Other scenes from the Play Date

Diablo is still playing the am I or aren't I pregnant game. And this pic sure does not help answer anything. I am more encouraged than I was though--evidently the Demon had been nursing occasionally, and since D was just on pasture with hay only, she had lost some weight. I brought her up, found out about the nursing, and am now seeing a little more going on with D's belly. She would still have a few months to go anyway, and I am crossing my fingers for a swell Laredo Blue baby this year rather than next.
Whatever has been going on out there has been good for the Demon. She looks great, especially for this time of year, when every one looks gross in some way. If it is not hideously shaggy hair, it is mud balls all over and jacked up manes. She is filthy, but she is in great condition.
Foxy and Rock played together a while, working on the fence like there was a cow in the mix somewhere. Maybe Rock is getting senile as well as mostly blind. I was glad to see her 28 year old butt keep up with Foxy with no problem too, especially since Foxy was wound for sound.
This is HaidaGirl--my only maiden to foal this year. She is due first, in about a month, with a Sophisticated Catt baby. I have a vision it is a boy. I don't care, I just want healthy. Since I raised HG, and remember the day she was born so clearly, this will be extra special for me. I was so proud of her, and she was the ugliest newborn there ever was, and I wondered if she was retarded as well. Turns out she is really impressive looking, smart as a whip and probably the most athletic horse we have ever raised. I will never forget calling mom to tell her she had just been born and she was hideous--and arguing with Barry to move the water bucket before she fell in it, and then she went head first into it.

I just told someone else that she was not really showing much , but that I knew she was still good. Then I looked at this pic. She is not hiding anything is she? Is she is not almost full term, there is something bad wrong here!~
But this shot does not scream huge pregnant to me. This is the pic in my head when I think of HG--and it is accompanied by a noise like a thunderstorm coming. I can recognize her hoofbeats in a crowd, they are so distinctive--but so similar to her mothers.
And here is her mama--Playmate. She is 29 and still has not been lame a day since I bought her about 10 or 12 years ago. Her feet look like draft feet, they are so big. That may have something to do with her staying so sound.
I cannot wait until we can have a three-generation family photo soon. And I hope this new baby grows up to be half the horse her grandma is.

I realize these are not particularly fascinating photos, but you gotta go with what you got when you finally get a decent day outside, that is not freezing, or raining.

I have big news to report but I do not want to jinx it so it will have to wait a day or two. As it is, I am scheduling this in advance to post while I am on my adventure---stay tuned for it

Play date for Foxy

Saturday was a gorgeous day, so all the blanketed girls got stripped--and have stayed that way. I took Foxy to the front pasture to play while Madison and I worked on fence, and unlike the other times we have attempted to get her to get some exercise, this time she took it seriously. Her first few steps released was typical spring day frolic, with bucks and farts and generally silliness. That always makes me happy.
I gave her some other girls to play with and they had an absolute ball.
Looking pretty good huh?
I so wish these photos were closer up, but whatcha gonna do--she moves a lot faster than I do!
This picture absolutely cracks me up. She is a hair under 14 hands on a normal day, and all stretched out like this, she looks like an oompa loompa.

Now that the weather is clearing up--well warming up, it is of course raining again--I am hoping to get her working out. I am jonesing to start riding, and she may be my first victim. Just a bit a day will go a long way for her condition, and I want to take advantage of her finally losing that belly.

I think we can call her pretty much a closed case

Project Rebound- Foxy, Week Five

What do you think? I was really anxious to unwrap Foxy on Thursday--first, because I skipped a week of documenting her weight as we were called out of town to Barry's mom's hospitalization last week and second, because Madison is back and had to do the feeding for me while I have been out of town so much. She feeds her less than I do, based on what feed I still have versus what I would have had if I had been feeding, but that is all right, since it was time to step it down on the feed anyway. I had no idea what to expect today.
I have been unable to start the exercise program, due to my absence, and as you see, more snow and ick than we ever get here.
I was so excited to see that we are still gaining ground, and not losing as I thought might have been the case.
Excuse the unrefined ass shots, but I wanted to show that her thighs are back together completely now, her vulva is back to proper placement, and she has had no more drainage to scald her--in fact, new hair is growing there. Also, the width is starting to increase--she is getting some shape back to her.
Still a little rough in that six inches in front of her pelvis, but it sure has come a long way. And the doc reminds me that will take exercise as much as the protein, so I am not worried any more.
Overall, I am thrilled. I so badly want it to clear up so I can get her moving some--but more snow is coming this weekend. My Gator has been buried under snow all week--yes snow IN the barn--so not very useful to me. When we stripper her off for her pictures, she was practically zinging out of her skin. She has been in a very large pen, but it has been frozen, so not really conducive to kicking up her heels--and she wanted to bail when we got her out to open ground. I think I will try to exercise her some on Saturday if it is at all possible, then turn her out in the front pasture for a little run, if it is not too gross. She seems to really want to play.

I am really pleased with the progress. I cannot believe this is the same horse that scared me so just over a month ago. She is really making me crave spring.

Project Rebound--Foxy Update Week 3

This week, I have slowed down on the Foxy feeding program. Her antibiotics are over, and she is just almost finished with her ulcer meds and her Visorbin. Then we will wait a week and draw more blood and see where we are.

But I do not need a blood test to tell me that she is so improved. There may still be some infection in there, but it is not slowing down her weight gain. I did not really expect a great jump this week, since she had already made so much progress.

She still needs weight in her butt, but there has been improvement there as well.


She needs a little more padding here as well.

But her tailbone is not protruding even as much as it did last week.
Here you can see some left over scalding, but more importantly, you can see that her thighs are touching now. They sure were not when we started this--there was about a hands width separating them when this all began.
This pic makes her back end look the worst. That tells me we still have work to do, but honestly, she does not look this bad in real life.

So I have two ideas. Is it time to switch her from all-Senior all the time to Strategy, twice a day? Or maybe three times? Or should I keep up the Senior program another week or longer? Thoughts on that?

Also, she clearly needs exercise. My options are very limited of course---it is winter in Illinois and the barn is full of round bales so no indoor round pen to work in. The footing outside is either mud or frozen all the time. I do not think it is quite time to start riding her to fit her up--that little bit of spine sticking up would be uncomfortable for her. And she is so short backed that any saddle will wack her there. And it just occurred to me that the only one not in the trailer which is still at the dealership is my barrel saddle--that might work--and Barry's heavy roper which is way too long for her. I am thinking using the Gator to trot her up and down some hills when it is not muddy or frozen, or perhaps even trotting down the road a little might be a good idea. Any thoughts on that? Suggestions on how to build some muscle up there on her topline?

I do not think it is too early for some workouts. Do you? Just how and what is my dilemma. Keep in mind that I do not have a lot of daylight hours, but could do it as I water over my lunch hour most days---I could do 20 minute sessions at first, then build up. Ideas?

In other news, dad came home from the hospital this afternoon. He managed to avoid the skilled care facility in favor of home health care. But I caught him on Facebook tonight, so he must be feeling way better than when I saw him last.

I am so looking forward to the weekend--I cannot wait to get Barry home to help me gut this barn here at the house. Sly is playing Houdini in there, while he is under supervision for his peculiar behavior yesterday. That mostly means he is making a mess playing with everything. It is long overdue for a gutting anyway, so it will be nice to get that done. Now to hope the weather holds so we can do that and replace a water spigot at the other place

Project Rebound--Week One Update

I am one dedicated sister. I did these photos in the rain today. That is how dedicated I am to documenting this little project. Also, I snuck a little peek yesterday and got so excited, it would have taken more than a little drizzle to keep me from doing this.
So am I imagining this, or is there a marked weight gain? She has a blanket rub on her shoulder--so I gave her a new one that hits her in a different place. To me, it looks like her hop bones are not protruding nearly as much. But the most significant difference to me is in her top line--it is still sticking up, but it does not look to me like there is a three inch drop off her spine like there was a week ago.
I took these shots in the stall with flash because I did not think the outside shots were showing much detail. This shot above shows the worst part of her spine sticking up.
Since I had a butt shot last week, I took another one. Since I was in the stall though, with my big lens, there was not much butt in the shot. Still though, I think it shows that she has gained quite a bit. I also see it in her thighs, from the side---not as much from the rear, but there may be some gain there. I think that might be the last place she will gain.

But I am really believing now that we are going to beat this. And it has only taken 200 or so pounds of senior in one week---Good Lord, almighty, I did not even believe a horse could eat that much!

Am I crazy? Or is there a big difference from the pics I posted on Saturday--but took a week ago tonight?

Stage 1- Verdict on Foxy

I got the results of Foxy's checkup last week. First order of business--she has a raging infection somewhere, and it is different than her uterine infection (because those are not systemic and would not have shown up in the tests we did). We do not know where, and it really does not matter--first order of business is to knock that out with tribrissen. So she gets 10 pills a day twice a day. Fun times. At least that is easy to dose.

Next, she is anemic. This means she needs something to boost her up--so she is getting Visorbin. Evidently there is some controversy regarding whether anemia is really something that happens to horses, but that is his diagnosis, so we address it.

Next, she may have an ulcer, so we are going to give her ranitidine for that. Good times. But the way she gets after her food, I wonder just how bad an ulcer she can have if she does have one--since pain will normally put a horse off her feed. They may still eat hay, but grain is something that aggravates it. This one will not be stopped from eating her grain were you to shoot at her with a high powered rifle while she does it. Cannot hurt to give her the ranitidine though, so she will get that too.

And because she will be getting all this mess, she will also get some good probiotics for her tum tum. And salt, because it is not like she is not going through enough water to cause the water company to call me and ask me what in hell is going on over there. I am not sure I get that, but that is what he says, and every time I think the Doc is nuts, I get my comeuppance.

Since most of this stuff is not stocked at my house--there may be some ranitidine laying around unless I pitched it, and I always have tribrissen--Miss Fox will be receiving quite the package of good stuff in the mail soon. I am sure she will be thrilled.

I was running late this morning, so I did not feed her Senior bucket before work. I did not worry that this would be a problem as it would force her to eat on that 1600 pounds of alfalfa in her pen. Mostly she is so busy eating grain that she does not bother with her hay lately--and that is fine, since Senior is a complete feed. And she was getting after the hay tonight, because by the time I got to the farm at 8 pm tonight, she was head deep in it. I brought her in to her stall because it is supposed to rain tonight, and although there is a nice shelter in her pen, she is more likely to stand out in the mud to eat and waste calories sucking her feet up. It took me about two hours to fill all the water troughs and grain everyone (wherein I discovered in the dark that there are some uninvited guests--Gyro and Hawk- in the middle pasture where they do not belong and I am not pleased with that development at all). During that time, she put down about 10 pounds of Senior at least. I really would have thought she would let up by now but she is still eating like a mad woman. She had another 15-20 available to keep her busy. My money says she will have it gone by morning.

On another note, the doc is not at all ruling out Cushings. Linda is pretty sure that is what is going on, as evidently, their immune system goes to hell when they have it. I really hope not. So I am trying to pretend I cannot hear them. We are going to give this infection treatment a stab and see where that gets us, then do another check on her. I am starting to get excited about looking under her blanket on Thursday, as it seems her blankey may be getting a little snug--but I could be totally seeing things I want to see instead of what is there.

So there we are with her.

In other exciting news---today my sister procured the hot tickets for us--Brooks & Dunn at the Houston Livestock Show in March! Even better, it is over my bday and crispy critter weekend. Woo hoo! They are just about my favorite and we quit going to concerts when they started costing hundreds of bucks--plus this is their last tour. She got tix for her and Edward, me and BS. BS will be back working in St L by then, and may or may not be able to go, but we got him a ticket anyway just in case. I realize that is ridiculous, that I quit going because concerts got expensive, yet I will buy a $350 plane ticket to go to one. I would not except I have a $300 voucher to use from getting bumped on last year's Vegas girls' trip and it is about to expire.....I tried to book online tonight, but could not get it done. Hopefully I get that lined out tomorrow--

Project Rebound-Foxy's first update

I took these photos of Foxy Thursday, but have not had time until now to post them. That turns out to be okay since now I have more info to add to the update
Foxy is 14 hands on a good day. She always has belly, because she is out of shape. Even when she is fit up, she has a belly, come to think of it. Now she has no ass-a-tall (worse even than my friend No-Ass Dirty) and her topline is hideous.

Ignore the scurf from her blankets--it makes her look even grosser than she is. And that aint easy.

This angle makes her look the worst. No thigh at all--and had I had some help, I would have a photo of her with her tail pulled up, so you can see how messed up her back end is. It is embarrassing to show these, but if I am going to be honest about this, I have to show the worst pics. I tried to choose the pics that made her look the worst so I can fairly evaluate her progress.
This is the goo she has been draining out of somewhere. I had already coated it all with Vaseline by the time I thought to take a picture of it. That is just plain nasty, isn't it. On a good note, I do not think she still is draining it.

Since she came in --Tuesday nite, was it, or Wednesday? She has eaten well over a bag of senior--close to two actually, and finally got through about 20 pounds of alfalfa pellets and beet pulp. She goes slower on that because she loves the senior so much that I don't think she bothers with that until she has eaten all her senior. In an hour today, she ate about 12 pounds of senior. She is not paying much attention to her hay, other to strew it all over the damn place. The rest of the time, I think she is just peeing--I had to strip the stall already and start over. In all the years of doing this, I have never seen so much pee.

Yesterday, the vet came to see her. He is doing a fecal and running a full blood panel, but we won't have significant results until early in the week. He is concerned that she may have some bleeding in her bowels, which would explain the goo. I don't think the goo texture is right for blood. I think it is more likely that she has some filthy uterine infection, but he knows better than me. The fecal will tell us more about that. He also thinks she may be diabetic, based on how much she is drinking and peeing. It is true that when she is out, I cannot monitor either of those things, but since I stalled her, she has been drinking a good 15 gallons of water a day and peeing like a freak. In the back of my head, I am hoping she is just going through so much water to make up for having limited access to it over the past ten days since the world was frozen. I do not know if that is even a possibility.


On the other hand, when I am not tending to Foxy, I am changing Rock's clothes. She does this to her blanket every couple of days. It is exhausting. I would strip her off and make her deal since it is so much warmer now, but I hate to get behind on her weight etc at her age.......so maybe I keep doing this til I am out of blankets.


ETA: Approx eight hours after I left the farm with Foxy still working on her senior feed, and with a brand new fresh un-peed in stall, I went back to check on her and feed again. She had finished her senior and was happy to get a new full bucket of it--which if she finishes it tonight will put her at about 30 pounds in one friggin day---and had pooped two or three times. Most significantly--NO FLOOD! In fact, there were no obvious pee spots at all, although I am sure she has peed. She had drank five gallons of water or so--hard to say, since I use a 20 gallon bucket for her, so I am estimating that. It will be at least twelve hours before I check on her again--probably closer to twelve, so it will be interesting to see how this 24 hour period compares to the previous 24 hour periods in terms of pee. If at all possible, I am going to put her in a pen to play all day and pee somewhere I don't have to clean it up.

Project Rebound--Foxy Edition, Fourth Edition

At least I think this is the fourth time we have gone through this with her. It might be the fifth actually. She started her intensive fatten up program tonight. I want to chronicle it in here so I have an easy reference that I cannot accidentally throw away or lose.

Foxy is 16 or 17 this year, I cannot remember right off the top of my head. I think I got her when she was six...I know she is one of the last daughters of Doc Wilson. Most years, she will toddle along just fine with her weight, then I will not pay close attention for a few days and the next time I look, she will look like shit. That can happen when the time changes and I feed in the dark after work...thus not noticing it when it happens. Also, when you look at it every day, you do not notice a pound or two here--but miss a few days and string a few lost pounds together and it is obvious. Some years she does not do it, and some she looks like hell from the time she weans a baby til the next spring. I usually give her a year off in those circumstances.
She actually stays in better flesh when she is in foal. Its odd.

This year, she stayed looking really good until after Thanksgiving. Then I noticed she was not fat like I like her, but about a 5 on the Henneke scale....way better than usual for that time of year. Even up until mid-December when I left for Ft Worth, she looked fine. I was thrilled.

Anyway....about three weeks ago, she came in with the old ladies Rock and Play and they have since been sharing a pen. She gets along well with those alligators, and they even share food. She was headed down weight wise....she looked rough....between a 2 and 4 on the scale but I knew she would spring back with some TLC. They have had a round bale of bermuda to themselves, and also have been fed about 8 pounds of Equine Senior plus about that of alfalfa pellets and a couple pounds of beet pulp every day.

It has been viciously cold, so I gave her a lighter weight blanket as it is the only one handy that would fit her when I got the bright idea mid-snow storm that she needed one...the other girls got heavier turnouts because they are old (28 and 29) and would be far harder to bring back if they got too low. ...plus they are bigger than her anyway so I have more that fit just laying around ready to be used. Since Rock destroys her turnout blanket every other day and has to have a new one put on, I have been checking her occasionally and she is putting on weight, as is Playmate.

Foxy likes to run from us at feeding time, so it was not until this last week that I got to lay hands on her enough to lift her blanket---and damned if she did not look WORSE. I do not get it. She had been getting the good feed poured to her and all the hay she could eat, and I think she looks worse. Barry thought maybe it was not as bad as it looked, just that her hair was mashed down from the blanket. I don't know. But she was shivering, so we put a heavier turnout on top of her orange blanket and started planning the Project Rebound Intensive Program.

First step was to deworm them with the tapeworm stuff. She is dewormed regularly, but what the hell, it was worth a shot to use something I normally do now. They got that last week. Then I had to finish Power Paking the babies and get them out of my barn--that happened yesterday. I was short a stall because the snow blew in to one of them--so I got the babies out and gutted a stall for Foxy tonight. I snuck up on her in the pen and got her in to the new stall, with a full bucket of alfalfa pellets and beet pulp, and another bucket full of senior. I need to reweigh my scoops of senior, but my guess is the bucket is holding close to 20 pounds of senior. She was getting after it pretty serious when I left her tonight. When it stops freezing all the time, I will also add some oil to her diet, but since it is frozen solid right now, I cannot do it now. In the past, I have used Strategy to beef her up and is has worked well---but I thought I would try the Senior so I can let her eat all she wants without concerns that she will founder.

I stripped her off to take pics, but only had my long lens and could not get the camera to focus. She might look better than last week. She is worst in her butt--where she loses the most weight every time. Not so much at the top of her butt but between her thighs, she just withers away. She has plenty of belly, and a touch of rib, but is off at the spine quite a bit. Her teeth were just done this summer and are in good shape. If I can get home at a reasonable hour tomorrow, I will take pics outside so I can track it, and then not look again for another week.

I hate it when this happens. The only way to avoid it is to keep her by herself every fall til the following spring, but that is no way to live. She is not a fan of being stalled long term either, so I will do this for a few days and let her out to play during the warmth this weekend---unless it is super muddy from the thaw--that burns too many calories. She is bedded down in such thick shavings that I know if I were to sneak up on her right now, she would be crashed out snoozing. That will keep her pretty happy for a few days, while she eats every waking moment.

Voodoo is home

We went to pick up Voodoo at the trainer today. He has been there since mid-April. When we dropped him off, he was scared and crazy looking in that his winter hair was only starting to come out. While I have talked to Bobby, his trainer, a few times, I have not seen him since. What a change he has made since then--he is so fit, and shiny and happy. It did my heart good.
Voodoo's mama is Foxy, and this is the first foal of hers that we have had long enough to get trained. She is super cowy, and broke to death, so I was excited to see what she put into her baby. I am in contact with the owner of her oldest foal--Foxy is actually a grandma which freaks me out--and he is a handy bugger. He has never been put to the cows though, so I did not know what to expect of this one when he got the chance.
I am absolutely thrilled with how well Voodoo is doing. He is perfectly happy, willing in every way, and according to Bobby, he has all the potential in the world. He said he was the best I had ever brought him.
The thing that jumped out at me the strongest was how content Voodoo is. He clearly likes Bobby, he wanted to be with him, and you could tell it. That is a huge endorsement in my book. That Bobby has him riding so quietly is so satisfying, when it is obvious how happy Voodoo is to do it.
He has tracked some cows on him, and he is very interested. That is a good start, and all I want out of him at this stage.
He has mostly been ridden out in the world, as opposed to the indoor or the round pen, which is what I like to see. So far, there has not been anything that he would not do. He has not bucked, or freaked out in any way.
Good, that is how I like it.
The only weak spot he has is that he lacks some self-confidence, but once he learns something and accomplishes it, he sticks with it. That seems to be a common situation with the Slybabies---easy going, but a little timid at first. More experience seems to cure it pretty quickly, at least it has with all of the other ones so far.
Things look easy for Voodoo too--he is pretty athletic, so maneuvers look easy for him. That makes everything prettier.
He is such a cute boy, I am thrilled with his progress. I hope to take him for a spin the first nite we do not have rain after work. I better enjoy him while I can, as he is for sale. I will take $2500 for him...so spread the word to anyone looking for a horse to go on with.
When we got home, we stripped him off and got a new profile shot of him. Looking at it here, he reminds me so much of Sly.
Hopefully, I have earned some good will with Bobby, as I left him Hammer to work on next. I honestly do not know what to expect out of this one. All of his siblings have the same defensiveness about them, but this is the first one that sired by Sly that has made it to the trainer on my watch. I really think that this particular trainer is the right one to work with him though, in that he seems to really understand how to get through to each particular horse. He does not force the horse to do things his way, but instead learns what the horse needs to succeed. I am almost always wrong in my predictions about which horses will be easy to start and which ones will be difficult, so I am not going to say much more about Hammer until I see how things are going over there. I don't want to jinx it, but I am crossing my fingers that he does well, as I really like him.

From this to that

Can you believe that this baby boy above--Foxy's son at 4 days old--

will turn into this, before we know it? This is Hawkeye. He is 4 (and for sale, by the way, if anyone needs a do anything sort of horse). Not a full brother to Foxy's baby boy ( as he is at the trainer) but a half brother, as Sly is the daddy of both. I realize this is a crappy picture with all that tape wadded up there, but he was standing so pretty in the corner where the temporary fence hooks into the regular fence line that I took the picture anyway.


This is Foxy's baby boy on the day he was born. I am posting this picture--which shows how rough Foxy looked on the day she foaled--last Wednesday--to illustrate a point. Someone commented in the comments on a previous post that she had often wondered about mares looking a little ribby after foaling, and I had explained that sometimes that happens when they just get a little sprung from carrying all that baby around in there. So this is my second "from This to That". You can also see how much babies can change in the space of a couple of days--they fill out and don't look so awkward.

Poor Scrawny Foxy on Wednesday. Not only is she ribby as hell, her butt is all caved in from foaling. You can kind of see that she still has a belly
.
This is Foxy on Saturday. Three days after foaling, and two days after going outside of the barn get some exercise and some fresh air.

In case you think I am hiding something--here she is in a different view. Clearly this is not a mare who needs to gain weight--if anything she needs to lose 100 pounds or more.



This is Foxy on day 4 post-foaling. It gives you a better shot of her side, so you can see that she is not only not thin, but is pretty round. She could look better on her top line, and she will as she gets more exercise chasing baby around, and she is 15 years old, so not a really young horse.

When I was choosing photos to post, I had to cull out some cute ones of babies, because mama was in the background looking rough. I know that is normal--not every mare does it, but a lot do-- but not everyone knows that. So instead of hiding it, I decided to use it and explain it.

It also serves as a reminder that pictures are just a split second in time. They can make anything look good or bad but that does not mean that is reality--it just means that at that split second in time, that was happening. I think of the blogs where people are shredded on the basis of one picture, and while many times it is warranted, we cannot possibly know as much as we think we do from looking at one picture. Or even ten pictures. I hope this "From This to That" about Foxy demonstrates that. She went from looking like death warmed over to way too fat in the space of THREE days. Someone looking in from the outside could see the pics of her looking awful and think I was starving her. I know I am not. She knows I am not. God knows the elevator that sells me grain knows I am not. On the other hand, I can think of some people who would lecture me over her being too fat--and they are probably more accurate than anyone.

Perspective and context can change the whole story, can't it?