Faran Update

Oops, sorry I haven't updated!  My husband's family left.  His niece was coming down with something (probably a head cold) and I was a bit offended.... so many people just don't give a damn if they infect other people.  My brother just recovered from the flu and is still weak.... getting sick again could be so dangerous since he has a compromised immune system!!  So I'm avoiding my parents and brother as much as I can in case I've caught it and just haven't started showing symptoms.  I've bleach cleaned my entire house so hopefully I won't get sick.  Keep your fingers crossed.  :)

Anyway you don't care about my illness paranoia, so I'll tell you about Faran.  He seems to have recovered from choking completely, although he has lost weight.  During my research I read that they can lose quite a bit of weight quickly because their throats hurt so they don't eat as much hay.... top that off with cold weather and it's not really a good thing.  Don't worry, he's not emaciated or anything, just a little ribby (would be normal on a Thoroughbred, but odd on my air puff Percheron).  You can barely see them because of his thick winter coat, but you can feel them more than I've ever felt them before.  I've added oats to his pellets just for quick calories and I'm going to start feeding him the Enrich 32 again as soon as the feed store gets a bag in (I wish they carried it more consistently) because he needs the protein.  They are also due for deworming so I'll do that asap just in case.

He appears to LOVE his soupy, disgusting mash everyday.  He slurps it right up.  In fact we've put a rock in his bucket just to slow him down some.  So far there hasn't been any sign of choke, so hopefully he won't ever have a problem with it again if we make sure to always soak his pellets.  I will NEVER feed them dry ever again to any horse after going through that.  Besides the extra water is good for them in the winter.  :)

The other two are doing well.  I'll update again soon.  I really need to get my camera out and take some pictures!  There is more cold, cold weather on the way.  *pout*  Also hoping I don't get a head cold.  If you don't hear from me for a week that will be why lol.  I hope you all had a great weekend (and Christmas actually!  I never even posted Merry Christmas!).

P.S.  I am reading blogs whenever I can get a minute, but I haven't been commenting like I usually do.  I'm sorry.

Poor Faran choked.... :( He's fine though.

Sorry no pictures!  We found a vet who does coggins that's only ten minutes away so we loaded Faran up to go get his blood drawn.  He loaded on the trailer in fifteen minutes or so which is awesome! Such a good boy.  He did it on his own too, we didn't have to force him.  The bad thing is that we were feeding him handfuls of dry hay pellets as a reward.... bad move!!  I should have known better.  I feed him hay pellets with minerals everyday, but I soak them and feed from the ground...

So when we got to the vet, ten minutes away, he started trying to swallow and we immediately knew what was wrong.  We unloaded him just as he started draining saliva out of his mouth and nose.  If you've never seen a horse choke... it's gross!  I was worried because the vet we went to doesn't do anything with horses except draw blood for coggins, but luckily their new vet (co-owner) is an equine vet!!  Yay!  He even had all of the stuff in his truck because he said he still worked on horses for his in-laws or some family with a horse farm (I was too distracted to really listen so I don't remember for sure) even though the clinic only does small animals (they are too busy to try to take on equine patients).  So he sedated Faran, stuck the tube up his nose and cleared the obstruction.  He said it was a small obstruction and we cleared it quickly, so he should be totally fine now.  Regardless I'm going to keep a close eye on him.  I'm also going to do some research on after care, because I don't know when I should feed him again or if I should let him drink or what.  Right now he's in the round pen letting the sedation wear off where the other boys can't bother him.  I've only ever seen one horse choke (the horse belonged to someone else), so I don't really have much experience with it.  I recognized the symptoms immediately, but I don't know the aftercare.  So if you know anything about choke, comments are welcome. 

So yeah that turned out more stressful and expensive than I was expecting, but he did get his blood drawn for the coggins so at least that's done.  I'm just happy he's okay.  I was on the verge of a panic attack before I found out there was an equine vet there!  :)  We have family visiting for the holidays at the end of the week, so I may be scarce a while, but I'll make sure to update on Faran in a couple of days.

P.S. Oh I almost forgot, his rain rot appears to be gone already!  Yay!  I'll check really well later when I have some latex gloves.  The MTG is still stinky lol.

P.P.S.  Faran is grazing out in the round pen so he's awake and seems fine.  :D

The battle with rain rot continued...

The weather finally cooperated so that we could treat Faran's rain rot.  He doesn't have it too bad, just on his back and haunches with a tiny bit on his chest.  We treated it with the MTG like what we did for Chrome.  It took a LOT of MTG though because his winter coat is so thick!  I swear his coat is four times as thick as Chrome's.  If this treatment doesn't get it all I'll go get a new bottle of MTG or I might try a new treatment a friend told me about.  Anyway here are a few pictures.  I wasn't able to get many because I waited for my hubby to get home from work and we were losing daylight fast!

 Faran sporting his new pine needle highlights!  Hehe.  A friend said it looks like he got blonde highlights.  :)

I love shooting from fun, funky angles.  This one he was mid chew eating hay lol. 

I LOVE this one!  He looks like a light breed horse instead of a draft lol.  I love his white mustache!

And the oily, nasty mess after treatment.  They all needs baths so bad!

Faran did really well with the treatment.  He was eyeballing the bottle of MTG like it was a weapon, but after he sniffed it he was cool.  He stood perfectly still with a completely slack lead rope while my hubby doused him in the smelly stuff.  :)  Such a good boy!

I HATE ice!

Warning there are no pictures in this post and when you hear what happened you will probably be glad!  The reason I hate ice is because I fell THREE times (twice in one day)!  The first time was while playing with the dog and it didn't hurt.  The second time was after the snow had frozen overnight and was so hard I could walk on the crust without breaking through it (the snow was around one inch, so not much at all).  I have a step leading up into my feed shed and I had already gone in and back out once.  Then I walked back over to step up again and my foot slipped off of the step.  I slammed my right shin into the raised wooden floor and then slammed my elbow into the step.  My elbow only hurt for a minute, but my shin hurt like crazy!!!!  So you would think I learned my lesson right??  No!  I went out after dark (the first fall was in the mornign)  to let Chrome out of his pen (he gets his feed and a couple of flakes of hay in the pen so the others can't steal it)... As I was leading him through the gate my foot slipped and since I walked through the gate ahead of him I fell right in front of him.  He was already on his way through the gate and had nowhere else to go so he stepped on my leg.  His hoof landed right on my left shin and slid off, scraping the hide right off of my leg through my clothes.  It hurt soooo bad!!  And it was terrifying!  Being under a horse's feet is one of the scariest things ever.  Luckily it didn't break my leg or damage my clothes.

He didn't even realize that he stepped on me because the gate to the pen has a pipe that sits on the ground... I think he thought he stepped on the pipe.  He is so used to me crouching on the ground to take pictures of him that I don't think he thought anything of it.  Heck even my scream didn't bother him because I can be a loud person and he's used to my squealing, screaming, laughing, etc.  So he wasn't traumatized at all and I don't blame him at all, but dang it hurt!  Luckily I was leading him by his chin (I taught him to lead by his chin because he doesn't have mane lol) so there was no halter or rope to take off of him.  He stood a short distance away watching me as I cried, struggled to my feet, shut the gate to his pen, opened and closed the gate to the pasture to let myself out.  By that time my husband, who heard my scream from all the way up at our house, had gotten there and helped me limp what felt a VERY long distance to our house and back inside.  The scream was more from fear and shock than pain because I didn't really feel him step on my leg... I mean I felt it, but it didn't hurt because of the adrenaline... it started hurting almost immediately after though and it hurt all night.  I barely slept.  I toss and turn a lot anyway, but doing it with a bum leg is not fun...

So there is a hunk of skin missing (kind of like a road rash abrasion) in a spot about three inches by three inches, there's a knot the size of half an orange and LOTS of bruising (I bruise very easily, slightly anemic).... luckily today (this happened yesterday evening after dark and did I mention yesterday was my husband's birthday?) the pain is a lot better unless something bumps it.  It hurts when I first stand up, but I quickly walk out of it, so no broken bones or anything thank goodness.  So yeah that's why I HATE ice....  :(  And what is so ironic is that we didn't have ice or ice packs in our freezer so my husband went out and chipped ice off of my car into a bag for me to put on my leg... the ice that caused the injury also numbed it and helped with the swelling...

Anyway the other thing I wanted to mention is that I have not been getting any email notifications of comments you've left or follow up comments on any of the blogs I comment on... not since Thanksgiving!  I was beginning to think everyone had quit blogging for the holidays.  Today I realized that EVERY SINGLE blogger email is going to my spam folder!!!!!!!!!!  There were two hundred emails in my spam folder!!  So if you've been wondering why I have not responded to comments that is why.  Sorry.  Also thank you to everyone who has commented on my blog and offered compliments for my handsome boy, advice and encouragement.  I appreciate every single one.  Your comments mean a lot to me.  :D  So if you have ice and snow please be careful out there!!  I'm going to hide out indoors for a while (until this crap melts).  Lucky for me my husband took today off work and has been taking care of everything for me.  I'm spoiled! Hehe.

Also before I forget to mention it, the weather moved in sooner than we thought so our farrier didn't make it out to do Chrome's hooves.  So sad!  However I think the shivering that first night from the sleet and then walking on the snow (they have been walking around a lot more than normal to stay warm) has worked out his stifles and he's not locking anymore.  :)  I still hope she can get out to trim him soon though.  I'm 99.9% convinced it's his hooves causing the locking stifle.  I'm still looking for a chiropractor too.  I've been wanting to get one even before his stifles started locking, but they are so scarce around here!  Then the ones I do find I can't find any recommendations... I can't afford to have someone out who doesn't know anything about horses and pay for them to do nothing.  Anyway I'll keep looking.  I found a really nice equine vet about thirty minutes away that I'm probably going to ask for recommendations.

Well I'm off to bed.  The lack of sleep last night is catching up with me.  Maybe since my leg isn't as sore I'll be able to sleep better.  I'll get caught up on the 100 blog posts in my reader tomorrow.  Sorry I've been scarce!!

We did get snow!

 Chrome looks frosted by the snow hehe.  I LOVE his color.  I wish it would always stay that way!

Well, we did end up getting some snow, but as you can see in the picture it wasn't much.  It didn't even cover the grass and I didn't bother measuring it.  It was cool though because it got so cold I could walk on the snow without breaking through the crust.  I've never had that happen.  When we get snow it's usually wet and melts within a day.  :)  When the winter storm came through and it was sleeting the poor horses were shivering.  I of course felt bad for them so we got the tractor and moved their whole round bale of hay into the barn lol.  They were happy then.  Spoiled brats.  Once they dried off they weren't cold anymore though.  They've spent the last few days out in it and haven't shivered a bit.  :)  So anyway, I'm tired and ready for bed, so here are the rest of the pictures.  Enjoy!  And let me know what you think of them!

First of all I was trying to get some action shots, because Chrome was feeling so playful....

But due to the delay on my camera I always get this weird, awkward stride!!

See!  I told you!  And even when I got the stride right I got it from a weird angle...

Like that one above!  I did manage to get one good trotting one...

Love this!

So since I was having so much trouble with the stride I decided to try continuous shoot mode on my camera.  I haven't used it in a while because it tends to downgrade the quality of the pictures really bad.  I started with one setting and got these below... crappy quality, but awesome trot!

I love how his mohawk is backlit and shiny white in the above pictures though.  :D  Then I tried a different setting on the continuous mode (top six instead of forty) and got these below... I LOVE them!

Even the walking one was in continuous shoot.  :D  He was lowering his head to sniff the snow.  So cute!  That was all of the action shots, now check out the rest of them.

 This one above I literally hit the shutter when he was a few strides away from me and it snapped the picture when he was right up next to me!  It was 20F so maybe the cold was slowing my camera down.  Not sure, but it's kind of cute anyway.  :D

 Full Friesian Alert!

Artsy shot with the pine needles of the same stance as the picture above.  It shows how far away he actually was.  :)

 And then I zoomed in for this shot.  He was on full alert for at least a minute!

 Here he finally relaxed and started walking toward me.  I messed up the focus (trees are sharp and he's blurry), but I really kind of like it!  It makes him look dreamy.  :D

 Look at that tail!  I can't tell if it was static or wind! 

 So handsome! 

In the above picture I was leaning against his side for warmth and to block the wind.  He was all sleepy eyed and I got this picture.  So cute!

I finally left him alone to his nap.  I guess all of the playing in the snow wore him out.  :)

Look at that bright white mohawk!!  Cute sleepy boy.  Can you see his dapples?  I can't believe he's finally dappling!

Check out Faran's icicles in his mane!!!  When he came in that first evening (when we moved the hay) he had icicles from his beard, his mane, his tail, his belly fur!  It was crazy!  I'd never seen anything like it.  Unfortunately I was too busy moving hay that I wasn't able to get a picture, but the one above is several days later... yeah it's been so cold that they haven't melted in DAYS!   The crazy thing is once the horses were dry they were fine and didn't even want in the barn anymore.  I wish I had the cold tolerance of a horse!

One last shot of handsome Faran.

I'm off to bed now.  I'm sure I've forgotten to mention something, but oh well... night!

Snow, Stifles & Rain Rot, Oh My!!

Okay, I have a few updates, but first I don't have any new pictures, so you will have to enjoy looking at old pictures of Chrome playing in the snow from a couple of years back.  I'm trying to get into the spirit of winter... seriously I almost posted a bunch of green, summer pictures to continue with my denial, but I have to admit that winter is on the way.  :(  Literally.  We have a bunch of winter weather on the way... probably more ice than snow, which is too bad because ice causes a lot of damage and snow makes much prettier pictures.  :)

 So if I don't post for a while it's because we got ice instead of snow and lost electricity.  I'm really hoping we don't, but I have to be prepared.  When I was a kid I remember getting so much ice that we didn't have electricity for over a week!!  They are saying that this winter weather could be just as bad as that or worse.  *pout*  So we've been preparing as well as we can, like stocking up on groceries, firewood (so we can stay warm if the power does go out) and hay (obviously!).

In other news... have I ever mentioned how slow I can be?  And how forgetful?  Chrome's back is not sore anymore, but his stifles are still locking.  I was sitting here the other day trying to figure out what had changed and on a whim I sent my farrier a text asking if he was due (I know I should keep a calendar lol) and she said yes.  Well imagine that!  Every single time he's due his stifles start locking, so I know it's the angles in his hooves as they grow out causing it.  We keep trying to shorten his trim cycle, but since I moved so far away from my farrier it's kind of hard.  I don't want to find a new farrier so I'm thinking about trying to rasp his hooves weekly between his trims.  I have to find my hoof stand though because my back has still been bothering me off and on.  Anyway I'll keep you updated on that.  My farrier is coming out tomorrow to trim him, so his break is probably going to just get extended until after the winter storm moves on through.

I did finally get rid of Chrome's rain rot.  Yay!  It only took one full treatment of MTG and some spot treatments a second time to get rid of it.  Unfortunately now Faran has it!!  Grr!  I can't win.  So my husband and I will be treating him tomorrow.  I haven't used MTG on him before so I'll have to do a test spot to makes sure he isn't allergic to it.  I hope he won't be too put off by the smell of it.  Chrome is so used to me putting stuff on him because of his sweet itch that he doesn't pay any attention to it anymore.  Faran on the other hand hasn't ever had anything except fly spray put on him (that I know of) and he still doesn't even like that.  I'm sure he will be fine though.  I'll take pictures for you entertainment lol!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed his rain rot clears up quickly.

I think that's all of my updates.  My brain is very disorganized lately.  I do have some potentially exciting news to share soon, but I don't want to say anything because I always jinx myself and I don't even believe in jinxes!  So please keep your fingers crossed that it all works out.  :)

The rest of our Thanksgiving pictures.

You guys know me well enough by now that the above picture I posted on Thanksgiving is not the only one I got.  :D  So here are the rest of them.  The rest didn't turn out as well as the above photo.  The lighting was just wrong I guess.  We tried several different spots, but I guess it was just still too early.  So enjoy the pictures!

Smile!

 Kisses!  Actually my hand is the object of their interest, but it's still cute!

 Faran totally photo bombed our photo session...

 So I got a picture with him too.  

 Chrome says get this crazy woman off of me!

 I LOVE this one! 

 In the above photo I was trying to kiss Faran's nose and Chrome wouldn't leave me alone so I let him lick my hand LOL.

 We can't leave Zeppers out.  One day he will be tame enough for me to take pictures with... I hope.

 I love his neck and mohawk!

Then we decided to run around a play some.

Then he chased my hubby a little.

 He looks mean (he was just playing), but I love his trot!

Hubby didn't get all dressed up for the photo shoot, as you can tell by his red plaid pajama pants in the picture where Chrome is chasing him, but I snapped this picture (above) anyway.  So cute!

P.S.  Yes I have been feeding Chrome peppermints from my hand and I had some in my pocket so he was obsessed over my hands in these pictures, but I don't care because he's not rude and we use the peppermints to throw on the ground to get pretty expressions for pictures.  I know he's spoiled.  :D