Hi y'all! Sorry it's been a minute. All sorts of entertaining horsey goings-on have been afoot.
Lex
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| With the ever-faithful Dr. Slim |
Lex is doing well, and it's only two more days until she can go out in the roundpen for thirty minutes with some Ace! YAY. She has been excellent with hand-grazing, standing on the crossties to be groomed, and dealing with life in general. I am so impressed. Also, she is done with her stupid Adequan shots, so now I only have to inject her when she needs Ace. Which, given that she's so chill, I'm hoping isn't much, but better safe than sorry.
Zephyr
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| Sooooo handsome. |
Zephyr has continued to be a very good boy, though I think I won't keep riding him in the field. His canter is TERRIBLE, and the field just gives him too much room. He needs to be made to balance himself. So he's spent some time on the lunge line, but I think I'm getting carpal tunnel and using the lunge whip hurts, so trying to get him cantering on the lunge line is tough. We're aiming him at a schooling show at the end of August. R wants us to do Training 1 and 2, but I'm not sure we can canter and stay in a dressage ring at the same time. I'm especially concerned because he's been Abscess City lately and we haven't had a chance to ride every day for a few days. He popped one abscess out of his coronet band, which is normal, although he wasn't ever lame. He also popped one out his
crest, which I have never seen. I kinda went hmmm. Then today I was feeling along his crest and found another spot that seems like it's an abscess about to pop. What in the world is this? R thinks he had some whack to the neck of some sort and the trauma just went two directions. I hope she's right but he doesn't seem to be feeling like himself. I went out in the field to check on him and he just wanted to snuggle. It was cute, and he's always a friendly guy, but he doesn't feel good. I'm hoping tomorrow he's better. If he were my horse, I'd have the abscess cultured, but Regina wants to wait and see, and I don't blame her.
Duchess
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| Best. Horse. Ever. |
Duchess is doing great. Everyone loves her. This week she's the camp horse for a really cool 12 year old and they're getting along famously. And I got to try riding side saddle, which was weird but fun. I'd try it again! But only on Duch, because she's so good, she does what you want and keeps doing that until you tell her otherwise, so you don't have to make constant corrections. Love her.
The New Kid
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| CUTENESS. |
Meet Veronica! R and I picked her up the other day. She's a VERY fancy Dutch warmblood who has been sitting in a field doing nothing for years. She's made some pretty babies too. So we're hoping she can be a lesson horse/broodmare. When we went to try her, the lady pulled her out of a field with weeds that were actually taller than her, and she's big. I tried her on a driveway full of rusty farm equipment and she reared a little. It was nerve-wracking, I really hate rearing, but she really has the best trot I've ever seen in my life. We've been calling her "Dreamy Trot Mare" because no one really likes the name Veronica for a horse. Anyway, R and I decided to sleep on it and the next day we told the lady, who knows R well, that we want to try her at home for a little while. So she's at Lex's barn and I'm riding her every day for two weeks to see what happens. So far, she's been great, although she definitely acts like she needs her teeth done. She's unhappy in the bridle. We'll see how she does tomorrow, but I'm enjoying riding her. She's going to be a good girl.
I think that about gets everyone caught up! Also, congrats to
Sprinkler Bandit for her new OTTB!
Yay for fun happenings in your horsey life, and awesome that Lex is going to be able to start going out soon! :D
ReplyDeleteOn Zephyr: I would have those "abscesses" checked out sooner rather than later, especially if he's gotten so many in such a short period of time. FL summers are prime time and location for summer sores, aka Florida sores. Usually the horse has an open wound, which can be as small as a bug bite, that then becomes infected by flies transmitting stomach worms (habronema species). The wounds are slow healing and if not covered, can become larger. Treatment with ivermectin (sometimes both oral and injectable), corticosteroids and antibiotics, and keeping the wound covered, will help the sores heal. I was lucky that my own horses didn't develop these, but there were always at least 2 horses in the barn suffering from them at any given time during the summer while living in FL. The sores do look like abscesses in the beginning, and are common on the lower legs (coronet bands, where they look just like abscesses, and fetlocks) and face (eyes, lips and chin are common) but can occur anywhere on the body where there is open skin. My BM's mare was super sensitive to horse flies, and they would leave giant swollen bites on her neck and shoulders...which promptly turned into summer sores if she didn't cover them up STAT. :(
Here is some more info:
http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=789880 (the photos are very extreme cases. I only ever saw one horse with a case that bad, and there was some owner neglect going on.)
http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vmth/large_animal/equine/pdfs/UCD_Equine_FS_Habronema_pamphlet.pdf
Hopefully Zephyr's abscesses are just bad reactions to bug bites or just a result of trauma to the neck like his owner said, but I would keep an eye on them and try to keep the flies off when the new bump pops. Did the one on his crest heal okay or is it still open and oozy?
Blegh, abscesses. Glad Lex is steadily improving :)
ReplyDelete