Shocking assault to their systems

I am not kidding when I tell you that we have had a hell of an ice storm since last nite and it is not over yet. In all the years I have had horses, I have never seen icicles hang off of so many of them like this.
This is what the babies' first ice storm is doing to them---look at that poor butt! That is not snow just lying on her, that is iced on and is hanging on for dear life.

This is baby Shiloh's back--she is completely covered in ice pellets.
She does not look very amused--look at all the ice chunks in her mane
She is still cute though.
This is the only smart one of the broodmares--Melody--she was at least standing in the barn to get out of the sleet. Evidently she had not been there all day, as she too had icicles hanging off of her.
Nita seems to have the most ice on her, but it is no wonder with all that area of her back hanging so low. There is plenty of room to catch ice on there!
This is Nita too--she has ice balls hanging from her tail and a chunk of tail hair was stuck to her butt.
Squeak appears to be pretty smart--she had a lot less ice on her. She has her own pen and turnout since she is blind, but there are some days when I swear she is faking it. In this pic, she is trying to get into the bucket of feed even though she was the only one that had already eaten. After this, while I was trying to take other pics, she went around the corner, and stuck her head under the fence and into a feed bucket that Lucky and Ammo were sharing--she took a few bites, and then she stole the bucket right under the fence. That would not be so odd for any other horse, but for one who supposedly cannot see the broad side of a barn, it is kind of interesting. She is also the most pleasant easy-going enjoyable horse I have ever known, so for her to pull a stunt like that cracked me up. Hell, I even let her keep it!

Xanadu was caked in ice. She was also not very amused by this whole deal. Not at all. She has 6 weeks until she is due to foal, as does Mel, Cash and someone else I cannot currently think of. Surprise crappy weather like this is why we do not breed for early babies--you never can tell what is going to happen--and can you imagine how miserable it would be to accidentally foal in this mess?

Miss Foxy is due in April I think. She needs to put on a little weight, I think, but she is doing okay for one who always struggles with her weight when in foal. She has the singularly most annoying habit I think--when she thinks she should be fed, she runs her teeth along something metal--like the corral panel that separates her pasture from Squeak's pen. I swear it makes my hair stand on end--she goes back and forth back and forth scraping her teeth on the metal. Creeps me right out. It is a good alarm though to tip me off to when she has not been fed her dinner, as I thought she had--she will not let me forget something like that.



This pic of Hotrod cracks me up--she is as pissed as I am about the weather.

If this keeps up, it will be a work at home day tomorrow-- I got stuck in my own driveway coming home tonight, and that is before the other 3-6 inches of snow arrive.

The eyeball chronicles-New with pics

The eyeball mission yesterday was fascinating. Off we went, with one blind horse, and one currently seeing out of both eyes but who knows if it will last horse.

I basically knew what would happen, but it was way cooler in person. We did Squeak first, since she cannot see a damn thing. First, we stained her eyes to ensure she had no ulcerations--that is the green goo in them in the photo. She was good. We tranqued her up good, then she got three local anasthesia shots around each eye to nerve her. When those kicked in, it was all hands on deck. BS was in charge of the twitch that we used just in case--you sure do not need any unnecessary movement with needles that close to the eyeball. I was in charge of holding the eyelid up as far as possible, while Adrianna the vet pulled the eyeball down with some tweezery looking things. When she got it down as far as she needed it to be, she injected with a 25 g needle a tiny bit of gentacin in the eyeball itself. The goal of this is to kill the lepto virus that is likely causing this stupid problem (she previously tested for 3 of 6 strains of lepto). Next, she injected a steroid under the eyelid. This will help bring down the swelling, which is what actually causes a lot of the damage.

The bad news on Squeak is that she already has formed a cataract on her left eye, so we probably are pretty screwed on that one. Since the right eye just had its first flareup, we have high hopes for getting the vision back in that one.

We should see some results in a few weeks. We still have to use the steroid ointment for a while, but when she starts seeing again, we can discontinue that. That will be a relief for all of us, although she is really good about tolerating it, we do not even have to halter her to do it (unlike rock, who fights it)

Rock's went equally well. We only did her left eye as there has not been any indication that there was a problem in the right eye yet. She did not even need the twitch to get hers done. She sure did get woozy though! She had a heck of a time staying on her feet

I only have a couple of photos that I have not downloaded as it was late when I got home. I had hoped to document it all, but the flash would have spooked them, and I had to help holding eyelids.

The coolest part was the wierd sound the eyeballs made when the needles went in. Sort of a squishy popping sound. Also, eyeballs are BIG--I was amazed at how big.

And when Squeak got some of her shots, she farted. Garbage in garbage out, I guess.