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Well, we have a couple new additions on the farm:
 These are pictures of our new farm horses. We went to see a guy who had a horse listed on Craigslist a couple weeks ago and ended up with not one but two farm horses.
We had originally gone to see Rastis, a 15-hand Missouri Fox Trotter gelding who had at least been hitched and lightly ridden. Rastis has turned out to be a big teddy bear! He's very gentle and lovable, though he does have a stubborn streak. I can't wait to start working more in depth with him, as he seems to work well with natural horsemanship training styles. When he was delivered, I couldn't get over, well, how much BIGGER he seemed! I guess the thought of having to care for a horse his size is a little intimidating, though I'm starting to get over it.
 This is a picture of Rastis, the Missouri Fox Trotter gelding we purchased. The owner had another horse, Maggi, who is a 14-hand Morgan/Arabian cross mare, a very pretty, fine-boned girl. She has a fused fetlock on her front left leg, which limits her ability to bear heavier riders; the owner said that he had rode her a few times (he was probably 225 lbs or higher), and she seemed to do okay. He offered her to us for Lisette to ride in a few years for a very good price, so we ended up buying two horses instead of one! Eric and I may ride her occasionally, but only lightly and during good weather. Lisette will do well with her, I think.
 This is a picture of Maggi, the Morgan/Arabian cross mare we purchased. We made arrangements for delivery a week later. After a long week of fence repair, barn fixing and gate building, we were ready for the horses. Maggi unloaded well, though her fetlock was rather swollen from the trailer ride - apparently she doesn't do well with transport. My thought is that it's the shifting of the trailer that makes her fetlock (ankle, for non-horsey people) have to compensate for the motion, aggravating the condition.
 This picture shows the swelling on Maggi's fetlock after arrival. The owner went back for Rastis. We kept Maggi in view as he was not doing so well with his leading in the new situation he was in, and was hoping he would follow her. He did, and as he drew close, the owner mentioned that something had gotten in with the horses a couple evenings before, and that Rastis had cut his leg on something in the pasture during the excitement. I asked about what care he had received, and was told that the cut had been cleaned with Betadine solution, but that he had bumped it on something in the trailer and had reopened the wound. It was only oozing a little bit of blood, so seemed like it would be okay, and that it probably looked worse than it was (As a fair note, though I know that there are people who do not do right by their animals, being not overly experienced in horse care and being reassured by someone who appeared to be, I trusted his judgment. If faced with this situation again, I would probably call a horsey friend who can tell me a bit more about the severity of the injury.) As he was walking without any issue, we knew muscles couldn't be involved, and went from there.
 A picture of the gash on Rastis' leg. We got the horses settled into their new home and let them be to explore a bit. I called a good friend of mine who is a vet tech, and following her advice, picked up some Cut & Heal from the local feed store to treat the wound with and rubbed some liniment into Maggi's fetlock. The horses seemed to settle in over the next day or so, but Monday brought us some severe weather - an ice storm - and the change in pressure had Maggi limping rather badly as she tried to keep weight off her bad ankle. Another liniment rub and she seemed to be back in business.
 Rastis in the pasture as the ice turned to snow. Rastis led me on a merry chase as I tried to clean his wound lightly with soapy water and then re-treat with the Cut & Heal. Finally, on Friday, Eric was feeling well enough to join me in the pasture to give Rastis' leg a good cleaning and general check-up. Partway through the cleaning, the scab that was forming softened and cracked in a few places and began to ooze some pus. Knowing we were over our heads, we called our vet tech friend to get some advice. Bless her heart, she showed up about a half hour later, ready to go. All four of us (Lisette included) piled out into the barn. Though I had some luck in getting Rastis to lead for me, he flat didn't want to go anywhere at that hour of the night, thank you very much! After working with him for several minutes, he finally decided enough was enough and piled into the stall in the barn for treatment. And thus began my crash course in equine medicine.
We got the wound cleaned out well, treated with betadine and penicillin, and turned him loose for the night. We're going to have a good week or two of twice-daily cleaning and a couple more days of penicillin shots, but when our vet tech friend came over today to teach me how to inject a horse (you want me to put that huge needle in that huge horse - are you nuts??!!), she said that it was already looking much improved - yaay! His training is still in the works, though his leading is improving. He has been doing very well with his treatments, other than trying to rifle the pockets of whoever is holding his lead rope to see if they have treats on them. He stays very calm and quiet while he's being worked on, even during injections, which is something I was really not expecting.
I have not forgotten Maggi during all the excitement with Rastis. She won't let you forget her, anyways - she is very friendly, always coming to see who is in the barn and what they are up to when someone goes in after something. She is officially Lisette's horse, though we will probably breed her a time or two until Lisette's ready to ride. Lisette's thrilled with "my horsie" and we've caught her a few times already trying to sneak extra treats in. She'll occasionally hold a treat in her hand for Maggi to take, though she giggles the whole time, talking about how Maggi's tickling her. We're really pleased with the horses, and think they'll be a great addition to the farm.
Rastis, as you can see from the pictures, is a very stocky Fox Trotter, so we think he'll do well for the light farm work we'll start working him on in the spring, and Maggie will do fine at her job - which is to make beautiful foals and enjoy a bit of an easy life. We'd like to train both of them to take leg commands for turning, so that we can see how they do with horseback archery - one of the things Eric would really like to do, I think.
Both of them really like their feed, though - I think it falls under the rule of, "If it's not bolted down, it's food. If it can be ripped up, it's not bolted down." Oh, well, at least it makes training easy, if all the reward they want is attention and treats. There's something very peaceful about having the horses in the pasture, grazing through the day and occasionally looking about to see where life has brought them. I hope they think it's a good place. |
