved on and she was clinging. Sandy is more than happy to move on and become part of The Herd. In fact, she spent most of the night next to the corral gates watching for a sign of her new friend, Josephina.

Judy is clinging. She is still dependent upon Sandy and wants no other horse but Sandy. Where Sandy goes (and stands) so does Judy. So we spent most of the night out in the corral next to the gates. Good thing the weather is 20 above instead of 20 below.

But food brought life back to Judy. She is hungry again this morning. No eating of the hay cubes I had placed in the corral shelter last night, but then again, eveytime I went out to them these two weren't in the shelter either. This morning's feed is exciting to Judy and she is eating. I'll give them an hour or so and we'll see how well she does.

Had to tie Sandy while Judy eats, of course, or that girl will inhale both buckets. There is no eating problem with Sandy (this human one, either - we have that in common!). Head still drooping but Judy seems calmer. No competition for Sandy's attention. We'll see what a few days in this setup brings.

Meanwhile, PONY! and Gracie are stuck together like a couple that has been reunited after a long seperation. Appaloosa Mare is not sure where to go. Handsome is eating over on the Gelding's Side and I'll watch like a hawk today to see how Dudely responds. Need to insure Handsome's safety. Hopefully, Dudely is a little less threatened by him now.

No use plowing until the snow and wind stops. Once again, good thing this snow is light and not the heavy wet stuff the East Coast was covered with! So see . . . . there are good things about a Wisconsin winter, eh?

[SandyG]

More information . . . .

Just talked with Dr. Brian. Bless his heart, he is concerned and even though he is very busy, this horse is very important to him. We are so blessed to have him on our team.

Anyhow, he has pondered the symptoms and timings and really doesn't believe it is West Nile or even Lymes Disease. There is always the possibility, but he doesn't think so. The timing just isn't right for the symptoms to show now.

The anemia he doesn't worry about until a second test shows the same deficiency. Could be a test error and yes, could be a result of prolonged lack of food. He was thrilled, though, to hear that she is eating.

And he does not discount the emotional side of things for a horse. He, too, believes that they can have anxiety. And we cannot relate to 32 1/2 years on a pasture with one horse and then one day just being moved and asked to become a part of a herd. So life in the corral may give us clues as to the source of her inability to sleep.

Anyway, he asked to be kept posted and if anything changes to let him know and that he will also continue to ponder her. He asked where she was and if he was close by, could he just drop in and observe her. What a dear man. Gotta love the heart of that man!