Horses keep me on my toes and give me something to thing about. People just make me crazy. They always did, but with this Covid thing, I think they just need to be rounded up and put away somewhere where they can all just complain to each other and leave the rest of us alone. Really!? Toilet Paper!? I’m sorry I just don’t buy into it.

I watch neighbors and the clients on Doctor Pol, I just don’t get it. Their animal, it doesn’t matter dog, cat, horse, cow, pig, bird, got hurt a week or more ago. They figure it will get better and when it goes really south, they drag it in and expect miracles.

I do understand that some people just can’t afford vets now-a-days. They really do love their animals and want them to live, but, on the other hand, something that would have just cost them the vet visit and some antibiotic now will cost them a small fortune, if the animal lives. Most of the time my heart breaks for the animal and their owner, but sometimes you just want to smack the owners across the head, and say “what were you thinking?”

Ignorance plays a big part. There are so many ways to learn out there now that it really doesn’t make sense to me.

A friend called me last week and said that the cow next door was down. Now I don’t know much about cows, but I asked a few questions. It was eating and drinking and passing manure. They were trying to keep the back end clean, but they were worried about it. They had tried calling several vets, but were told it would be three weeks before they could get there. Seriously!!!!???? So I asked if the cow had a calf lately and they said yes. Okay, I told her it may be low on calcium. The calf may be sucking the calcium out of the cow in which case it wouldn’t have the strength to get up. I asked my friend, “don’t you watch Doctor Pol?” That’s how I learned. She said she did. Okay, I’m amazed. So then I asked her how long had the cow been down. Answer – three days. Oh no, that is not good. Have they been rolling her over? No.

I explained that with any large animal it is extremely important that we don’t let them lay there too long. We can’t do it with our horses and you can’t do that with a cow. How many times have we picked horses up off the ground. Nothing in their systems work right and everything starts shutting down. I told her that sometimes the leg, they are laying on, falls asleep and the animal just can’t push itself up. I explained how to do this so no one gets hurt and I gave her the name of my vet and told her that they needed to get a vet out there, although it may already be too late. It was, the vet came and put her down. Now let’s not get over excited to the point where our horses can’t lay down to take nap, but be watchful and know how long each horse will lay down for, and when it does become a red flag that something is wrong. Most horses will nap at the same time everyday.

Be aware, keep records if you have to, but don’t just think things will be alright. Sometimes they will, and sometimes they won’t. If your gut tells you this is something scary, it probably is. Give the vet a call, after you’ve gone through the normal check list, it may save the animals life, while saving you money you didn’t need to spend.

So I mentioned this the last time.

Horses like to rub what itches, don’t we all. When I was a kid I’d scratch a mosquito bite until it bled. But the question is why is it itching? (The tail, not the mosquito bite.) Or for that matter, is the tail really itching?

Okay, common sense over the years has taught us that some horses are allergic to bug bites. Here in Florida, everything bites. My horses up north would rub their tails if they had a tick in them. You can usually see flakes for certain issues. Break out the special shampoos and conditioners. There are all kinds of products on the market to stop itchy tails.

We would think that maybe they had worms. If they are on a good rotation of wormers, and are kept on schedule, that’s not usually the case.

This mare of mine that rubs her tail aka Friday, also starts rubbing her hind legs. Okay sometimes mares in heat will rub their tails. She does get dew poisoning too. Those flea bitten grays always have skin issues, not to mention tumors.

Now we have a curiosity. Nothing in her tail, not in heat, on a good worming schedule with no worms. Hello!!! So the problem is what?????

Move on to the next oddity. For a while her urine has been awfully strong. Yes all urine will get an ammonia smell when it sits, but her’s is way too strong right from the start.

I questioned my vet. The course of action for the urine was to put her on SMZ for two weeks and see if maybe we were dealing with UTI. Never thought to asks about the tail rubbing.

Bingo! The urine no longer had the strong ammonia smell and as a bonus the tail rubbing stopped also. This eliminated the broken boards from the tail rubbing. This was a win, win situation. So we were good for several months.

All of a sudden both the smell and the tail rubbing started again. Thus the electric fence was put back on. Spoke with the vet again and put her back on SMZ. Hope it works this time for good otherwise we need to have her scoped.

So once again I have to say that things aren’t always what they appear to be. Don’t just accept what is, pay attention, and check it out.

If it’s odd, it will be at my barn, but it does make for good posts.

I rarely had a horse with an abscess up north, but down here in Florida it’s common.

Some horses seem to get them more often than others. With the wet to dry and dry to wet it plays havoc on a horses feet. Up north they would step on something and drive something into their foot and voila! you have an abscess. Here they breathe and you have an abscess.

If your horse has shoes on you stand a better chance of the infection going to the closest, weakest path of resistance – a nail hole. Otherwise you are doomed to wait it out.

Some horses, who were fine the last time you checked them, will all of a sudden look like they broke their leg. They stand there waving it around like a flag at a sports game. They won’t bear wait on it at all. Then there are some that will just kind of almost walk on it. Maybe a little out to the side.

The give away is bute. If you give them bute and it doesn’t touch the pain, it’s most likely an abscess.

Soaking in Epsom salts and warm water is always a good thing. Helps soften the hoof and draw the infection out. BUT if you have a horse who doesn’t want to keep his foot in water, and insists that you should join in the water game, it doesn’t work. Then it becomes a wait and see thing. Sometimes the wait is a few days, and sometimes it’s a month. It just depends on where that abscess is going to travel. Sometimes it down, but if it’s going to travel to the coronary band it’s a slow boat to china.

It breaks your heart to see you horse hobbling around for days on end. Then comes the big day when he/she is almost walking again. Yay!!! You run over and try to find the hole. You can’t miss the smell when it breaks and you usually find a dark fluid draining. Hopefully draining. You want to open it so all the yucky stuff comes out. Wash it out good and I usually pack it with Epsom Salt poultice to help it along. If I can put some poultice on a cotton ball and stuff it in and bandage the area to keep it in, all the better. Ichthammol used to work great, but of course, if it works, they take it off the market. But, looking up the spelling I just found it on line, don’t know if it’s the same strength though, I’ll check it out. The Black Drawing salve they are trying to sell us now is useless, don’t waste your money. I want the good old stuff that smells like creosote. Horrible, but it worked.

If it drains properly and doesn’t close back up allowing the infection to form again, your horse should be fine in a few days.

It’s just one of those horsey things we have to deal with.

It was fun as a kid, but it’s not so great now.

As we age, we don’t see like we used to. It’s hard at first to accept this. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t read the menu in Taco Bell. I kept blaming the curved signs for me not being able to read them. Then one day I walked in with my driving glasses on, and wow! it wasn’t the sign. When I went to get my eyes checked a few years before, the doctor asked if I could see while I was driving. I said sure, I can see just fine. He asked how I knew I was seeing fine. Good question.

So when I notice horses snorting at things that never bothered them before, the question came up, can they see?

Usually when they get cataracts, changing from the light to the dark or dark to the light bothers them. They come into the light and start blinking.

With the new horse that came in a couple of weeks ago, the owner warned me that he didn’t see well. He’s only 14, so I did have my doubts. She told me that he wouldn’t go into a dark stall. Well she was right. You have to put the light on, or once he trusts you, he will follow you in, but he will not enter it by himself. He will also not enter the lean to in the dark. He cannot find his way through the gate. Once he’s in there and has to come out, it scares him and he will bolt and hit his hips on the 6 x 6 on the way out.

Are you paying attention to your horses eye sight? It’s funny. At the eye specialist I bring my dog to, he has an eye chart for dogs. Instead of letters, it has a dog house, a hydrant, a cat, dog bone, ball, and various things that dogs love. Of course they don’t read it, but it is cute.

As far as horses go, I guess it could have a carrot, apple, bucket of grain, or whatever you could imagine. The thing is, they can’t use it either. So it’s up to us to be aware of when their eye sight starts to fail. You can’t beat them for being afraid of something they can’t identify. They can’t help it. You have to ask yourself – is he afraid, is he yanking my chain, or is his sight failing?

Please be aware and understanding of their needs because of failing eye sight. You may be there someday too. Of course we have the option of glasses, they don’t.

Everyone talks about the Body Mass Index for women and men. We’ve become so conscience of different things in our lives, especially about weight and our health. Not that by going to Wal-Mart you can tell that anybody is really interested. Oh my, the bodies and the outfits. Do these people have mirrors? Don’t they care? Freaky!!!!!

But do you pay any attention to your horses BMI?

Their bodies are constantly changing. This is due to many factors. Amount of work, age, amount of food intake, conditioning, (have they been to the gym? lifting weights??). BUT are we taking notice?

When I was up north, I always wanted to put extra weight on my horses before the winter. If they shiver, they lose weight. Their bodies will burn up fat to stay warm. They were also going into full swing Hunting Season. The weight will change to muscle. They would become “racing fit.” There is a big difference between a thin horse and a fit horse. Pay attention folks.

Down here I run into a different problem. Spring and late fall present a weight change for pasture horses. I try to fatten them up before time. When winter comes, they don’t want to give up the pasture and switch to hay. Weight loss. Come spring when the grass firsts starts coming in – “we don’t want hay anymore.” But then grass dries because we’re not into the rainy season yet, so “we’ll take some of that hay now, thank you.” Then the rain starts and it’s no more hay. But with all this bouncing back and forth, we always have weight loss. Nothing much, but I keep a close eye on it.

It’s very hard when you see a horse every day to see a slight weight change. Now people who haven’t seen them in a while will notice.

It’s the same with muscle. They may look – not so filled in on all the right places. This will also happen if they aren’t getting enough water. They’ll look sunk in.

This can also mean your tack won’t fit them quite the same. You may notice your saddle sitting down too much. Watch for those dry spots under the pad when you’re finished riding. All of a sudden your girth is too big or too small. Yes they may stretch out, but it’s up to you to know the difference.

If you look at them and it seems they don’t look like you remember them, maybe they’re not.

It’s a simple correction once you notice the change, but sometimes getting them to accept more hay, or even grain for that matter, may be a problem. I have two horses that will only eat X amount of grain. Then you have to go to an extra feeding to trick them. And like the old saying goes – You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. (Except my neighbors horses – she says DRINK! and they do.)

Just really look at your horses bodies, and carefully monitor them.

I’ve known several people who didn’t notice their grain wasn’t working for them, and they got highly insulted when it was mentioned.

Look for those nooks and crannies on your horses that they mention on the English Muffins ads.

I’ve probably touched on this subject before, but it keeps coming back to me again and again. Why do we procrastinate?

My neighbor’s 19 year old daughter, who I used to teach, has more lumps in her breasts. She’s had them removed before, and they weren’t cancerous, but here she goes again. To make light of it, I told her she was just a lumpy person. She got a smile. She attends to them as soon as she notices them.

Had an Equine Dentist here yesterday for a boarders horse who had special issues. We got to talking afterwards about eyes and the problems she’s been having. I told her my mare was taking forever to heal the abscess. But then she takes forever to heal with everything. She asked about fungal, and I said yup that’s what I’m dealing with. She talked about her horse being allergic to the Voriconazole. Oh my. Thank God my mare isn’t. Then she touched on another horse of hers that took forever to heal an eye, and they found out it had Cushing’s. Red Flag!

Now I’ve had one horse checked for Insulin Resistance, and she was clear. At the time I thought about checking my other horse but didn’t. She’s the one that dumped all her hair this spring, all at once. I had spoken to my vet about it and it seems that a lot of horses had hair issues this spring also. No reason why, just did. We talked about the possibility of Cushing’s, but decided to wait and see how her hair came back in. Where she dumped it, it came back in like winter hair. She doesn’t get a true winter coat but just a little longer than her summer coat. She’s losing that now, again, but normal shedding.

At this point in the conversation my vet showed up, just by chance, to drop off some eye meds I was needing. So she joined in the discussion about the Cushing’s possibility and many other subjects.

So now we will fast over night and check it out.

What haunts me is why didn’t we check it out sooner? We really didn’t procrastinate, we just didn’t think the possibility was high.

The dentist said that once she put her horse on the Prascend the eye healed within the next month. And I’ve been treating this eye for six months why! Oh how I could have shortened the time. But that’s only if this is truly the case.

If you have the slightest inkling that there maybe something you should check out, just do it. That little voice in your head is there for a reason. It’s a horse persons 6th sense. Or maybe we should just call it Horse Sense.

Don’t you just hate when it’s time for your dental check-up? I don’t think the horses much appreciate it either.

Today was our check-up day at the farm. It became more than just a check up. No one had any major problems, other than old mouths, and missing teeth. The horses are beyond the ages of braces or those new clear things they swear by to straighten your teeth. Where were they when I was a kid? Twice I could receive the local radio stations with all the wires I had in my mouth. A lot of good they did. I’m down to caps and bridges now. At least they are all attached. I told several of the horses that implants were not an option. Glad horses and dogs don’t do braces. I did have a few dogs that could have used them.

Just routine dentistry was performed today, but I do try to keep up on their dental appointments. (They are really bad at flossing. Darn kids.) She did them in their stalls, which is where they feel most secure. Will never do the dental trailer thing again. EVER. Still dealing with the after effects.

Seriously, how often do you have your horses teeth checked? Do you really pay attention to any balling up of hay left behind? Grain passed whole in the manure? Grain dropped? I have one horse who takes a mouth full, chews with his mouth open, and swings his read around in all direction to see whats going on at any given time. He just might have missed something when his head was in the bucket. No matter how many times I tell him to chew with his mouth closed, it just doesn’t work. I hope this will help, but I really don’t think so.

No matter what food you give them, if it’s reasonably priced or top of the line, if it doesn’t get chewed, or digested properly, it’s not going to put weight on, or keep weight on them. You might as well just take hand fulls of grain and toss it on the ground. Or for that matter, just take the money and do the same thing.

Have you ever bitten the inside of your cheek? Hurts like anything, and you just keep biting the same place over and over again. Imagine doing that every time you eat. Those sharp edges just rubbing against the inside of their mouths. Really doesn’t make eating appealing does it?

You can run you fingers up the sides of their teeth, unless you are fond of five fingers on each hand, or have your vet give them a check-up. If they tell you there are sharp edges, think about the old biting the inside of your cheek and have their teeth taken care of. It will probably save you money on the grain you are buying in the long run, and make the horses feel so much better for it. Also you can only feel so far back, and then those teeth that are way back aren’t checked.

And if you are having problems with the bit, or head tossing, it just might be the teeth, not an attitude issue.

If you can get yours to floss, let me know how you did it.

Rinse please.

With each new season comes new challenges. Oh they are probably the same old challenges you had last year this time, but we forget and they become new again.

With the end of winter, we remove the blankets, and sheets to reveal the surprises left behind. We marvel at the amount of hair we can eat and get in our eyes, nose, and ears. Not to mention all over our clothes, and how does it get into our underwear?

We notice flaky skin, rot of some sorts, and only God knows what else. It’s so hard to give them a good grooming with all that winter coat, and now it’s time to scrub-a-dub-dub. Down here it’s easy because we are up in the 70’s and 80’s, but watching your horse shiver up north usually upsets everyone.

Then the next wonder of wonders – mud. Mud everywhere. Next stop, foot rot, scratches, dew poisoning, you get the picture. Don’t you just love the suck your boots off type of mud. I remember Hunting up north and one of the horses always came home missing shoes. This gets old real quick.

The only thing I can say is “Enjoy the perfect (maybe rainy) weather”, because from here we move into heat and bugs. Especially great for the non-sweaters.

There are four season, and a multitude of challenges with each, but there are more wonderful times to be spent with the animals we love.

Enjoy!

When something isn’t right with a horse, you start thinking about the possibilities that might be causing the problem. You run through the list of what you’ve experienced before and eliminate them one at a time. And so it was like this with one of the boarders horses this past week.

First thing I thought about is the fact that I ran out of Prascend. It was ordered, it just wasn’t delivered in time. I ordered it with 10 days left on the old box and it took 2 weeks from the distributor. The vet said he’d be fine, but he stopped eating.

Now this is a horse who is not a good eater to begin with. He’s 27 and needs everything I can get into him. When you add something different to his grain you have to do it so gradually, it makes you crazy. If he stops, you have to go back, remove it and try again.

He would eat half of what I usually give him, so I cut it back. He still would only eat half of the new amount. I smelled the grain, it was okay. Checked his bucket and there was noting odd in it. Gave it to another horse and he ate it no problem. Removed all the additives, like his Cosequin, Hoof Pellets, Moorman’s Minerals, Flax Seed, Finish Ultimate, and Beet Pulp, still wouldn’t eat the Sweet Feed.

I feed him separate of his buddy, because he’s a slow methodical eater. I know they are all getting their teeth done in the next couple of weeks, so I watched him chewing and he’s not dropping anything.

Then I had an “A Ha!” moment. As I turned him out with the other horse I noticed that he would go to the other horses bucket and see if he had left anything, then he tried picking up what was on the ground. Not that any of them leave their food. So the light bulb went off that said “he’s hungry!” just not eating his food. I went back and took what was left in his bucket and put it in the other horses bucket and, you guessed it, he wanted to eat it. Of course that didn’t happen because his buddy is more aggressive.

So back to his bucket I went. Is it the location of the bucket? Did something frighten him there? It is the same bucket he’s been eating out of forever. What is the problem?

Next feeding I brought down his bucket from his stall with his breakfast in it.

No problem, cleaned it down to the last little oat. It was the bucket, for whatever reason. It looked fine, smelled fine, but I scrubbed it anyway.

So life is back to normal again. It was just that simple, but the last thing I would have imagined. If the bucket was dirty, caked, or had an odor I could understand it, but it was fine. Must have had a strange smell in it that I couldn’t detect.

They make me crazy, but they give me stuff to think about and write about. Go figure.

I’ve probably said this before, but it’s worth reposting.  It’s horrible to get old and stupid (I’m not senile, I’m stupid.  Stupid can be fixed, senile can’t.)  So I make notes, lose notes, make more notes, forget the notes on the kitchen table, or lose them in the bottom of my pocket-book.  So now I have several spiral notebooks around and write things in there.

Ran into a problem about a month ago with a new boarders horse.  The horse started coughing.  It wasn’t something the owner thought to tell me about, but when I mentioned it to her, her response was “oh yes, he does that whenever it gets dry and dusty.”  Well I have a few horses with runny noses due to allergies, and this one will now go on cough meds automatically this time next year again, before the problem gets ahead of us.

If you keep a record and notice a pattern you’re ahead of the game and don’t have to fret as to what is going on.

You can notice that some horses get runny noses certain times of year.  Some horses have a tendency to get a mild colic when the barometric pressure drops.  Some will develop a cough a certain time of year or because of allergies or dry, dusty conditions.  I had to change bedding because it was too dry and dusty for both me and the horse.  Then there are always reactions to some shots or food stuffs, dust mites, or mold.  When my vet said “dust mite” I rolled my eyes and said, what dust and cob webs.  We don’t have that around here.  Her response was that it’s just apart of a barn environment.  Seriously??? I hadn’t noticed that at all.

If you make notations on a calendar or a journal, you can check back to the previous year and see if there is a common thread to the problem.

Desert would get a mild colic if he got more than one shot at a time.  My neighbors horse would colic every time a front would come through because of the drop in the barometric pressure.  Bob’s Clyde mare would cough at the start of the hunt season for the first four years we had her which were caused by allergies to weeds.  Zoey has problems with her ovaries every August.

These are all things that happened the same time every year, and the only reason I knew that was because I made notes.  Whenever something would show up with a horse, I’d make a note and check back to see if it happened the same time last year and if the circumstance was the same.

Whether we are young or old, we cannot remember everything about every horse.  Especially if you have a barn where horses come and go.  If you only have one or two, you stand a change.  Get into the larger numbers, and you’re on your own.

“Write it down, make a little note.”  I know it’s a song and has nothing to do with horses or old age, but it makes sense, horse sense.