Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Good, The Bad & the Funny

In order of occurrence...

The Bad:
Last Thursday all the horses got their feet done, and that would include the pony & donkey.  Just trims and it was just over $300.  Ouch.
Even worse, Applejack is foundering.  Its feed induced, his white line is stretching.  The only founder I've ever dealt with is "road founder".  The hay he's been getting is mostly crested wheat and prairie wool, there's just the teensiest bit of alfalfa in it.  Still its too rich for him.

The Good:
The hay we have for the cattle is not at all rich.  I called my neighbour that we bought it from to double check what's in it and told my farrier, he said go ahead and stick Appy on in there with the cows.  So we've got feed and a place to put him.  Also its in its very early stages so prognosis for recovery is good.

The Funny:
The cow pen shares a fence with the pen Applejack, Odin & George were in so they've become accustomed to horses over/through the fence.  However within 1.7 seconds of being put in the cow pen Appy realized that HE was the boss of them.  He moved them around a bit and then settled into the shelter for a snooze.  For  the last week at the most random times he'll get a gleam in his eye and start moving them around.

8 comments:

  1. Good thing you caught it early. That's pretty funny about him playing bossman with the cows.

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  2. Founder scares me... since it can come on just like that (snap of fingers). With the greening up of our pastures our boys are restricted and I'm trying to make sure that they get exercise.

    Love that he is pushing the cows and playing boss!

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  3. Crested wheat...we deal with the effects of that stuff all the time back home. It's really good for causing spring grass founder too. :(

    The good news is...unless a horse is left to actually gorge themselves on the stuff, the only thing that happens is that mild stretching of the lamina. No rotation, no permanent damage.

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  4. Haha I love it when a horse figures out he can push cows arund :)

    Glad you found the problem early so it can be solved.

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  5. Well, it sounds like he's giving himself some exercise!

    I realize that I'm lucky right now as I simply don't have enough grass for my guys to founder on. It might look great in pics from the house, but it's not that thick, nor tall. It's still pretty patchy.

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  6. Glad you caught it early!!
    That is a cute story about the cows!! Way to show them whose boss!

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  7. Cute! So sorry about the founder -- I have never dealt wtih that. But I suppose it is like a lot of medical problems: catching it early makes a HUGE difference. I hope that is the case here. I sent you an e-mail about the new blog address, but am not sure it went thru...

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  8. Ack, that sucks. So glad you caught it early. I don't know about your crazy Canadian grasses ;) but grain hay is usually extremely sugary, bad for IR horses. Once he grows a new hoof and you keep him off the sugar, he'll be totally fine.

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Wordless Wednesday ~ new trailer!