Gittin' it Done!! Chores, Drunken Llama + Vet Visit

Today was Do Everything Day!

The vet came out and gave Annie & Mr. Strut all of their vaccinations, new Coggins tests, basic checkups and fecal tests. She gave me an A+ for weight management, and said Mr. Strut was well over his founder and quite capable of being ridden (yay!) but did confirm that he has Equine Metabolic Syndrome (basically, type 2 diabetes for horses). Damn. I'm not really surprised though-- he is a gluttonous, cantankerous old fat man from the south, after all!

The vet recommend dry-lotting him if possible. I'll have to think about that-- I'm really hesitant to lock him in the concrete yard all the time, and also hesitant to destroy any part of the pasture. Strut has mangled two grazing muzzles already, so that's not an option either. The vet said my "short pasture" (the small area I fence off from the big pasture, to reduce how much my horses eat) is fine and all, but while it reduces how much they eat, it's worse for them in terms of what they're eating.

Fly masks and mosquitoes in March-- ugh!

The short, constantly-grazed grass actually increases the sugar in their diets because the tiny grass buds that form new growth are higher in sugar than the long grass on older, un-grazed pasture. *sigh* I can't win! So now what? Any suggestions, faithful readers?

While the vet was there, I had her tranquilize Nash the Uncooperative Rescue Llama, so I could finally clip his shaggy butt. I was afraid that he wouldn't go down, like our last little adventure with tranquilization, but nope-- he fell right over and started snoring, with his tongue sticking out of his mouth!! It was the most hilarious thing ever. My mother came out to help me, and it's a good thing she did, because we were barely finished when he woke up and got to his feet again. He looks much better now, even with the terrible haircut we gave him. I don't have clippers, so we just hacked away at the mats with scissors. In many places, his wool was actually felted from being compressed. After he woke up, he walked around with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, making very pathetic whining noises, but he soon recovered. I let him back out into the yard, which he seemed to appreciate.

Drunken Llama:

Before:

After:

More Drunken Llama:

 

The Giant Pile of Llama Wool (scissors on top for scale):

After all that, I emptied and scrubbed both 100 gallon water tanks and all the feed buckets, and the grain bin. Then I showered and went to work. Then I desperately wished for a nap. Luckily, it rained heavily in the evening, so I didn't have to tackle more chores after work!

How are YOUR spring chores coming? Are your horses shedding badly yet?

My Little Pony!!!

Of course, I'm a HUGE fan of the new My Little Pony show. It's cleverly written, beautifully animated, and some of the songs are really great. It's such a good show, in fact, that its biggest fans are college-age males (and of course 20-30-female-somethings like me who grew up obsessed with MLP). In turn, that fan base is so rabidly excited about the new MLP, the internet memes they spawned have started showing up in mainstream media. If you haven't seen it, give it a try!

Of course, my favorite pony is Applejack, the down-home country girl with the can-do attitude. She's also a palomino, like Annie! Speaking of which, if you feel the compulsion to pony-ize your own equine, you can use General Zoi's Pony Creator and make all your dreams come true! This is Annie and Mr. Strut, My Little Pony style:

Her "cutie mark" (butt symbol) is a white rose, symbolizing innocence and happy love (and of course my last name). It wasn't possible to get her markings exactly correct, the settings wouldn't let me inflate her head to appropriate size, and I couldn't resist adding jewelry...but yeah, I think this is pretty accurate :)

This is Mr. Strut-- he's either grumpy, sad, or annoyed (it's always hard to tell). His symbol is the Confederate flag, appropriate for an old-school southern gentleman like himself...and possibly because he's a bit racist. I can totally see him yelling at people. Bad Mr. Strut. He's shorter than Annie, with more delicate ears. In real life, his mane and tail really do have streaks of silver.

 This is me as a pony. I think I've captured my uncoordinated enthusiasm well. I stuck to earthy colors; blue, green, yellow-brown-- but I made them a bit brighter. My cutie mark is the symbol for geocaching, and is also a symbolic representation of the initials for my alter-ego, The Green Traveler.

 ...and this is Mike! He's fairly hairless in real life, and always a snappy dresser. Also, he's a little sinister, way buff and has a great butt.

Update on Mr. Strut's founder

Mr. Strut is doing better. He's walking much better, even without his pads, and he's getting pretty feisty about taking his Bute. He's also standing more comfortably; you can see he's much more more able to put weight on his front feet. With most other horses, the next step would be to get radiographs done, and see how badly his coffin bone has rotated. I'm going to skip that for three reasons:

1) Mr. Strut is old(ish), grumpy and has nasty arthritis. He was pretty much retired as a riding horse already. I don't need x-rays to tell me that's even more true now than it was before this bout of founder.

2) At this point, radiographs aren't going to fix anything. I could get them done in order to get custom shoes that might make him sound for riding... but again, he's pretty much retired. If he's comfy enough to ramble around the pasture without limping, I'm happy to keep feeding him as a pet. He doesn't have to work for me. Doing radiographs just for the sake of doing them only burns a bigger hole in my bank account. If I do them, it will be because Mr. Strut has gotten much worse, and the degree of rotation will tell me whether he might just be better off euthanized.

3) The cost of a vet call + radiographs is big. I could handle it, but not very comfortably-- especially after the big check I just wrote to pre-pay for all the 2012 vet bills.

 

As a matter of interest, this is one of Mr. Strut's hoof pads, before wearing and after 24 hours of squishing.

I have noticed one thing that bothers me, however; Mr. Strut is grinding his teeth. At first I thought I was hearing the squeaking chirp of one of the birds wintering in our barn, but then I distinctly heard it come from his mouth, followed by a more quiet mumble-grind. Has he been doing this all along, or is he only now starting this? Mr. Strut has a wide variety of neurotic behaviors, which I suspect are leftover from a stressful show career. However, usually those ticks are preceded by stress or excitement, like the rattle of a grain bucket, or Annie leaving on a ride.

Speaking of Annie, she is getting pretty bored, what with the dull winter environment and the grumpy Mr. Strut refusing to play much yet. She keeps trying to "help" and play with me while I'm doctoring Mr. Strut. Today she stood annoyingly close while I was taping Mr. Strut's feet. She tried to eat his pads, deliberately picked up things and dropped them in front of me, and tried to enter the tackroom. I tried tossing her jollyball around for her, but she'd much rather play with "toys" that don't belong to her. Like my file, and the Bute tube, and Mr. Strut's blanket...

These steps aren't going to last much longer! She often plants all four feet on them, and leans as far into the tack room as she can in order to try to grab hanging bits of tack. She is awfully bored. We seriously need to get training.

DIY Founder Care: Laminitis Explained & Treated, Farmer-Style

Mr. Strut has foundered.

I can't freakin' believe it. It's the middle of winter!

Let me step back and explain. "Founder" is the layman's term for laminitis, a disease that's still not entirely understood. I usually explain it to non-horsey people as "sudden, extreme diabetes." The horse's insulin levels become unbalanced. The horse's "laminae" deteriorate-- and since that's the stuff that attaches the horse's bones to its hoof, that's bad. The coffin bone (biggest bone inside the hoof) begins to sink and/or rotate downwards. Obviously, bones rotating on their own is pretty damn painful. Instant lameness results.

Laminitis is caused by... well, scientists aren't exactly sure what it's caused by. We do know that several things can be involved:

• Eating too many carbs all at once -- like a horse that gets into the feed room and eats a bin-full of feed.
• Lots of hoof impact on hard surfaces -- like trotting on a paved road for extended periods.
• Eating really fresh green grass in spring-- because the grass has lots of sugar/carbs (disrupts insulin). This is the most common cause of founder.
• Eating very rich hay, like pure alfalfa hay.
• Being overweight.
• Being insulin resistant (diabetic).
• Poor blood circulation (possibly due to lack of movement).
• Overly long hooves.
• Recently foaling.

Mr. Strut has foundered before, on rich spring grass, because I had been sick (and lazy) and not gotten him fenced into a smaller pasture in time. However, it's a mystery to me why he should do it now. What grass is left out there certainly isn't rich. The hay he's getting (half of a bale per day) is, as I have previously mentioned, is pretty grassy. He hasn't gotten into the feed room, and in fact he's only gotten grain once in a while lately, certainly not every day.

He is overweight-- after being let off the small pasture in late summer, he really beefed up out on the big pasture. He's also got semi-long toes, remnants of his previous founder episode and, I suspect, a life of being trimmed for maximum action (gaited breeds are often kept with long toes, because the horses must then pick up their feet higher when they move, looking fancier). Plus, maybe the hay is just a bit rich-- it's not pure grass, after all. Finally, he is on hard surfaces. I haven't ridden him in six months or more, but since his hay, heated water tank and shelter are all on concrete, and he tends to hang out there instead of in the pasture, so maybe that's not helping.

The problem is, Annie is also overweight, eating the same stuff and hanging around the same concrete barn area, and she's totally fine.*sigh*

I'm doing what can be done, which is:

I know these look ridiculous, but they're honestly vet-recommended, I swear. They're just foam board insulation, cut into hoof shapes, then duct-taped to Mr. Strut's foundered feet (being careful not to wrap the coronet band, as this will cut off circulation to the hoof). You can buy specially made foam pads from the vet, but even the vet admits foam insulation is way cheaper and just as effective. The foam gives his feet lots of cushion, so he's in less pain. They also help him move his weight to his back feet, by raising his front end. Finally, by filing the bottom front of each pad into an angle, they reduce the angle of breakover when he walks, putting less pressure on his longish toes.

I also got some Bute from the vet. Mr. Strut will have to be on it for about a week. Hopefully by then the worst of his symptoms will be gone. If not, he gets more Bute-- and probably probiotics, since too much Bute can cause stomach problems. (Ugh, please Lord, let's not have a colic on top of this mess.)

Mr. Strut takes his Bute like a gentleman, but then spends the next hour making funny faces about the taste.

Finally, Mr. Strut is wearing a blanket, because although its absurdly warm for December in Wisconsin (30s with very little precipitation), since he isn't moving around as much because he's hurting, it's harder for him to stay warm.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most important part!

Since diet is the main cause of founder, Mr. Strut is going to get a dietary overhaul. The first day I knew for sure he was foundering, he got nothing at all. He still had access to poor forage in the pasture to fill his tummy, but no hay. Today he and Annie are sharing a half of a bale. I'll continue to keep their hay ration a bit short until they've lost some weight, or it gets cold enough so that they really need the extra calories. Neither of them are going to get any grain or treats until I'm sure we're out of danger. That makes me sad-- no extra Christmas treats for them! Oh well. It's not like they're aware of holidays. What I'd kind of like to do is get some lower-quality hay; older and grassier, less potentially founder-causing. Unfortunately, the barn is stuffed full, buying hay in winter is always a pain as well as more expensive, and I'm wary about buying older hay. While the lower-calorie diet may help, dust and mold can cause nasty problems too. Maybe I should look into alfalfa cubes? Since they're alfalfa, I doubt they'd be less rich than my hay though.

Throughout the whole process, Annie loves to "help," especially by trying to squeeze into the tack room to see what I'm doing.

This is more impressive than it looks; she had to climb up a set of stairs to get this far.