Happy Belated Birthday Chrome!

This happened a few days before Chrome's birthday.  I didn't get to be there because I was at work.  :(  Hubby took good care of the boys though.  Have I mentioned how much I love having a dentist who comes to my house??  And she's charges less than the vets that require you to haul them to the clinic. Oh and she doesn't put them in the head harness either, she lets them move around freely with their heads down.  She even gets on her knees if she has to.  Everything looked good on the teeth front.

 Chrome slept off his drugs while Rocky got doped.

 Poor doped Rocky.....  don't worry he's fine.  :)

 Sleepy Chrome.  Still has some dapples!

I think he's thinking evil thoughts about hubby lol.

Then it poured rain for days... including the day of his birthday..... :(

So a few days after his birthday I snapped these pictures of him grazing while I put his neem oil and Desitin on his sweet itch sores.

Sorry for the lack of updates and pictures.  I don't take my phone with me when I'm doing chores.  I get off work around five or six, go home, dump all of my stuff inside and then go outside to do chores.  I'll try to start taking my phone with me, but I'm afraid of breaking it.  I'm still not used to having a fancy smart phone haha.

Anyway Chrome is doing well and I can't believe he's eight years old!  The time has flown!  His face is getting so flea-bitten.  I need to get some close up pictures with the real camera for you guys sometime.  Maybe I can do it this weekend if it stops freaking raining.

Another reason I haven't been around is because our state had major flooding and I work in the auto salvage business so we have been insanely busy, then two people quit so we're extremely shorthanded, but we have to do the same amount of work.  I've been so busy doing menial office crap that I haven't even been getting to do titles which is what I love to do.  Oh well, I don't want to complain too much on the blog.  Hopefully we will get some people hired so that I can work less overtime and be less brain fried every day.  I'm dying to get back in the saddle.  I guess some more in hand work can't hurt.  His stifles always need all the help they can get.

I hope everyone is doing well!!  Now I have to finish up some more blog posts so I can go clean house... yay adulting!

Great Vet Visit!

 Chrome staring at himself in the window

 while waiting on sedative to take effect...

The vet visit went really well!  Chrome was up first.  She said his teeth weren't bad at all and there were no sores in his mouth.  After finishing his teeth I let him stand/graze in the yard while his sedative wore off.  Have I mentioned that I love that my vet doesn't tie the horse's head up??  She leaves their heads loose and just moves with them, even getting down on her knees when needed.  Chrome kept moving his head side to side and she just followed him.  She said, "That's what everybody needs first thing in the morning is to dance!"  Hehe.  Too funny!

 Sorry for crappy cell phone pictures.  

This was after while they were grazing. 

 I was too busy talking to take pictures during the visit.

Then Rocky was next.  We talked about his hooves and she looked at them.  She said my farrier is doing everything just as she would have recommended.  She said x-rays aren't necessary right now unless we just want them.  She said we could get some once his hoof angles are corrected so that we have a baseline and know in the future if he ever has any rotation.  I think I said all of that right lol.  She also said we should wait on the vaccines since he's been under a lot of stress with moving, laminitis, getting trimmed and now getting his teeth done.  I totally agree with that.  :)

We told her that we didn't know if he'd ever had his teeth done.  After he was sedated she walked up to him with the power float and he started backing up.  Hubby stood next to him and asked him to whoa.  He did.  We told her how smart he is and that he learns new things quickly, often in one lesson.  He was tense for a minute and then he just accepted it and relaxed his whole head and neck and didn't fight at all.  He didn't even move side to side like Chrome did.  She agreed that he does learn quickly and she said it looks like we got ourselves a diamond in the rough.  :D  She really liked him!

She said if all of his teeth had been like his left side that he wasn't in too bad of shape, but his right side more than made up for it... he had half inch hooks and a ramp on that side.  She got him floated and I can't wait to see him eat supper tonight!  He's going to be so much more comfortable.  I can totally see why people get addicted to rescuing.  Every time I do something to make him more comfortable and healthy it just makes me so much happier!  :D  When it's regular maintenance on Chrome, it's just regular maintenance lol.

Rocky was so funny when he was sedated.  The vet picked up one of his hooves to show me something and he lost his balance and went backwards down onto his knee (he actually caught himself before hitting his knee) and she jokingly said she taught him to bow.  It cracked me up.  So she just explained what she was trying to say about the hoof instead of trying to make him hold it up.  He was still more out of it than we realized.  Then he was wobbly and walked over to a tree and rested his head against it like it would hold him up or something.  So cute!

Since they were sedated she checked for beans on both of them, just like last time.  Chrome didn't have any, but Rocky had two.  One of them was long, pointed and probably an inch long!  Ouch!  Rocky isn't going to know what to think after all of this hehe.

We also talked about Zep and she said she's gelded donkeys before.  They react different to sedatives, but she's never had a problem with dangerous bleeding.  She leaves them open to drain like horses.  We will probably go ahead and get it done this fall since she seemed completely confident about doing it.  She agreed he definitely needs his hooves done when he's sedated for gelding.

We let them graze in the yard a little while and then put them back out into the pasture and fly sprayed them.  Zep is bad about being obnoxious around sedated horses so we trapped him in the round pen away from them.  Since he had no shelter we put him in our makeshift squeeze chute (out of a third of a hay ring haha) and fly sprayed him.  He wasn't happy about it, but he did well.  I scratched him all over the face too hoping he will remember how good it feels.  I can't wait until we can build something temporarily in the round pen so I can lock him up and work with him.  I think I could make progress if I just spent time touching him and showing him that it's okay.

Anyway I also found this picture that my friend sent to me the day we picked up Rocky.  This was taken while he was being trimmed.  They were working on his rear hooves so I chopped the picture in half since I don't have permission to post their faces on a public blog, but you can see how long his front hooves are...

King of side eye lol.

So they were really long, but they actually don't look as bad as she made it sound... of course his right front is the one that grows really distorted so I'm sure it looked worse.  The angle isn't directly from the side either, so they may be longer than they appear in the picture... not sure.

I don't know if we will ever know what exactly caused the laminitis, but since both my farrier and my vet think we can get it fixed right up I'm going to stop worrying about it excessively.  We will just keep him trimmed, I'll look into getting him some boots and we will be strict about his diet and weight.

P.S.  The vet guessed the exact same time frame for the laminitis that my farrier did, so it happened a month or so ago.  The weird thing is tomorrow makes five weeks we've had him..... so did it happen while we had him or before we got him?  Could the trim have caused it?  Was it our grass?  I'm so confused!!  He was never lame at all until this week, well not since we've had him...  my friend mentioned he was ouchy on his front hooves  the week before we picked him up... she thought it was a stone bruise...  I'm wondering if it happened when she said he was bruised and his hooves are just growing out faster than they think because of the ration balancer I have him on with the protein in it.  It had only been a few weeks since he was last trimmed when she did his hooves this weekend and there was already almost an inch of growth to trim off!  I just think I would have noticed if he had laminitis since he's been here...  sorry for rambling.  I'm writing as I think so this is not organized at all.

P.P.S.  I have an idea!  I'll take a picture of his founder ring today while holding a measuring tape up to it showing how far down it is, then take another picture in five weeks to see how far down it is.  That will help me guess when it happened.... also yes I'm know I'm obsessing again.... it probably doesn't even matter when it happened exactly, but it makes me crazy not knowing for sure!  Feel free to ignore my rambling lol.

Chrome's Dental & Vaccines

It was crowded and this is the best shot my hubby could get.

Chrome got his dental done today by the new vet and she's awesome!!! She's smart, down to earth, friendly, knowledgeable and the prices weren't as bad as I was expecting.  She said he definitely had some sharp points, but no ulceration at all so that was a relief.  She let me feel them too.  I'll make sure not to wait so long for his next one.  She also made sure to get the molars around where the bit would be really smooth since I told her I was going to start using one.  She asked questions about him and genuinely seemed interested in everything I told her.  She asked what my plans were for him and she complimented his bone and big feet.  :D  Oh and his personality hehe.  I know vets like all well behaved animals, but she really did seem to admire him.  It made me happy!

Since we're hoping to go do things this year we went ahead and did all of his vaccines (rabies, WNV, E&W, Tetanus and I think Rhino and Influenza too, but I'll have to check the receipt... I forgot lol).  I'm terrified and checking on him every hour for reactions but she said the vaccines she uses (I forgot the brand... will have to look it up or ask) have a carrier agent that rarely causes reactions.  She didn't seem concerned at all.  The good news is she has a mobile emergency truck so if he did have a reaction she could come right back to treat him and since I had the vet do it the vaccine company would pay for it.... small comfort if things did go wrong I guess.  I'll be obsessively checking on him for a while though!  How long does it take before you know they are completely safe?  I'm probably being overly paranoid.

I also had his blood pulled for his coggins.  Sorry for the lack of pictures.  As soon as she got there it started pouring rain so we had to do it on my front porch LOL!!! I wish I had a barn.  Chrome was very good as usual.  I think he liked not having to be in stocks or having his head cranked up high (I love that she lets them hold their heads naturally).  She also said I can try claritan for his Sweet Itch.  She said it works just as well as the equine antihistamine, especially if they've already started itching.  Apparently the equine kind (I think she called it TriHist) has to be started before they start getting bites.  I take claritan anyway so it's worth a try.  :)

Well that's all for now.  My back is killing me from being on my feet for so long (we had a huge Maple limb fall in the pond so we had to drag it out, cut it up and haul it out of the pasture), so I'm going to go lay down a while.

Photographic Evidence of Recess From Prison!

I have photographic evidence that the ponies do get time out of prison to play!  :D  I have photography evidence of several other things too....

Evidence #1  The reason why Chrome has no mane...

Because he scratches it out on our gate support posts that are perfect Chrome mane height.... good thing he's cute roached!

Evidence #2  I have the cutest donkey on the planet!

 I adore that expression!

Evidence #3  I have a super brave and independent Chrome that does not keep his head up another horse's ass.....

 Oh... um nevermind.... haha!!

Evidence #4  Chrome has a super awesome neck.... when he wants to!

 Playing with the hose.

 Silly boy!

Evidence #5  My camera sucks!!

Look at how gorgeous he is!!!  That could have been such an epic picture, but ever since I dropped my stupid camera on pavement (the neck strap broke) every 9 out of 10 pictures comes out blurry.  Okay I admit the one above is because he was moving and so was the camera, so it didn't focus, but if you look closely at all the rest of the pictures, there is some degree of blurriness in all of them.  Super sad!  Hopefully I can save up for a new one because I miss having crisp, sharp photos.

Evidence #6  My boy is all grown up!!

His canines are coming in!

Evidence #7  Chrome and Zep still love each other...

Honest... that's brotherly love.  (notice the blur?? grr!)

I wish I'd had the camera earlier before I took all of these because Chrome was pooping and Zep walked up to him and just started chewing on his throat!  Poor Chrome, give him some privacy!  Yep, they love each other.

Evidence #8  Chrome is half Arabian!!!  (these below are my two favorite shots from today!)

I am in love with this shot!  Look at that knee action!

Evidence #9  Last, but not least, evidence of recess from prison (lots of blurry action shots).

He did a little lazy trotting around like in the picture above, but as usual His Laziness stopped after about two minutes and started eating maple leaves (yeah every time I let him out he tries), so I got a longe whip and started popping it in the air.  He isn't afraid of whips, he knew I was playing.  He came right up to me after we were done exercising.  His Arabian trots above were after I got the whip out.  :)

 This one above is hilarious!  He jumped a fallen tree and due to the delay on my crappy, messed up camera, I ended up with the above shot.  Graceful much Chrome?  Check out the hock flexion though. :)

 

He always goes behind crap.  Makes it hard to get pictures.  This was the biggest trot I've seen yet (above)!!  He looked like a Standardbred!  Sorry about the quality.
 

Hopping around like a lamb, silly horse!  It was like he was on pogo sticks. 

 Faran finally got in on the action.  He's lazy too!

Look at the reach under him with his hind leg!!  He was booking it!

 "What's next mom?"

 Tired pony (okay this was taken before the galloping around, but it's cuter here).

He didn't even work up a sweat (and it was hot today for fall/winter)!  Back to eating his hay as calm as you please.  I hope you all enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them, even though for the most part they suck.  My boy is so fun!

Exploring

 Appy, yep we brought the chickens and ducks.  Sadly my last turkey (the sweet white hen that followed me around when I took pictures) was killed by some predator so we don't have turkeys anymore.  We might get some eventually when things are more settled in. 

And yes I will have a flat place to put the round pen where I'll get to work with Zep finally!!!  I just have to go get the rest of my panels and rig him up a shelter, but I do plan to get him tamed down, halter trained and gelded this year finally.  I'm very excited!!  :D

Anyway here are some more pictures.  Tomorrow I'll post about my plans for the property.... it will be interesting I promise!

 I brought Chrome out to brush him off and comb out his mane and tail because he was looking a little "wild".  ;)

 

 Since he'd only been in the pasture so far at the new place I decided to take him for a walk around the rest of the property.  Here he is checking out the trash cans.

Here he is looking very much like a Friesian hehe.

 I got him with his neck arched too as he started to walk off hehe.  He was listening to a neighbor horse that was neighing, but he couldn't see it, so he was excited.

 "Are you looking at my butt??"  --  Hehe I had to get a picture of his pretty tail after I brushed it out.

Zep was feeling frisky when I put Chrome back in the pasture LOL!

 Faran looking handsome!

 Laaaazy trot!

Chrome balancing act while scratching lol.

Where's Waldo.... err I mean where's Chrome??

One of my favorites of Faran.  :D

Faran actually gave us a scare the other day.  He was eating when suddenly he walked off and started pawing the air which he's never done.  I was confused so I went to check on him and he refused to eat.  Then he started flapping his upper lip and stretching his neck and shaking his head.  I thought he was choking, but after a minute he got a drink and was fine, so I think it's his teeth.  He's been drooling a little while eating so I knew he needed to have his teeth done (he's actually overdue.... how does time fly by so quickly??), but we kept having to postpone it because of the whole no job situation and then the moving situation.  So anyway I found someone who will float a draft horse so now we have to schedule something.  The only time we can do it is a Saturday morning and we can't do it this Saturday so I'll try to schedule it for the next one.  Keep your fingers crossed they have something available!

Chrome's Dental Work

Warning:  If you are squeamish about blood do not look at these pictures.  I didn't include any gruesome ones, but there is some blood.

The trip to the vet to get Chrome's teeth done was . . . eventful as usual.  I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I have a little trailer anxiety (okay a lot), so once I get him on the trailer I want to GO!  No waiting around.  It makes me crazy.  So while my husband hooked up to the trailer, checked the lights, checked the tires, etc. I brushed Chrome off.  Once my husband was ready we loaded up and left.  Not even ten minutes down the road a neighbor called and said Faran was out!!  I had considered putting him in the round pen because he gets upset when Chrome leaves, but so far he hasn't shown any inclination to get out.  So we turned around and went back home (way to waste half an hour!!!!) and he wasn't even out!!!!!!!  I don't know what our neighbor was thinking, but he was safely in the pasture so we locked him in the round pen just to be safe and left again.  Chrome was fine during all of this, even when Faran was neighing to him.

 

 

 When we got there the dentist wasn't there yet, but I was expecting that because I had been warned by a friend.  The receptionist called him and we waited while Chrome grazed.  He really didn't sweat a lot this time so hopefully he's getting more comfortable on the trailer.

 

 Chrome is such a chill boy.  :D

 Once the dentist arrived we went inside.  The receptionist who raised the garage door into the equine facilities was short I guess and didn't raise the door that high, so we both ducked (more than necessary lol) and my husband got a photo.  Our expressions are hilarious.  :D

 

 Then we spent some time exploring the facilities.

 

 So does he look Friesian or Arabian here?  I think he looks gorgeous!!  

The gray around his face accentuates his features (and makes him look old??).  

 He's so handsome.

 Checking out the drain.

 

 Waiting to go into the stocks.

Chrome was very reluctant to go into the stocks.  I guess considering the last time he was in one he had his swollen, painful hock probed (when he had a puncture wound) at the vet, so I can't really blame him.  I eventually backed him into them. 

 He kept his muzzle on my shoulder the whole time he was waiting on and getting his injection.

At this point my camera broke!!!  It said lens error or something so my husband used his cell phone to get the rest of the pictures.  Luckily once we got home and I messed with my camera, it is now working.  I have no idea what that was all about unless it just got bumped.  It's three years old and been through several falls (me falling or dropping it), so I guess I'm not really surprised.

All doped up and sleepy.

 Checking out the chompers.

 I helped put the speculum on (it was too small for him so he had to add leather to the headstall hehehe).

 And then he put the sling on to hold his head up.

 There is blood on his tongue because he had already pulled one of the front baby teeth/caps.

My husband couldn't really get a picture of his teeth with the cell phone and no light. I was surprised he actually had some really jagged points!  I didn't realize they could get that bad by the time a horse is three (everyone get your yearlings done!!!  It will save you having to get teeth pulled!).  Okay, they weren't that bad, just worse than I expected.  I got to feel them though which was cool.  :)  And they are all better now.  :D

This was after he rinsed his mouth out.  

It looks like Chrome is hung over and just puked (I'm joking of course I know horse's can't puke).  LOL!

 One of the vet tech's (who is not a horse person!) had a kitten and wanted her to meet Chrome.  I let her since he was sedated.  You can tell he was aware enough to look at it though.  Makes me wonder how much they are aware of when their teeth are being worked on . . . hopefully he will forget soon.

 Getting his gums injected so that his wolf teeth can be removed.  That was the only part that grossed me out.  He had to actually shove this tool up into the gums around the wolf tooth and then snapped it off.  Yuck!

 His two wolf teeth next to a quarter.  They are so tiny!

 After the extractions were done he floated his teeth.  Yeah he used a power drill.  I looked for months and just can not find someone in my area who uses a hand float.  :(  He did a good job though I think. 

 

Chrome's teeth.

I didn't get any pictures once we got home.  I was a little worried because Zeppelin was acting really weird toward him.  Every time he's been to the vet (especially after sedation) Zep has acted semi-aggressively toward him.  I didn't separate them this time, but watched them closely.  Zep chased Chrome (yes I was shocked too!!!) around a little and then they started grazing.  I think Zeppelin's hormones are kicking in . . . I really need to get him gelded (and get his hooves done while he's sedated), but money is so tight right now with my husband in school and only me working.  That's not even counting the $500 of work my dang car is getting done right now.  :(  We will figure it out though.

So anyway, Chrome did fantastic!! I'm happy with the job the dentist did.  I really had fun helping him.  It reminded me of working at the vet clinic a few years ago.  I miss that soooo much!!  Anyway I'll update tomorrow.  :D