Moving Shenanigans & Settling In

Shenanigans > (greater than) Settling into new paddocks. That about says it all doesn’t it?
Sunday morning, out in the paddock…

- “Rawh! My treatz!” says Copper to Robbie, his best bud -

- “Oh-tay, we iz fwends agin… Wut you mean – Buh Beye? I dunna get it…” -

- “Oh, dis wut you mean… One of dese homen-beanz horse gobbling fingz.” -

- “Srsly – agin with de clicky fing? No… Won’t smile… Wanna eat.” -

- “Weh you goin’? …Mom! …Mom!! DON”T LEAVE ME!!! I DON’T NOE ANYONEZ HERH!!” -

- “Told ya not to go…. *insert smirk*” -

- “I didn’t noes fencez bit! Honest!” -

- “Hai… I iz glad you here…” -

- *omnomnomnom* -

So long story - everything was going really smoothly with our move...  Turns out, it didn’t quite stay that way!!  :O

We started by picking up the hire float, then fetching Copper in from the paddock.

I prepped him for travel with float boots and plaiting up his tail. Copper walked up the ramp, stopped – had a sniff and a look, then marched right on.

I was so relieved… I didn’t expect any trouble, I know he’s been well trained with floats being an ex-racer off the track, but counting it up – Copper hasn’t been out on a float in over four years!  So I was kind of wondering if he’d be easy or a bit tricky.

We got over to our new home in 45 minutes or so – and he travelled really well, no clopping or clattering around – just eating from his hay net.  I should take him out more often…  :P

He unloaded fine, we walked around and explored; said hello to new pony faces over the fences, and then walked every inch of his new boundary fences.  *phew!* That took a while – and less than half way through he was all: “Can we stahp? Bored now… I want munchies!”

Copper was looking fairly settled - still a bit stressed and anxious, but he wasn't pacing or anything. He was eating, drinking, pooping and peeing - very normal horse behaviour, so I went home to fetch a hose and come back to fill up his trough.


In the hour or so that I was gone the dingbat ran through a border fence between paddocks and ended up in the neighbour's paddock!!



He was okay, but had to be rescued by the neighbour. He ended up with some abrasions on the front of his hind cannons - right on the front/under his hocks.

There was also a minor cut that was a bit deep, it had a skin flap that I gently pulled back and flushed with a ton of betadine!

I bandaged the cut, I was hoping that would hold the skin flap on so it would reattach, but the bandage slipped down in the night and the skin flap was half attached, and half dried up when I came back out the next morning.  

I fully expected to see swelling and lameness, but he was actually pretty good. So I guess it’s all’s well that ends well – for that kind of incident it could have been a lot worse.

If it teaches him to respect the fence though, I guess that's good, because seriously horse!



Such a silly boy...

But he is all "Don't leave me!!" when I go down, so I do feel sorry for him.



He's uncharacteristically clingy...

He is fretting a bit, and won't go into the actual paddock to eat. He's just staying the lane way down the front which isn’t very large, and doesn’t have much grass at all.

I mean, it's not like he couldn't stand to lose a few (Let’s be real here - a lot!) kilos, but I don't want him to colic.

I have been visiting him twice a day – once in the morning, and once in the evening for the last three days; Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, this happened:

Yep, first ride in new place… 

There’s not much to say about it, except he was a lot more rideable than what I’d been expecting!

With a little lunge (when he was trotting he exhaled the giant breath he’d been holding… Lol) and some lateral work at a walk, he was listening and felt quite relaxed when I hopped off 20 minutes later!

I was stoked – I feel like the work we’ve be doing towards learning how to relax even in tense moments has really been sinking in! He had all his marbles, but he was nice and forward – I was thinking that this would be a great competition frame of mind. ;)

It’s all groovy baby. 

See ya,
bonita

The Seriousness of Eye Injuries in Horses

A little while ago I noticed Copper had some cloudiness on the left-hand outside edge of his right eye.

I’ve kept a close eye (ha.) on it, but couldn’t decide whether or not I should call a vet out to look at it. As it turns out, I left it too late...

 
I was chatting to one of the ladies at the horse yards, and found out that she’s had similar experiences with two of her horses before. She was saying that you can’t leave eyes – ever.

Any sign of an eye injury and the horse needs to go the vet ASAP.  The tiniest scratch or scrape to the cornea will often ulcerate and cause a cataract to develop.

I then remembered that a while back Copper had a half-shut, puffy, swollen right eye – I had manipulated it gently to see what was up with it and a small flake of dried grass had slipped out. He seemed to have immediate relief, and opened his eye up straight away.  The swelling subsided the next day and he seemed normal.

But apparently all was not well. It took quite a long time for the cloudiness to show up, so I didn’t put the two and two together. Until now.

Swollen, puffy eye + hay flake = scratch -> cataract.

But I didn’t know back then that my standard “Wait & See” principal for minor wounds cannot be applied to eye problems. Never, ever, nuh-uh, no-no-no. You can’t necessarily see if there’s been any damage and of course, you don’t want to risk an ulcer or a cataract.

It’s too late for Copper now unfortunately, but thankfully the cataract that developed on the edge of his eye doesn’t seem to be affecting him too much. I have noticed that he does spook more when we are out on a trail ride, and he certainly gives stuff that he might have ignored previously much more of a closer inspection.

But he’s still forward and bold, so I think he’s adjusting quite well to the impairment of his eyesight so far. The changes in his behavior have been hardly noticeable, so I’m confident he will be fine, though I really wish I had caught this earlier. It might mean that we can’t do much jumping, like I was hoping to, but I guess we’ll have to see how that goes.

One thing for sure, from now on I will never ever let any slightly suspicious eye action go without an immediate visit to the vet. 

See ya,

bonita

Getting there

After much careful watching and prodding, I am hopefully declaring Copper to be abscess free. I hope.  I can’t tell for certain, and I think that’s partly why I am so stressed over this wound. 

Wither wounds are quite serious due the nature of their placement.  There is no easy way to tell externally (without x-rays or scans) whether there is any infection or crud pooling down below the surface.

So far we have had no temperatures, tenderness, lameness, redness/puffiness around the wound, or general “off-ness”. The wound flesh is pink and healthy looking, as well as closing over quite rapidly. I am 85% sure everything is healing as it should be, but there is 15% of me that seems to be convinced that something insidious is brewing under the surface where I can’t see it, or feel it. 

I don’t know why I am so paranoid about it? Usually I can just do the whole ‘wait and see’ thing quite well, but maybe it’s due to the sudden appearance of the wound without any particularly satisfactory reason that I know of.

Anyway, I’m still keeping a weather eye out for any further trouble… In the mean time, the pon-pon is enjoying the spoiling, so I guess that’s something! :P

See ya,

bonita

Broken Ponies

And so our dismal run of bad luck and broken ponies continues…

I came out on Sunday to trim Copper’s feet, only to find out that he had a swollen, misshapen whither and swelling around and above his right shoulder blade that was extremely tender and sensitive to the touch. 

He didn’t seem off when I did some flexion tests of his shoulder, and I couldn’t find that much heat in it, but I haven’t seen him that swollen in a while. So I freaked out. Juuuusssst a little…

Okay, so the last time I’d see a horse do a lot of damage to it’s whither/shoulder was a psycho TB mare called Clippy. 

Clippy had reared while she was tied up, and at the height of her rear, started to topple over backwards – still tied up! The baling twine she was tied to broke under pressure of course, but that only added to the force with which she hit the ground. She landed flat on her back, and got up just fine.

However, she had shattered her whither to the point where it had literally disappeared – only bone fragments were left floating around down between her shoulders. Clippy then had to be confined to a small yard (just larger than a stable) for six months, drugged for that same amount of time with painkillers and sedatives so that she didn’t move around too much. It was going to take her another year to heal properly and then, well, she’d never be rideable again. Not that she was particularly rideable to begin with(!!) but that’s a whole other story.

Yes, I prodded Copper’s wither and was relieved to feel that there was still solid bone and nothing felt like it was wobbling around or where it shouldn’t be. I wasn’t so much worried that he’d pulled a muscle as there wasn’t much heat, as that he’d somehow managed to fracture his wither.

I wanted to call a vet, but my Dad (who was giving me a lesson on hoof trimming) convinced me to at least wait a day or so to see if the swelling went down at all, given that he seemed to have a fairly full range of movement with a flexion test and was only about grade 2 lame.

Then, when I checked him out on Tuesday, I spoke with one of the ladies who adgists in the same paddocks (I’ll call her L.), and is very experienced. L. thought that given the shape, position, feel and look of the swelling, combined with the fact that Copper was not at all uncomfortable in the muscles underneath his shoulder blade (she showed me how to palpitate underneath the shoulder blade for tenderness) that it was a “wait and see injury”.

We came to the conclusion that it was some kind of bone bruising, and that quite likely the boys had been derping around in the paddock and someone struck Copper on top of his wither with a fore hoof.

:/   Huzzah.

So the grand sum of all these injuries over the last few months have happened in the paddock with Copper being an eejiot.   Double huzzah.

I left his jute rug off (I only rug in winter to save time and keep the pon-pon clean) because I felt like that was going to add pressure to the swelling and have decided to give him ANOTHER week off for the swelling to subside before starting him back in work with some ground work.

Which will make it probably over three months now until I get to ride properly again. Ugh. Horses…..

I’m so tempted to buy another one just so I can ride again! I’m going mental I tell you, mental!  But ten to one, that one would break too, so really…. There’s not much point.  :S

See ya,

bonita