Tag Archives: horsekeeping

Yay! Tonight things are much better with Miss Mocha. Last night was pretty depressing, but I’m not surprised, in retrospect. Last night, Mocha wouldn’t touch more than the toe of her left fore to the ground, was horrendously camped under herself and would not put much weight on the right hind.

I had visions of Neurological Stuff. It took Gregg supporting her on the right hind for me to be able to do the diaper/vetwrap/duct tape whamdoodle on the left fore, and even at that she had to pull back on one cross-tie with Gregg steadying her to get it wrapped. Yeah. Scary thoughts last night. With another friend having to put down her mare, I wasn’t in any mood to share. OTOH, I took a look at the cavity in the left fore and…yeah. I’m thinking abscess plus dirt packed into it.

Tonight, though, while she was low in spirits (I think she was hurting), still, she came out of the stall weighting most of her left fore and….weighting her right hind. A little wobbly, but it got better after I gave her the grain with Bute powder (OMG, handful of plain oats, molasses, bute and a wee bit of water–she slurps it right up. MUCH better than the paste!) and then took her for a short hand walk in the arena. She lined right out in the soft footing but after four rounds was ready to call it enough. Getting out really helped her mood, and thankfully she’s a sane horse, so I just let the lead rope swing and had her pick her own pace.

Afterward, she was much more cheerful (I’m sure the Bute was also kicking in by then!). Of course, she wasn’t refusing treats, either. She did her usual thing of hanging out at the open door while I swept the alley, then got her typical three cookies before I went to flip the grass hay stuck behind her salt block where she could reach it.

Did not rewrap tonight. I plan to do that every other day. I put enough duct tape on that the wrap is holding solid, and she’s not coming out of the stall unless I do it right now. The less I muck with things at this point, my sense is, the better. She just needs time to heal up. Whew. That, I can handle.

She was a wee bit stiff in that right hind when first walking out in the alleyway, but loosened up as we walked in the soft arena. That had me more worried than the left fore–the heel crack in the left fore makes that pretty obvious. The farrier can work with one bad leg, but two? Not gonna ask that of any farrier except in the direst of straits. So I was very relieved tonight when she came out of the stall bearing weight on that right hind and not being ouchy about it. She was tight walking down the alley to the arena but walked out of it, so that’s good.

Currently, the plan is to hold steady until the farrier gets by on his regular schedule. I want to get that right hind more time to heal up. K is pretty good with her stiffnesses, but still…I can stick the diaper/vetwrap/duct tape on her until he gets here in a week and a half, it gives that heel time to mend, and it gets whatever she did to that hind leg time to settle down more.

Learning how to manage a fully clipped horse is–um–interesting.  Mocha was cold this afternoon–39 degrees in the barn, 35 degrees outside, and a strong east wind with gusts powerful enough to rock my Subaru on the way out.  Fully clipped girl needs more than her winter blankie in such conditions, clearly….anyway, a gust of wind caught her in the hind end when I brought her out and started to take her blanket off, enough to start her shaking.  Pulled her out of the wind and she settled, though she quivered any time I started to pull the blanket off.

What to do, what to do…Gregg suggested I not ride but put her fleece cooler underneath her regular blanket.  I noticed that she settled out of the wind. so decided to ride her with the cooler on to get her warmed up a little bit and see how she felt.  Only how to do it with a Western saddle?  It’s a full cooler, not a three-quarter, and I wasn’t sure about juggling saddle pad, cooler and saddle by putting it under the saddle like you’d do with English.  Plus I wasn’t sure of drama possibilities.  So, cooler over saddle.  And I saddled with the regular stall blanket rolled back, and immediately replaced with the cooler once the saddle was cinched.

She was tense and tight when I first climbed on, but I think that was cold.  We walked a little bit and she relaxed as she warmed up, and then she wanted to GO.  We compromised on a quiet walk-trot session (and trot was collected posting trot, not zoomies) because I wasn’t sure about cooler over saddle.  When she showed she was calm about cooler flapping, we did some trotting, and then a very short lope in each direction.  Both times she wanted to GO–not because of the cooler but because she was finally warm and feeling good.  So not a long-term cold but a quick chill.

Still, not a lot of time under saddle, just enough to get her warmed up a little, I could tell she felt just fine under saddle once she was warm, but I wasn’t sure how much she’d been drinking or how long she’d been cold.  Just wanted to get her warm and moving.  She’d been out playing with the other mares earlier, so I think she just had cooled off and then that one stiff gust nailed her in the rear and blew up underneath the blanket just as I started to pull the blanket off.

When I left the barn (after helping clip a couple of difficult horses), she was happily noshing down on hay and quite comfortable in her double layer.  By the numbers it’s not that cold here, but for a freshly clipped girl, I guess it is.

Miss Mocha has always possessed a certain, well, proprietary attitude about her tail; more so than many other horses I’ve known.  Her dam was notorious for being able to aim a lash of her tail into the eyes of a stall mucker that annoyed her; Mocha’s tail doesn’t get braided due to the request of the current stall cleaner.  The Girl learned the skill from her mama, and she’s a expert with the sharp tail (perhaps a reason why she likes to soak her tail in the water bucket?  Now I’ve yet to figure that one out).

Today was hock injection day.  Her usual vet for this procedure manages to tie up Mocha’s tail in a nice knot that Mocha can’t swish out.  I had some extra time before the vet came so I decided to practice my nonexistent braiding skills and create a rough mud tail using braid bands to secure it.

Oh my.  Once I flipped the partially braided tail up (okay, it was a bastard mud tail braid and very loose) and started twining it around her dock, boy, did her head suddenly come up in the cross ties.  She turned her head as far as the ties would allow in one direction, then the other, trying to see what I was doing to Her Tail.  She cooperated, but I’m certain she didn’t necessarily approve.

OTOH, it stayed braided until hocks were injected and I took the braid out in her stall.  She was very calm throughout the whole procedure and allowed me to move her around for the vet’s best access.

It wasn’t her usual vet but the original vet of this hospital.  I’d not had him out before, but he was on rotation this week.  I told him Mocha was Annie’s last foal and he squinted at Mocha, then a picture of Annie, and then said, “Thought so.  I was here when she was foaled.”  I didn’t ask if he’d joined in the imprint training that G’s wife did but I had to wonder, as she was more relaxed with him than I’ve seen her with any of the other vets in the practice.

Interesting.  This horse always keeps me guessing.

Some horses don’t get excited or worried about vet visits.  After several hock injections, as well as tooth floats and vaccinations, it’s clear that Mocha is not one of those horses.  She’s clearly developed the association that arrival of vet truck=shots of some sort, and She Has Opinions about that.  The only other horse I’ve owned with a similar attitude was my first Shetland, Windy Foot, whose reaction tended toward heading for the hills (usually dragging me along with him) when the vet rolled in wearing his white coat.

Mocha’s not so bad, but still, on Friday when the vet truck drove in while I rode her in the outdoor, she clearly recognized it.  Flick of the ear backward, snort, tensing of the back, and the Evil Eye.  I wrapped up the ride (short and mellow, more just to get her worked a little bit) and brought her inside.

Another horse was getting dental work plus injections and, since he’s a boy, a speshul Vet Treat of Sheath Cleaning.  I parked Mocha in the crossties nearby and brushed her up.  While she wasn’t freaking out about watching her stablemate get drilled and shot and scrubbed, she Was Watching.  Closely.  At one point she spooked when the owner of the other horse, someone who she’s known from birth (like me), tried to pet her nose.  A little walk outside to let her relax took care of that. But otherwise, she was happy to supervise and watched the vet closely, ears pricked, curious, and if she could, attempting to investigate the vet’s tools.  If she’d been loose I’m sure she would have been Very Helpful.

After the other horse got his sheath cleaned (with cold water, to which he let us know he wasn’t happy but the owner had forgotten to bring a thermos of warm water and the heater in the barn died), it was Mocha’s turn.  As usual, she let us know what she thought of the sedation shot (not much.  She gets a nose chain for sedative shots because she pitches a little fit).  Once sedated, it was Dentist Time.

Equine dentistry can be a bit of a shock for the uninitiated to watch.  It involves long drill bits, a huge dental speculum, and a mechanism (with this vet, a large metal hoop that’s padded) to hold the horse’s head steady while it’s sedated and the vet is drilling.  Mocha’s cooperative through the process though she does roll her eye constantly.  Think of a teenaged girl’s eye roll just previous to saying “WhatEVER” and that’s Mocha’s commentary.  Cooperative but letting us know it’s an affront.

This time she experimented with leaning on the hoop.  Fortunately, those devices (another vet used a large leather halter) are strung over a thick 4 x 6 in the barn for just this reason.  She sagged a foreleg and the matching hindleg.  Can’t help but think that she reminded me of my attitude during the same sort of dental maintenance work!

She didn’t need much work, despite going two years between visits.  A few sharp hooks on her molars but nothing too bad, a little unevenness in her fronts. I like that.  I’ve known some mature horses who’ve had to receive pretty intensive dental work on an ongoing basis.  She’s an easy tooth keeper, at least so far.  Hopefully I’ll see some positive results on Monday when I ride her, perhaps a bit more flexibility without those hooks pushing on her cheeks.

And then the vaccinations.  She timed the sneezes from the intranasal strangles vaccination so that she could get the vet with it.  Then we escorted Miss Groggy back to her stall, where as usual she wanted to walk right up to the wall and lean her head for a moment.  I slipped off her halter and let her orient herself for a moment.  It doesn’t take a lot of sedative for her, at least not for teeth.  She requires a bit more for hock injections and it’s not because she’s getting fussy and kicking, it’s because she switches her tail, moves her legs, and it’s more to inspire her to stand quietly because it is a joint injection, after all.  Small space to hit and consequences if it’s not just right.

By the time I left she was sniffing around for food.  None in the stall, of course, so she wouldn’t choke (this vet is very particular about that).  She had to wait for an hour.

She had the weekend off.  Light work for the next two weeks (based on my schedule, not teeth), a further vaccine at that time, and then we’ll be into harder work until it’s time to go to Miscon.  So far there’s no sign that she needs a hock injection yet (knock on wood).    Seven months so far, I’m hoping to hold off until late August if possible.  We might do a reining show in the fall so that would be about the right timing.

And then again, maybe she won’t need another injection.  I do keep hoping for that.  That would be an ideal situation and maybe, just maybe, the way she’s been working we’ll be able to stave it off or not even need one.  That would be optimal…but, realistically, she appears to need an injection about every ten months.