Newer baby!

I was talking to my friend this morning, the one that has the Canadien horses, and here's what she found in her pasture this morning!

It's a boy! light chestnut with flaxen mane and tail. He is only minutes old on the picture. We had expected the mare to foal any day for about 3 days and she really made us hold our breath! She has a lot of milk, she could've raised two babies easily, but I know the risks of that!

This is the 6 yo mare that I have trained to saddle. Unfortunately, she is suffering from moon blindness and has nearly completely lost her vision and probably will be completely blind one day. :( (What is it with blindness in horses!!???)

He will be registered under the letter "X" since this is breed requirements for this year. His name will be Xanthe which means blond or fawn in latin. It also is an asteroïd, which is following in the outerspace theme since his mom's name is Lune (Moon) and his sister is Stella (Star) and Xanthe was also Achilles horse in Greek Mythology following his dad's theme whose name is Paygaze (Pegasus, who is Poseidon's horse in Greek Mythology)... so this name is perfect for him! I don't know why all of this is linked to one name, but it has so much meaning for this little guy!

I can't wait to see this new little face! He was born at 4:30 am on April 30, 2010. He should be just like his dad... who looks like this... he is green broke to ride and is very calm.

Plans for the weekend

I don't really know what I'll do this weekend. I would really like to take Dandy for a ride and I would really like to start Misty (the new gal) on her lead training. You'll say... well, work Dandy on Saturday and train on Sunday. But they are calling for rain pretty much all weekend. Last time I checked, there was a slight chance that it'd be sunny on Saturday. I don't want to over train Misty, but I don't know how long it'll take before she understands the pressure thing.

I might have time to slip in a ride too... we'll have to wait and see. I also want to take pictures of the new girl and the calf and all the horses and cows, since I usually take pictures every month and that my last ones date from winter. I also have Dandy's back feet to trim, but they are maintaining good shape, so I'm in no hurry. While I trim them, I might as well touch up the fronts.

Misty would also have to get trimmed, but she is in no state of mind to do so... I might as well go stand in traffic and hope not to get hit... my chances of survival would be pretty near the same.

Her feet aren't cracked and seem tolerable for her, she has nice movement and a trot to die for! I will try to take video of her moving as well.

I hope it won't rain. We also have a ton of things to do on our fields and to maintain the farm in general. I'll try to split the tasks between my SO and I, so I can have time to work the horses and he can work on the fields. Oh yeah, and Peg's shoes need to be pulled... well, I think, they were in very good shape last week so I decided to leave them on. I hope she remains sound without them. She has one bad leg, the other one has changed dramatically since the shoes are on. I will check her feet regularly when the shoes are pulled.

I can't wait until most of the work to seed our fields is done... but then it's going to be hay cuttin' time and baling... we might get some weekends off in between... I want to break the filly to saddle and get as much work done on her before winter... and she'll probably get a few rides in winter too! I hope all that training goes well... I was never worried like that for any other horses that I've trained or worked with... she's aggressive!

We'll start with one thing, and that's the lead rope, then I want to touch her all over, probably with the aid of a stick or whip to extend my arm as to not get kicked. Why did I get myself an unbroke filly!?!?!?!??! The price was right and it's a really well bred and nice horse, but is it worth it?!? I'll have to tell you in a few months...

New Baby!

We have a brand new white calf at the farm! Nabisco finally gave birth last night. We don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl, we haven't been able to get close enough and I don't want to get hit by those horns! We'll probably handle the new baby more this weekend to tag and check him. I hope it's a heifer!

I am happy that it is white because here, in Ontario and Quebec, Canada, white cows or bulls are worth much much more than red, brown or black cattle. I can't explain why exactly, but it's just the way it is. When we bought our steer for butchering purposes... we paid much more for the beige / white one than for the red one and they only had about 100 lbs difference in weight, but we paid about 0.10 $ a pound less for the red! Plus the white one turned out to be the nastiest, most aggressive thing on four legs! I've seen calmer bulls!

If it's a heifer, we'll keep her and she can give us more white babies down the line. If it's a bull, we'll castrate him and probably keep him for meat. It's the whole life of a cow, but home raised beef is probably the best thing ever! You know what they eat, what they have eaten, if they were sick and how you finished them before sending them for meat.

It's a buy/sell business. I think all farmers love their cows (except for the few bad seeds, just like in the horse world), I haven't seen one farmer not care for a cow that was in difficulty or sick. We go out of our way to help them and treat them as best we can. I really love my cows and Nabisco is my favorite, she was my first one, is of really good lineage and is friendly, she'll eat out of your hand! I don't know how she is when she has a new baby at her side, but we'll see. I love them and often bring them a pale of oats and grain as a treat.

I will post pictures of the new baby soon too! I'll have to spend a whole day taking pictures!!! LOL! We have limestone to spread on our fields this weekend, but I'll try to escape from it to take pictures of all these new arrivals.

I hope the mare won't be too much to handle, but I plan on having help around when I'll put that lead on her halter. I'll have someone with the lunge whip to correct her when she shoots backwards. I am not yet sure how I'm going to go about it. I am not taking any crap from her as is but she is now keeping her distance and getting even more b**chy as we go along.

What I think happened with her is that, as a foal, her owners tryed to halter break her, halter went on ok, then the lead came in and all hell broke loose. I'm thinking she kept pulling back and they kept giving her back her head, then they just gave up on her and parked her in a field. The only thing she knows is to pull as hard as she can against pressure. But she is 3 now and much bigger, so this will be somewhat of a challenge. I will not take rearing, bolting, kicking or shooting backwards. She will get a smack on the butt for shooting backwards until she can understand that walking with me is a good thing and much less hard. I will not take crap and I really need to step it up... except that I don't want to scare her so bad and lose the little trust I have... but I will not be able to build trust until I can work with her... get it... it's a vicious circle! I certainly have my work cut out for me and I might need advice, but the only thing I am aiming for is to get her walking forward with me without pulling back or rearing up... I think I'll need to get tough with this one and I only got tough briefly when training Dandy at first, when she was kicking... it's not my thing, but I tried being gentle, calm, focussed, patient and nothing worked!

I think I'll need as much advice as I can get! This reminds me of Mugwump's Cupcake story... I might ask her for advice... the situation is pretty similar, except that I don't think that my new girl is mad, just scared and confused. I need to make it clear to her that she needs to follow me; I just don't know how to go about since she is so explosive!

She's home!

What a weekend... I am absolutely exhausted... I had zero time to rest. Finally, I didn't remove Peg's shoes since they were still hanging on pretty darn hard! I will probably remove them next weekend since it will have been 4 weeks. Her hooves seem to have changed shape a whole lot... except for her bad foot that didn't show as much improvement as the other one... :(

Saturday morning... we had to bring the horses to the vet to get little Wakan gelded and to give Dandy her shots. For the trailering part... I think it went okay. The colt didn't want to get int he trailer so I had to use my lunge whip to block him and guide him in the trailer. Since he was such a kicker lately, I didn't take a chance to get close behind. Once he understood that he had to get in, he went like a champ!

Then we got Dandy, who trailered without asking questions, except that I forgot that I was standing on her blind side and when my sister came to shut the door, I got crushed between Dandy and the wall... plus she stepped on my foot briefly, something she never does... no harm done, not even a bruise. Once at the vet, Wakan wouldn't go down for his gelding. After four shots, he finaly went down and the surgery was a breeze. He recovered quickly and was back home in less than an hour. Right after we dropped the horses off, we were off to get the new mare.

The place where I got her from is 2.5 hours from my place, one way. So we got there around 3:00 pm. The mare is in the barn, so I go check her out... first thing I notice is the she is NOT 15.3hh, but I already knew that was a lie. She might be in the taller 14.3 hh but no more. She is stocky and has a huge hindquarter. So she comes up to the gate and I'm thinking she's friendly. So we separate the other mare that's with her and back the trailer up. The mare wouldn't go in the trailer, so we herded her in (we had a stock trailer). She reared up, she can't lead at all! Once in, she was quiet for the whole ride home.

I put her in with Dandy after they met over the fence and they bonded pretty good. They are now eating on the same patch of grass, nose to nose. the new girl keeps trotting around... I think she was cooped in for a while. She has AWESOME movement and her feet aren't in such bad shape... I'm happy about that since I won't be able to trim them in a good while.

Yesterday, I fed her apples and she was really friendly, I touched her pretty much all over, except legs, but I did the neck, face, ears, cheeks, wither, back (even tapped on it!) and rump, without going too far back behind the leg and she took it all in stride. Then I stepped it up and I probably should've left her alone. I took her halter and moved her head, she responded pretty well but wouldn't move forward, so I applyed more pressure and she kept exploding backwards, so I moved her sideways as much as I could and called it quits, but each time I went to make her move, she would freeze, shoot backwards or pin her ears and threaten to bite me.

Later that day, I was petting her and she turned, pinned her ears and threatened to kick, I immediatly chased her a bit. The thing is, I don't know if I ever had a horse this callenging to train. I plan on starting work on her this weekend, and I have a goal to have her leading (at least walking forward without struggle) by the end of the weekend. I don't want to scare her and turn her against humans and I don't want to have her walking all over me either! I will have to gauge my reactions. If she is not working out for me, I will have to sell her as this purchase was intended to get me another riding horse, not another pasture ornament... I already have enough of those!!!

I am not sure where I am going to start, but one of the things I usually do to foals in training is put a leadline on them and let them figure it out. Usually, they are terrified by that snake stuck to their faces and just keep wanting to get away so there is no use trying to hold the line, I just let them run under supervision. If they step on their line, they learn that to undo the tension on the face and head, they need to release the pressure from either the hoof or lower the head... therefore, they learn to give to pressure, but most times, they don't even step on it. The next step is to take the lead line and apply forward pressure, by then the horse might be tired and might even respond immediatly instead of fighting. If they do, reward them, do it again and reward if they answer correctly, then, you may do it again and let them go after they answered correctly. I need to teach her to trust me, at least to touch her all over, I might isolate her to do that. I don't know how much of a project this will be, but I am ready to stick it out and try as much as I can to turn her around.

I am sorry but I had zero time to take pictures. On Sunday, we had the beef slaughtered and taken to the butcher shop which took most of the day. In 2 weeks, we'll have the best tasting beef in the area! We've already sold all of it. We are not making much profit on our beef at all... only about 400$ and I have not deducted the transport fees and probably not all of the feed... so we aren't making much money at all on them. Oh well, at least we'll have good meat to eat! We are planning on having a few more for the same purpose.

I had my heart in a bind when I knew they were gone, but once I saw them afterwards, they didn't feel like the same animals... I found that about myself... I think I pretty much only see the soul of a person or animal. Once the soul is gone, they don't look like the same people to me so I have very little attachment to them after their death. I saw my grandfather dead in his hospital bed and to me, I was only looking at him to confirm that he was in fact gone but the body on the bed wasn't my grandfather... it was just a body. It's hard to explain, but once something has died, I disconnect completely from it.

After he died, I heard him speak to me and I plan on trying my best to respect what he told me.

Anyways, sorry for not having pictures, my feet were so sore after the day, that I didn't feel like walking the whole way back to the field to take pictures. I will definatly have some next weekend! Hopefully of training!

Too excited!!!

It's only Thursday... I can barely hold myself in my chair... I can't wait to see what I will look like on Saturday!?!? Counting the sleep I will probably lack.

Since I have such a busy weekend dangling at the end of my leash, I will put you in perspective of what I am supposed to do, starting tommorow after work... here goes:

1. Shoot home as fast as I legally can! lol (I'll probably get there around 4:00 pm
2. I want to remove Peg's shoes
3. I have to get the trailer from my friend (by the way, he's the bestest friend EVER!)
4. Prepare trailer for next morning's trip to the vet
5. Prepare colt's rest area after surgery and prepare colt...

Saturday:

1. Call vet to see if we're still good (she's on call this weekend for emergencies)
2. Drive up to my parent's place to help load the colt
3. Drive back to my farm to get Dandy on the way to the vet
4. Drive to vet (I'm assuming it'll take 45 minutes to 1 hour, very curvy and narrow road!)
5. Get shots for Dandy
6. Get colt gelded
7. Wait appropriate amount of time to allow colt to get into trailer
8. Load horses and go back home
9. Unload horses and go back to my farm
10. Call friend
11. Leave with friend to go get the new gal! (2:15 hours away, one way)
12. Don't know how she'll load
13. Probably eat a bite somewhere during the trip
14. Get home, unload new gal in small pasture with Dandy (have them meet over fence first!)
15. I have limestone to spread on the fields
16. Disk
17. Probably no more time left in day
18... Before I leave, I have to make sure that my SO is well aligned for the task of taking the bulls to the slaughterhouse. I want the weight for each one recorded for payment purposes...

Sunday
1. I want to spend time with the new gal
2. Make friends with her as much as I can
3. Probably take Dandy for a ride given that the weather is nice
4. Probably disk again...

So, that's my weekend plans... I probably left something out... Saturday will be a killer. I will spend over 6 hours on the road, needless to say that there is stuff to do in between the roadtrips... UHG! I will try and fit in taking pictures of the new horse and of all the cattle. No new baby calf yet... this is a true patience game!

Wish me luck!

New Project!!!!!

I am very excited to announce that I have just (litteraly 2 minutes ago) aquired a new project horse. She is a 3 year old bay tobiano filly. She hasn't been handled since she was young, so this should be an interesting project.

I must say, she is a beautiful mare and I am not talking about colour here. She has good conformation and should be fast! I can use her for my projects that I had... barrels, poles, small jumps! I am very happy. We are getting her Saturday and I am sure that I will be a nervous wreck! I need to make plans to go get her... since we are taking our horses to the vet on Saturday morning... I will probably only get her in the afternoon. Yikes... lots of money spent there! That's okay, the project girl didn't cost an arm. The guy needed to get rid of her since his gelding is going off to training and there is no time for her, plus he didn't want to leave her alone. I made a ridiculously low offer and got the mare. She is untrained, but I can work on that over time... I'm sure I'll have her under saddle by mid-summer if I dedicate enough time. I will post pictures as soon as I have some! I am so excited! She will meet Dandy first as I will try to get them to bond, since Dandy has no real friends. The new gal needs to brace herself to meet Peg and Pearl because they are as unfriendly as any horse can get! Of course, they will meet over the fence first!

Can't wait! Also, no new calf yet... and our steer are going to the meat factory this weekend... so it sounds like a pretty busy weekend for me... I'll try to get my SO on some tasks and take other tasks for me... i.e.: he takes care of the steer and I take care of the horses... I also want to remove Peg's shoes... YIKES! too much stuff for 2 days!

I'll try to get the shoes off Friday evening, since I am supposed to be off of work early. Then I will get the trailer ready for the next morning's vet appointment. Next day will be off to the vet early, bringing the horses back home then taking off again to get the new gal and taking her home... I'm hoping to get all of that done before dinner time. I would like to spend some time getting used to the new gal, maybe Sunday would be a good day... just spend a lot of time with her, petting her and giving cookies. Since her daddy's name is Tantoo Eagle Bell... I want to change her name from Freya to Belle, I just don't like how I would say that out loud! lol

So if you have better name ideas, I am open to all of them... if it's something that has meaning, I am even more open!

RANT, RANT, RANT!

Well... no calf for us this weekend, we had great hopes of finding one Sunday morning, but Mother Nature has played another trick on us, I'm sure she is laughing hard at us now! We are expecting it anytime, mom's udder is filled with milk and the passage way seems to have dialated fully... but still no calf! GGGRRRRRRR!!!! Ohh well, it'll be born this week for sure!

I was just reading something quite controvertial about hoof trimming and I would like to share my thoughts and perhaps hear yours. I will explain the concept first, then give you my opinion on everything. Here goes... (below is Dandy's Left Hinf foot after a barefoot performance trim)

I was reading about the Natural method to maintain your horse's feet. They suggest that shoes, barefoot trims, etc. are no good for our domestic horses. Wild horse trims are unrealistic for our horses since mustangs live in dry rocky areas, therefore have very short and hard feet and some other wild horses live in wet sandy conditions, therefore have long broken up feet. He says his method is Natural and suggests these steps to maintain our domestic horse's feet:

1. Remove all shoes and put horse in pasture where there is a lot of ground variance, hard ground AND soft ground.

2. Do not touch hooves for 6 to 9 MONTHS and take notes of changes that occur every month during that period (wideness, chips, cracks, etc).

3. Even though he doesn't suggest trimming the feet at all, he says you can trim your horse's feet after nine months... leave flare and lenght.

At first, I was very open to try his method, but after reading all of it, I thought it was ludicrous! First, he says not to base trimming on wild horses, then all he does, when suggesting light trimming, is compare to wild horses. So, if there is a better model out there as to what hooves should look like than the wild horse hoof, then TELL ME!!!!!! (Below is Peg's Left Hind foot after a barefoot performance trim).

Second of all, Wild horses travel mainly in the same sort of land, therefore, their hooves will certainly have adapted to wet or very dry conditions. Our domestic horses are most of the time in a softer environment (pasture, grass, dirt) and are forced to work on even softer or harder ground (arena, pavement, gravel, etc). Therefore, to maximize comfort, there will be work to do on domestic hooves. Also, since wild horses HAVE to travel over 25 miles per day to find food and water and a safe place away from predators, their hooves naturally wear the right way... yes, even horses that live on beaches and wet areas. Therefore, since our horses encounter all kinds of different terrain AND have to carry about 200 pounds on their back when working or hacking, we need to pay attention to hoof care.

We need to understand that our horses are confined, eating richer foods than what they could probably find in the wild and getting much, much less exercise than they would if left wild. To me, this means that, since they eat richer foods, greater attention should be paid to their feet, since the first signs of dietary changes show in the hoof. Then, we need to have our horses walking as much as possible between their food and water (even if this will never equal 25 miles or even close to, it is a good start to get the hooves working). We also need to incorporate different kinds of terrain in the pasture, make sure your horse HAS to cross a rocky area (please use round rocks, not crushed stone!), usually around water throughs or feeders. Pea gravel works best, they might even use it as a bean bag lounge area!

My horses pretty much live in a natural state, they are outside 24/7 all year round, they have access to a shelter that they rarely use, they have a huge pasture with muddy areas and rocky-er areas, free choice food and water, but the one thing I will not skip on, is farrier work. I have a friend who doesn't trim her horses every 8 weeks (8 weeks is a lot for me, I trim mine everytime they need it, even if only two weeks have passed), she feeds a rich mix of alfalfa (probably 90%) and timothy and her horses live in a mud pit for half of the year. She has 8 horses (ninth one on the way). Let me tell you that at least one of her horses as foundered, many more are prone to foundering, their white lines are not connected, which means the pedal bone is pressin gon the sole and crushing the digital cushiont causing them to be flat footed, lame and sore, these horses are rough to ride and will not willingly canter or even trot, they cannot work in a round pen or in any kind of circle. They have long toes, cracks that just keep getting further up the wall and regularly abcess (at least twice a year for big abcesses, all the time for small ones). These horses could not be left 9 months without a trim, they would've all foundered and died. It already breaks my heart to see the miserable state they are in after only 3 months without a trim.

I find that there is no harm done by nipping and rasping a foot. This mimicks the natural abrasion process that the hoof would endure if it could wear itself like a wild horse's, given the amount of daily mileage required to obtain a self maintaining hoof. In my opinion, a trimmed hoof also spreads the load much more evenly and alows the horse to walk, trot and canter comfortably. Leaving a hoof long is like pulling your finger nail off slowly by repeatedly hammering it against a hard surface.

I've bought Dandy as a two year old, never trimmed in her life. She had two big chunks of hoof missing from the inside of her fronts, where the hooves had self trimmed, but on the outside, long wall (about 6-9 inches) was left curling upwards and would've never broke off. I proceeded to start trimming her in the Barefoot performance trim and it worked very well. The fact that she was left two years with long wall on the outside of her fronts ad short on the inside has left her front feet tipping inwards, I guess the bone columns fused that way when she was growing. I am trying to get it back to level, but this will take time and patience until the bone column can adapt and realign. I don't think that leaving her feet grow out for 9 months would get rid of the problem, I have a feeling it would make it worst.

Anyways, this is the perfect example why you should always do your research before trying out something. I am a true advocate for Barefoot Performance simply because I have rehabilitated a founder case, my own horse (Dandy) and am seeing good changes in my rescues (wider heels, better frog, etc.) I am constantly trying to improve myself, but I will not stop trimming my horses for the reasons listed above, it just sounds like a poor excuse for horse expenses or hard work. You need to assess every horse and trim accordingly. I can trim Dandy's feet really short, where she pretty much walks on the edge of her sole and she never bats an eye, as for my rescues, I need to be careful to leave a bit of hoof for them to walk on and trim dead sole that could cause interference with the ground and solar bruising. I only remove part of the dead sole, I always leave some as a cushion! My horses have been comfortable (except for Peg I am exploring new ways to make her more comfortable) 100% of the way and can walk on asphalt, gravel, mud, sand and grass confidently and comfortably. They also have unrestricted movement. As for Peg, I am exploring new ideas to make her more comfortable during her rehabilitation. Peg was probably shod before she was two, maybe before her 1.5 year, so her hoof growth was stunted as of that day, her heels are very contracted and her hoof tends to grow lenghty, I need to assess the toe, but if I trim it the way I should to help solve the problem, she gets a little sore. She has been great since the Easywalker shoes are on, but they are constantly coming loose, since she walks in such a crooked way, so I plan on taking them off and giving her a few weeks of pasture rest, while I order those boots I wanted for her! I hope they work out, otherwise, she will be going to retirement for sure. She is already in pre-retirement, since we only use her about once every 3-4 weeks and rarely two weeks in a row for a trail ride that never exeeds 2 hours.

Anyways, tell me what you think about the "Natural" hoof care method. Until someone can prove it tried and true, I will not believe it! There is no way a horse can work comfortably with long hooves.

Update on the cows!

Well... it seems like we've been waiting forever for a calf, and there's still nothing... Nabisco is showing good signs of calving soon, she is the only one showing advanced signs for now. The other ones are starting to show slightly, but nothing to get excited about. Nabisco will be 8 years old this year, so this is not her first calf... as a matter of fact, only one of them will have their first calf this year. We are expecting 4 calves, since one of our cows is not bred... long story that I have told before!

Nabisco is bred to a Charolais bull, so we are expecting something light in color... I would love to have a white heifer. We will be keeping all of our heifers, since we don't have a bull that they are related to as they were all bred before we bought them... except for one... grrr!

The other cows, the red ones, are an Angus and Gilbvieh mix, they are a dark red and are supposed to be bred either Charolais or Red Angus... We'll have to wait and see! My friend, who is a beef farmer had bought some cows at the same place we did, one of his cows gave him a red angus calf... so we are expecting reds...

For some reason, red cattle doesn't sell well here in Canada. People want the white ones, even when buying for meat... Just an example, when we bought our steer for meat. We bought one red steer for a little over $600 and the white / blond one we bought for a little over $800... the two only had about 100 lbs of difference, the white one being a little bigger. These were steer... only for meat... what difference does it make if he is white, black or red?? He will taste the same in your plate!

Anyways, the steer have not been to slaughter yet, we are expecting to ship them in about 1-2 weeks. We've had them for 3 weeks (4 next weekend) and have been feeding them good food to get the best quality of meat. We have not slaughtered them before because we want to wait 30 days in case they were wormed or had shots (which I doubt), but it can really ruin the good taste. They are fed all natural corn and sweet feed every day with our top quality hay/alfalfa mix. They are happy campers and getting pretty friendly! I am not getting attached, I know how dangerous they can get once that gate doesn't separate us anymore. I can't wait to taste it! This will be our first meat harvest from our farm... we'll see how well we have made, but I have done a lot of research and we are aiming at top quality AAA meat. It is local produce and all natural, we know all that for a fact. We know where they come from and how they were raised. We've bought them to finish them and ensure that our meat will be of good quality. We've sold all of them to family and friends that are very happy that they can finaly buy a top quality meat locally.... Our grocery stores don't offer quality meat and we are sick of it!

So, I will have lots of pictures once Nabisco's calf is born... we expect a lot from this cow, maybe we are putting too much pressure on her! LOL Maybe another cow will calve before her!?!? We'll have to wait and see!

Sad! :(

Well, I really thought I would take some more video of Peg with her shoes, because she is so free moving now, I am amazed, and, at the same time, sad that these shoes don't work for her. I have had the chance to look closer at how she walks and have noticed that her two front feet rub against each other at the walk, so she gets rubs on her coronet band from the opposite hoof. I know, this is a special case and will require extra care to make sure she is comfortable.

I have made her more comfortable on her feet by putting shoes on her, but created another problem bby having her hit her coronet band when walking... which was probably happening before, but with bare hooves, it is less likely to leave a mark. I am so sad to have to take the shoes off, she is just running all the time now! But I will have to find something else that doesn't create another problem, like the one she has right now.

On other sad news... this is why I haven't spent time taking pictures this weekend. Dandy is getting progressively blinder. She is now running into things, I'm afraid she will get hurt and I am extremely sad that she will probably be completely blind by age 6. There goes my dreams of barrel racing and jumping. My plans with Dandy have to change, she will not be able to succeed and I want to prevent any kind of injury that I can.

This is my first horse, I've trained her from the ground up, she knows me and I know her, she trusts me entirely and I trust her just as much. Dandy trusts me completely to galop in a field that she doesn't know, she knows that I won't hurt her and guide her in the right direction. She is not completely blind from her right eye, but she is completely blind from her left eye. I think she only sees from close and cannot distinguish things from afar.

Friday, I was out to have a look at Peg's shoes, since I need to keep a close eye so that she doesn't get injured. I couldn't catch her and Pearl and her were running around the 40 acre pasture. Dandy is not quite accepted in their group and often stays on her own, but she was trying to follow them at a canter, she was calling out for them. We have a treeline that separates two parts of the pasture and there is a trail wide enough for a tractor to pass through if needed. When the two mares galopped back, they took a different trail, Dandy swung around to find the tractor trail, and she couldn't find it, so she cut through the woods and hit several small trees with her face. My heart was broken... she gave up and followed me around instead. I caught up with Peg and checked her, as well as Pearls feet and Dandy's. Next day, I wanted to check Peg's feet again, so we caught her, after they ran the 40 acre pasture again... Dandy in tow, Dandy crashed in the round bale cattle feeder. I was so scared! I called her back to me and checked her all over for wounds, nothing, I guess we got lucky, but she seems to have spotted the feeder at the last minute and did one good reining sliding stop, but it was a bit too late. Fortunately, she was not hurt.

I trimmed Dandy's feet this weekend also, I didn't take any pictures, I really wasn't in the mood. Her feet are great! I did pare out some sole (although I never advise of doing it), Dandy's sole was so thick and full of dead stuff, even after paring it out (a little bit), there was still dead stuff in it, I didn't go the the live sole at all. It was super windy on Saturday, so our ride got reported to Sunday... which was still windy, but not as bad and a little warmer! We took the three horses, Pearl was on her second ride of the year, the first one being in January, I think. Peg was great and Dandy was as good as always, though she jumped a creek, she never does that, and I wasn't really ready for it, I didn't pull in her mouth, but she has such a push off that my butt hit the cantle and it hurt a little bit! :) The rest of the ride was spotless for me. Pearl always gets a little excited. She likes to intimidate her rider before he / she mounts up. My poor sister who worked with Pearl since the start was truly intimidated. Pearl jumps around just before you put your foot in the stirrup and she actually kicked at my sister... she got reprimanded quickly enough and didn't try that again. She cannot stand still, so we make her move around... she isn't dangerous once your are on her and she seems like a blast to ride. She is truly gaited and does a nice little running walk that is TO DIE FOR! I rode Pearl for the first time, and I've vowed to never do it again, but I might reconsider, she has calmed down significantly, doesn't mini rear anymore, just fakes it by "Sitting down".

We have an appointment with the vet next Saturday. My sister is getting her little yearling gelded and I am taking Dandy for her shots and a complete physical examination, especially her eyes!!! I am very concerned and I want to know if there is options out there to treat her... I will consider any price, Dandy is worth everything to me. I would love for her to be able to see... although I am not sure how many options there is out there. I can't stop thinking about it... what do I do... I will eventually need to retire her, or she will no longer be a match for me, since I would like to move on and do something besides trail riding. She is an excellent horse, I will never find another one like her. I will have to wait and see what the vet has to say about it. I hope there is something I can do that won't cost an arm and a leg.

So here, this is why I am so depressed lately... I feel like I am losing my best girl. I am so attached to her, I don't want anything bad to happen. Wish me luck... I'm pretty down right now. :(

First shoeing job

I got the pictures already!!! Feel free to bash my head open for making you wait so long! LOL


So here's what's happening with that. I LOVE the Easywalker horseshoes. They are a great product and if you are looking for a good alternative to metal shoes, you should consider.


The thing is, they are not working out for Peg. Peg has A LOT of leg issues, she is bow legged, walks with an obvious extreme twist and her breakover is on the outside quarter of her front feet. All of this creates MAJOR pressure on any kind of shoe and they keep getting loose. So I have to renail them on and it is getting to be a pain for me and I'm sure Peg is getting sick of me always fixing her shoes! She is pretty hard on them too, she lands toe first on them when she is not paying attention, her awful hoof twisting on the ground as she walks and the side breakover is probably really hard on the shoes and creates pressure and weakens the nails. She acts up like crazy in the field, she runs everywhere and keeps pawing at the feeder, which I am scared that she will get a shoe caught and hurt herself.


My decision: pull the shoes, find another alternative. If anyone has any suggestions, I am very open. I am currently looking at hoof boots to put on Peg when we ride her. We don't use her much, she is mostly a big, huge, 16.2 hh pet, so there is no need to really have shoes on her. When we use her, we are usually going for a short trail ride that never exceeds 2 hours, but we do see all sorts of terrain. Peg has a bad habit of always wanting to walk on the asphalt when there is some at proximity, it wears her hooves VERY quickly, compared to Dandy, who could walk all day on asphalt and it wouldn't even wear her hooves enough to skip a trim. Dandy has very thick resistant soles and could basically only walk on her soles, it doesn't bother her. But the Standards only have been in rehab for a year and there is still a lot of work to be done, mostly because their hooves grow so slowly. I have noted improvements in the wideness of their heels, but that comes with flat soles, then the hoof reshapes itself and concavity occurs, that's where Peg is right now.


For the boots, I am considering the Old Mac's G2 boots, if anyone has ever tried them, please let me know what you like / don't like about them, I would really appreciate.


So here are my pictures. This is the first time I ever put shoes on a horse, unfortunately, it had to be one with issues. All went very well, I knew what to do and Peg was SUPER patient (even if Dandy was in her face from the other side of the fence... that's a change) and really respected that I needed to take my time!


I also took short videos, but it didn't turn out good, because I had just put the shoes on and Peg was still limping on her bad foot (less than before, but still) and she kept acting up and wanting to run off, so I gave up and left her in the pasture, where she ran off like a toroughbred racehorse and put on a show for ten minutes... I kicked myself for having put away my camera at that time! GRRR!



Here's the first shot, from the top. There is 8 nails in each of these shoes, plus side clips. I left the clinches a little long, but overall, it is not bad at all (I think)!

This is what the shoe looks like from underneath, we had trimmed the right part of the shoe that was stiking out a bit too much for my likings, we were debating wether to trim the left side or not, these shoes are solid and my nippers could hardly mark them... so we took a hand saw and I rasped the remainder. You can see remains of Cool Clay on Peg's left front leg... that's her bad leg. I've tried to brush it off, but it won't come off!!! Ah well, they are all scheduled for a bath as soon as it is warm enough out.

This is after we were done. You can see how her legs kind of bow outwards. It makes her feet point inwards, putting the breakover on the outside quarter of the hoof. You can see that the coronet bands are straight compared to the ground and that the whole hoof is pulled inwards because of the leg issues. I could easily trim the hooves to put everything straight, but Peg would be lame forever, besides, since her coronets are straight, the hoof is technically straight, it is only pulled to the inside after years of wear and tear. That's the way her legs are made and I won't force things to go in a straight line if that is not the way it is intended. I do keep in mind that she has that problem and try to make her as comfortable as I can with each trim.

So here's the first video, yeah, I'll show you my crappy videos, just so you can see how Peg really walks, she is not used to her shoes yet, this is the first try with the shoes on. You can see that she walks fine until the last few seconds, where she starts limping again on her bad foot. But she seems to forget to limp for the first part of the video...

This next video, I asked my sister to trot Peg along... That turned out to be a disaster. Peg started to trot... then switched to a pace, then tryed to jump the old bits of hay on the ground, galoped for a stride, cut my sister off and stopped. In the first seconds, you can see Pearl in the pasture running along. That ended my quest for a video... depressing. :'( Needless to say that Peg does not limp today... this was the first few minutes of wearing her new shoes. I think that after that, she realized that her feet didn't really hurt anymore.

So there you have it... Peg's new shoes.

Oh and just for fun. Here's Dandy just before we left the barn... she's always anywhere people are. In this picture, she hasn't yet lost her winter hair, but you can see that it is dying off, turning red. Last week, she was starting to loose some, so this weekend will be time for a good brushing, She is also due for a trim, being sick for 2 weeks, I missed out on keeping her hooves short and easy to maintain... so now I will have to nip those cement hard hooves... *sigh*. She maintained good shape during winter too! She spent the whole winter outside with free choice hay and about 2 cups of oats per day. Dandy turned 4 on March 27, 2010.

What has been going on

So following my post of yesterday, I forgot a lot of stuff that I did.

Since I was so sick for so long, I haven't had much riding done, but the last time, as you all know, I was working on Dandy's canter and circles. She has never turned a corner, much less a circle, while cantering before, I felt that she was too young to undertake such strain and... WHY would I need her to canter a circle???? So since she turned 4 last month, I have started working with the canter. Dandy has a naturally elevated canter, she should REALLY be under English tack, which is also one of my goals. She has a natural slow canter, huge movement... she gets that from her dad, who is AMAZING! I absolutely love riding her, she is easy to gauge, I don't need to hold her back once she is set in her speed and a simple kiss noise will get her moving up a notch. She is very good with the canter, but her trot is a bit harder to gauge, she tends to want to go faster and faster and not transition in a canter when asked... so I will be working on transitions also.

Unfortunately, I only did about two sessions of that with Dandy, then I went down with the illness, that nobody knows what it is! The first session went well, Dandy was super focused, the second, not so well, since my sister was riding Peg and Dandy kept wanting to be in competition and was always looking where they were at... I got her focusing on me and it wasn't so bad, but I had to be much more in her mouth, at least more than I like to be.

I tried going around poles with Dandy, but from the left it's a disaster, she cuts in as she turns, because she can't see that she is going around something... maybe I need to adapt just as much as she does, but I think I can forget my barrel racing dreams... :(

The last time I tacked Dandy up was on Friday (Good Friday) I think. As you know, the steers got loose and my father in-law only herded them back in the field, with the other cows... so I called my sister, tacked up Dandy and Peg (who aren't affraid of cattle at all) and started them towards the barn... there was 5 cows and 2 steer to move. We proceeded to get them in a pen close to the barn with the horses, shut a bunch of cows in with the steer, then I decided it might be better to finish the small work on foot, but we left the horses close by, in case we would need them, my horses aren't cow horses, they are just regular trail horses and pets, but they have been on cows before and pretty much know what to do. I trusted them to be able to do it, plus I just wasn't feeling well enough to walk a 40 acre pasture, chasing cows... and a very bold steer.

All went well, until the gosh darn steer stopped to face Dandy and I. He was pawing the dirt and getting it all over him... at that point, I was just standing there with Dandy, being patient, waiting for him to just get discouraged and go about moving again. I think he sized us up, he had already charged Dandy in the field, while he was out... poor Dandy would never hurt a fly and she always gets picked on for that. But, since I was sitting on Dandy, I think he thought we were a bit too big for him, so he stopped being silly and moved on after a bit of coaxing!

The part on foot was a bit less fun, since he knew we were small, so he tried charging my sister... that didn't work... I was standing at the complete other end of the pen, he eyed me and came thundering down my way... Although I was completely freaking out inside, I stood right there and started making myself look bigger, swinging away with my cane. He finaly got discouraged when he get 6 feet from me. There is no reason why he would've charged from so far, nobody cornered him, we were slowly pushing him towards the barn. Like I said... I DO NOT understand bulls and cows. I realized that leaving the horses wasn't such a great idea after all. But we finaly got them in the shelter, left the other cows out and got them in the barn... and that's where all hell broke loose. Of course I was nervous, because he had charged on us in the field and I knew that the barn was a confined space and that would just make them a bit more edgy. Fortunately for me, he decided to stop charging once I hit the post (hard!), if he had decided to pursue, I wouldn't be here today writing this.

All I know is, when it happened, I couldn't feel a thing, I hit the post and knew that I had serious damage on my back but there was no pain, I was completely focused on the bulls forehead! I don't know how much time I have hit him on the nose for him to back off I have no sense of that whatsoever... I think I went in survival mode for a minute. As soon as he backed off, I unstuck my back from the post (lol) and made my way half-way up the stairs to the hay loft. That's when the pain started... but the worst part was that the silly bull wasn't in his pen yet... I had to go back and put him in!!! I was shaking like a leaf, at that point, my SO had appeared, probably, when I was in total pain sitting in the stairs to help, so I just guided from afar so that they don't get into the same mess and I was happy to shut the gate!

By that time, my sister was completely paralyzed with fear. She has NO cow experience and I'm glad she wasn't the one being charged, she was already shaking as much as I was. So I took a pale of corn, went up the the mean bull, gave him his food and pet him on the head and neck. Please note that I would not do that if the bull was at liberty, but behind a big steel gate, what could go wrong??? I made my sister pet him too, since she was now deadly afraid of cows and never coming back to help! She did, against her own will, but at least she understood that I had pushed the bull a bit too far (He's WAY easy to push too far!). I hope I will not have to do that again... that bull weighs nearly 1 400 lbs and his little friend, who is sweet as pie weighs about 1 300 lbs, but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body!

As much as I hate to see them go, I can't wait to taste them! This is finaly our own meat, we know what it was fed, it is all natural and we know that it didn't spend a week in a grocery store fridge. It'll be top quality!

I'm back!

I am sorry for being dead to my blog for so long. I have spent the last week between my bed and the hospital's... I have been so incredibly sick!

Doctors don't yet know what I have, I have been sick for 12 days now and I am, excuse the lame pun, sick of it! I'm tired of laying in bed, not feeling good. I feel a great deal of pain in my stomac and lower abdomen, my digestive system is completely out of whack! I can hardly eat anything without resulting in major cramps, heartburn, stomach pain, etc.

I am currently catching up on my blog reading! I have run a little bit behind!!!! Thanks Jayke for featuring my blog and giving such nice comments! I have yet to put pictures of my farrier job on Peg... and I have not yet shod Pearl because I went down quickly. I am behind on trimming Dandy, I just cannot gather enough strenght to do it, I can barely make it half way up one flight of stairs, I don't think I can hold a hoof, trim it properly, rasp, and start again 3 times. I've lost 10 pounds in 6 days and am currently maintaining weight, although I am not eating very much.

I will try and get my pictures up tommorow... I've been trying to catch up on everything in the last few days, since I have been feeling a little better.

I have also been charged by a bull and have hurt my back considerably because of that. Our meat steers bursted out of their pen and were loose, so I took it upon myself, since SO was working to get them back in the pen safely, so I took my cane and off I went. I was not feeling too good either. So I push them back in the barn, all goes smoothly, until I notice that I have ommitted to block off one side of the barn... of course, they went in that corner... so I had to wait and get them out and point them in the right direction to get back in the pen. One steer is fine, he was castrated early and is pretty sweet, but the other one probably served as a bull and was castrated a few weeks before we bought him. I am pretty scared of him and he is very bold. He doesn't really want to go in the pen, so I'm flailing around trying to push him in and he turns to face me... right there, I knew that he might charge me, but I continued to flail and stepped forward one step..... I immediatly saw him tense up and in a split second, he was on me. Of course, I hit him on the nose bridge with my cane as hard as I could (by that time, it probably wasn't very hard, because I thought I was going to die!) and while backing up to avoid being air lifted by that massive head, I hit one post that is holding up the barn... I hit the corner of the steel plate on the post with my back, my right shoulder blade, between the tip of the blade and the spine. At that same moment, the bull stopped charging, so I don't need to tell you that I got out of there. He eventually followed his friend in the pen, but my back seriously hurt! I have a HUGE bruise and it's swollen now.

Needless to say that I was shaking like a leaf! I'm not necessarily used to working with cattle, I would've rather have a herd of wild horses running towards me instead! Thankfully, they are back to their pen and enjoying their lazy life. This beef will be for sale as All Natural beef, no growth hormones, no animal by-products. It should be very good!