Cleaning Up Chrome

I pulled Chrome out of the pasture for his weekly hoof trim and decided to clean him up a bit.  With it getting dark so early I don't spend much time brushing him.  He loves being curried.  I brushed him from head to toe, but I decided to forego the haircut I was planning.  His mane helps protect him in the winter, so I'll just leave it be even though it's yellow and a lot shorter by the withers.

Pre-grooming.  I just realized all of his pictures are of this side.... no clue why I didn't get any from his other side. It was probably the lighting.

I brushed his mane out.  Ugh, I hate how he's torn it out.  It's so ugly.  I want to give him a Mohawk so bad!  I miss his Mohawk.

I love the angle of this shot.  I was sitting in a chair in front of him, giving my back a break from rasping his hooves.  He was watching hubby feed the goats.

 I love my hoof stand.

 After being brushed.  He is so handsome!! Even with his nasty brown mane and tail.

His hooves after we rasped them (hubby helped when my back gave out).  They are a little rough, but he is due for a trim.  I'm going to have to soak them again because I think he's getting thrush, but no sign of white line disease, so yay!

 Then I decided to wash his nasty tail.

I let him eat clover while his tail dried, but unfortunately the sun was setting so I knew I wasn't going to be able to get new photos of him all cleaned up... sigh.

 The sunset was gorgeous though!

I had to hold his tail and swish it back and forth to help dry it before it got dark.  I always forget how much the sun and flies help with drying a tail out quickly.  He was a little annoyed with me swinging his tail back and forth, but all he did was try to move his haunches away from me.  When he realized I wasn't going to give up he just went back to grazing.

This was about as good as I could get with the light disappearing.  You can see he still has a lot of stains in his tail.  I washed it with dishwashing liquid (I know it's extremely drying....), then I remembered that a friend gave me some Cowboy Magic shampoo and conditioner so I washed it again and then conditioned it.  It felt so much nicer afterward.  Before I washed it he had a lot of static electricity and it felt like straw.  I really need to get some blue shampoo for those stains... 

Anyway that's it for now.  I really enjoyed spending time with him instead of just rasping his hooves really quick and then hurrying off to the next chore that needed done.  I miss spending quality time with him.  It's a good thing he's such a sweet, laid back horse.  :)

Belated Happy Thanksgiving

Just a couple of pictures of Chrome from Thanksgiving day.  Sorry I'm late posting.  I am very thankful for my boy and that I got the day off work.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and was able to spend it with family like I did (it was quiet just like I like).  I'm also thankful for you guys, sticking with me even with my sporadic posting these last couple of years.Happy Thanksgiving!!

A hoof stand makes all the difference...

 I love the lighting in this photo.  His face is so pretty.

Please forgive me for having so few photos.  I'm going to try to post more even if I don't have a bunch of pictures to share.  Anyway, I finally got a hoof stand back when Chrome and Rocky were first diagnosed with white line disease.  I don't know how I lived without it.

I love this thing!  It makes a world of difference.  Before this I was using a car jack thing that was all metal and weighed a LOT.  This thing is so light and maneuverable and has a wide base that I can put my foot on to hold it still.  It has the cup for resting the top of the hoof in or the round part for rasping from the top of the hoof.  I don't really use the cup very much because I don't use nippers very often.  I just rasp between their professional trims to prevent as many cracks as possible.  Preventing cracks helps prevent the white line by not giving it a place to grow.

Unfortunately I injured my shoulder a few weeks ago and I missed a few weeks of trimming.  I can only do two hooves per weekend because of my weak back, so I did Chrome's hind hooves this weekend. Next weekend I'll do his fronts.  If hubby doesn't do Rocky's then I'll do his the next week, although they are due for a trim before then so we will see.  It's really simple with the hoof stand to just put a quick bevel on the hooves when I don't get so far behind.  This weekend was a bit more difficult because I went so long between trims due to the injury.  I'll get caught up eventually if I stop hurting myself.

I'm really proud of Chrome though... I just wish I had pictures.  This weekend I was trimming his hooves by myself and I'm lazy so I just carried my chair, rasp and hoof stand out to the pasture.  Chrome was napping with one hind hoof resting on it's toe.  He watched me set my stuff up without moving.  Then I grabbed his hoof and started rasping without even putting a halter on him.  So I trimmed his hind hooves out in the pasture with no halter or rope.  The only problem is if Rocky decides to investigate because he will chase Chrome off which can be dangerous if I get on the wrong side.  Luckily Rocky had his head buried in the hay bale and was ignoring us.

I'll leave you with a picture of Zep waiting on the horses to go out to the back pasture.

Wow it's been a while.....

 Look at my handsome boy!! He's so light!

Well it's been a while..... This summer has been fraught with injuries (me), TONS of overtime at work (me) and battling sweet itch (Chrome) and white line disease (Chrome and Rocky) with absolutely no riding.... but we won't dwell on the bad. 

To see a bit of what has been keeping us busy keep an eye out on my other blog Living a Farmer's Life (http://myfarmerlife.blogspot.com/).  I have posts scheduled for the next week to catch you up with what has been going on.  The horses deserve their own update as well, so here we go.  Keep in mind hubby took almost all of these pictures because I'm always at work during pretty much all of the daylight hours....

"Hey pops... can you help me out?  They stole my hay...."

 "No?  Okay what about some feed or treats or grass or something??"

 He sends me adorable pictures like this when I'm at work to cheer me up.

The white line battle was horrible and I never want to go through that again.  I cried so much.  Chrome is getting his hooves soaked in the above picture.  We use Oxine which is basically the same thing as White Lightning.

 Since we were in for lots of soaking I got some kayak dry sacks that had been suggested to me before on the blog when we were battling thrush.  They work great!!  I love those things!!  So much better than the ziplock bags and duct tape!

I made suspenders out of hay string for Rocky because they kept sliding down.  They didn't work very well since they weren't elastic.  He still tried to step out of them.  Oh well, it was funny and helped pass the time.  We might have to get some smaller ones for him or try vet wrapping the top as was suggested on IG since the fumes are what you want to keep inside when using Oxine/White Lightning.

 Every once in a while I got off early enough to see my boy in the daylight.

 My boy was so itchy all summer. He's so flexible!

 The good news is his tail has grown back!!!!

 Look at how pretty his coloring is (was...).

 Ignore his icky sweet itch sores and dingy mane and admire that awesome neck.

 Chrome likes to wear his food lol.

 Rocky is looking good!

 Look at how flea-bitten his face is getting! He's going to be just like his mom.

Love his gorgeous eyes.  You can totally see the Arabian in him here.

Well that's all for now.  I'll try to update more, but no promises until the overtime settles down and with the time change I rarely see daylight anymore...  I hope you all are doing well!  I miss you guys!!  I hope everyone is doing year end reviews in December because that's about the only way I'll be able to catch up at this point.  I'm going to go cuddle my boy since I'm not working this weekend!