Hello my Friends! I doubt if I have any readers now, but for anyone who happens by, I thought I'd give an update on things. Life has been a constant rollercoaster since I blogged last, and believe me, when I say rollercoaster, it has been mostly down hill.
The main issues have been with the horses, so I'll talk about them for now. Early in the spring, Cherokee, (the old pony), stopped eating, lost a bunch of weight, and we had to find a mobile vet to come see him. The weight we attributed to his age, as he is 42 this year, and I figured that this was the begining of his demise. So, the vet came and checked him over, and said that he's overall healthy, except for an over-grown tooth, and being too thin. Horse teeth never stop growing, and he lost one of his bottom teeth, so the top one in the same place grew out too long. Thus keeping him from chewing properly, so he was literally starving and we had no idea! He was eating, but because he wasn't chewing it up, he wasn't digesting it and therefore disposing of all of it, instead of utilizing it. So, we now have him on a healthy diet of Dumor Senior Complete feed, soaked in water to make a mash, along with Alfalfa pellets and beet pulp soaked. He's picking up some weight now, which thrills me! Although, we're worried about this winter, because he's just not packing it on as quickly as we'd like, so I think we're gonna get a nice warm winter blanket for him. He's also loaded with energy now, which is good, but bad, as he's burning a lot of calories, while we're trying to put them on him.
Cherokee right after his bath, about 5 weeks ago.
We just got him back to eating and feeling better, and Dakota got her leg caught in her stall door. It was a bad, bad injury. She skinned her back leg, between her hock and fetlock, about 6 inches, clear to the bone. She severed the Common Digital Extensor tendon, and just made hamburger out of everything. She had horizontal cuts in her Cannon bone as well. The tendon that she cut is the one which holds up the toe of her hoof, and there was no way to reattach it. She has learned to walk okay without it, but has been trying to play and romp around, and she has a little trouble with that. Hubs and I spent hours on end for 8 weeks, cleaning and wrapping her leg from the bottom of her hoof all the way past her hock to keep it nice and clean and dry, until the bone was covered. Plus pain medicine and antibiotics every 12 hours. The vet originally gave her Banamine for her pain, and she was having a bad reaction to it, so now she's on Bute. She was also grounded to the barn for the first 8 weeks, so we were picking her a ton of grass twice a day to keep her happy. After that 8 weeks, we were still wrapping, but not as far. She's doing well, although we have a lot of proud flesh growing that we are battling with now. I had no idea what I was doing, but you cannot expose bone to air, so we would have to take quick swipes at cleaning it up, and keep saline against it to be sure it didn't dry out. Normal Saline is the same pH as a horses body and it will not harm the bones. We are 13 weeks out now, and are able to leave it uncovered for several hours a day, and she's allowed out on her own again now, but we have to keep her wrapped up when she's in the stall. So, we're still putting countless hours in, but at least it's a various times instead of all lumped into one visit. We're using a product called Granulex V to deal with the proud flesh, and for now, it appears to be working. I hope we can get it under control and not have to have it removed. I hear it's a really messy procedure, and honestly, I don't know if I can handle it. But I'll do what I have to do. I love my horsey, and she just keeps changing my course of action. I had planned to be on her back by the end of this month...and now we aren't sure if we'll even be able to ride her. I have been working her a little at a walk, and she's doing well, but it's going to be a long haul to get her healed.
Dakota with her leg all bandaged up.
In the meantime, I lost another one of my guinea pigs, little Cocoa. She did the same thing Holly did, starting drinking tons of water, eating like a horse and still losing weight. Eventually she had a stroke and passed on. I miss her and so does her lonely sister, Noel. But Noel and I are becoming best buds, which is something I could never get with her. She's always been pretty wild, but she's coming around to Mommy....and getting very spoiled!
I also adopted another baby Robin. I found him sitting in the middle of the road on my route one night, and no sign of where he came from. He wasn't old enough to make it on his own, so I brought the little hitchhiker home, fed him out and now he's spoiled rotten too! We named him Hitch, since he hitchhiked clear home from Randolph County. :)
Hitch
Past that, all the other kids are doing well, and hubs and I are surviving all of this drama, but we are so far behind in our work for taking care of Dakota that I think we'll never get caught up. We're working on it, we have spent the past 2 weeks trimming trees at Mom's, mowing at the farm and we're getting ready to bale hay. Not looking forward to the latter! My yard has gone to hell, and honestly I have given up on it for this year. I pull a few weeds when I get a chance, but that's not too often. My house is a complete disaster area, and I honestly don't even care. Stop by at your own risk!
I hope this finds everyone doing well, and I miss keeping up with my online friends! Hugs to all!
