Posts Tagged ‘barn stalls’
Weather Wallop
We got smacked to a degree I didn’t anticipate yesterday with a combination of multiple inches of rain in uncomfortably cold temperatures while strong wind gusts blasted us mercilessly. We still had the small paddock closed off, which constrained the horses to having access to only one side of the overhang for shelter.
Just to keep things from being simple to deal with, on Monday, Cyndie got a COVID vaccination booster that had her feeling poorly by yesterday morning. That left it to me to tend to the horses in conditions that were teetering on completely out of control.
The poor girls were shivering desperately and very anxious to get their servings of grain to take their minds off the misery. Serving them became a crazy ad-lib as I tried to maintain some order and control while moving their serving stations on the fly to try giving access out of the rain for each horse.
Thankfully, they were moderately cooperative as they were well aware of the predicament we were all in. After doing my best to give them the bare minimum comforts available in the moment, I took Asher back up to the house for his breakfast.
A short time later, our new person from This Old Horse, Maddy, showed up with doses of dewormer for the horses. She picked up where I left off in trying to find a way to give the horses some advantage against the weather. I joined her and we decided to try moving them inside to the individual stalls.
We got them in, but we couldn’t get Mix to settle down. The other three seemed to figure out they were out of the wind and rain, they had food and water, and no other horse was trying to invade their space. Sadly, I got the impression that Mix was triggered and having a major PTSD reaction to the confinement.
Subsequently, Mix’s prolonged stress, demonstrated in kicking the walls, biting boards, and general flailing about, began to UNsettle the others. We tried changing the horse next to Mix by swapping the positions of Swings and Mia, but it didn’t make enough difference in Mix’s tantruming.
Instead of drying out, Mix was lathering up in her own sweat. We ended up putting blankets on them and letting them back outside after I strung another temporary barrier that at least allowed them access to both sides of the overhang.
A little over a week after setting up fans to cool them in high heat, we now have the horses wearing blankets in the latter half of May.
A windy, rainy, 40°F weather wallop, indeed.
.
.
Smoothing Edges
Imagine if your dentist did house calls. Great, yeah, but then imagine that your dentist sedated you and put a contraption on your face so you couldn’t close your mouth just so you wouldn’t bite the grinder that was filing sharp points from your molars.
Looks like fun, eh?
Tell that to the horses. They had been given a dose of “I-don’t-care-about-anything” medication that left them all rather drowsy in their stalls.
They didn’t seem to care and they definitely didn’t seem like they’d had any fun.
At least the horses weren’t stressed by being in their stalls after our frequent periods of giving them chances to get used to the inside of the barn again. Unfortunately, it was uncomfortably hot inside and they worked up quite a sweat despite the fans positioned to move air through the barn.
We couldn’t let them out until enough of the sedative had worn off that they’d regained their senses.
It’s hard to tell whether they feel as good to have this process completed as we do knowing it’s done. I’m not the one trying to eat the little feed pellets but I am feeling really happy that their mouths have been inspected and cared for by an equine veterinarian.
At the same time, I’m under no illusion that this will mean they waste any less food by letting it fall out of their mouths while chewing.
.
.
Calming Nerves
We are witnessing good progress in helping the horses to accept the inside of the barn as a non-threatening environment by continuing to give them time to freely explore the stalls and open space. There was much less anxiety on display yesterday morning as the horses moved around to sniff and listen to the walled confines.
It was clear watching Mix’s ears that she was just listening to what it sounded like inside the barn as she stood stationary for a long span of time. It was a marked difference from the constant alerted movements all four horses demonstrated the first two times we invited them in last week.
Doesn’t look like weather will be forcing us to confine the horses indoors any time soon. The warm, dry month of September is carrying on into the first week of October for us with more of the same. Fall color is intensifying accordingly. Red has arrived!
Can that be both calming and invigorating at the same time? Yeah, it’s a little of both.
.
.
Even Frostier
Yesterday morning, Wednesday, September 28th, was even colder than the day before. Instead of a few random spots of frost, our entire back pasture was white from ice crystals on the grass.
It was a hard enough freeze to quickly dispatch some of the plants in the labyrinth. The leaves of hydrangea plants had begun to turn black and shrivel by the afternoon.
Once the sun got high, the temperatures were ideal for toiling in the late September rays. We were on the final stretch of weeding around the rocks lining the paths of the front half of the labyrinth. First, we rolled the rocks away to make it easier to pull weeds. Then, using a guide stick to determine proper spacing, I repositioned rocks to define the lanes again.
Having started at the center of the labyrinth where the distances of each circuit are short, dealing with the increasing spans of the much longer outer rings began to grow a little tiresome. Upon reaching our goal, we rewarded ourselves with a second session of the day hanging with the horses as they freely checked out the barn.
It was their second opportunity of the day and every indication is that our plan is working wonderfully. We placed a small amount of feed in each of the stalls as enticement and by the end of the last session all but Mia had ventured in and out of different stalls to nibble. Swings was taking advantage of the water available in hanging buckets in each stall.
It’s looking like we are making good gains toward adjusting their attitude about coming inside the barn during harsh conditions.
Compared to last winter, they are certainly giving us a much less “frosty” reception to the opportunity.
.
.
Advance Preparation
While people in Florida have been preparing in advance for the threat of hurricane Ian, yesterday we took a first step in preparing for cold weather that will be impacting our lives in the weeks and months ahead. We’ve been planning for a while to try something new to see if we could adjust our horses’ attitudes about the inside of the barn. The last time we put them inside the stalls during harsh weather they were none too happy about it. More precisely, downright panicky over it.
The weather yesterday morning served up added inspiration for executing our plan by presenting our first confirmed frost of the season.
Didn’t really see that coming. The air temperature was 37°F up at the house. That much colder down the hill, obviously.
On a perfectly sunny morning, we opened access to the barn to let the horses freely explore on their own initiative while we lingered nearby to provide a calming presence. With the four stalls all open and stocked with food and water, they had a chance to come inside and check out the entire space or step in a stall for a nibble, yet they could also go right back outside whenever they wished.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
There was plenty of apprehension and a few instances of being startled but overall they behaved as well as we hoped and inspired us to continue the exercise many more times in the days ahead. It’s a little akin to having four bulls in a china shop to have them loosely meandering in the cramped space around the stalls. Mix was the only one to figure out there was something to eat in the stalls and grabbed a mouthful of feed before quickly darting back outside to munch. Then she came back in and repeated the routine a couple times.
Any quick movement from one horse triggers all the others to follow suite which is a little nerve wracking when suddenly they all have to make it through a narrow door at once.
They were obviously unsure about what we were up to and wary about the strange access we had granted. We are hoping their uncertainty will diminish with future iterations of the drill. Eventually, we will want to get them used to coming inside during darkness since that is often the situation when we end up bringing them in during stormy or super cold winter weather.
As often as possible in the days ahead, we hope to allow them to come and go as they please inside the barn in hopes of creating and strengthening feelings of comfort with being in the stalls.
Back when we had the Arabian horses our experience was completely different. Those four would line up and beg to be allowed in during nasty weather and seemed thrilled to each have their own protected spaces with unchallenged access to food and water.
I’m not expecting to achieve a change to that level from our rescued Thoroughbreds, but just getting to a point where they don’t show signs of triggered PTSD when we bring them inside during bad weather will be a great relief.
I like being prepared in advance, just in case we experience any bitter storms this winter.
.
.
Glazy Morning
Wet precipitation when the temperature hovers around the freezing point is a perfect recipe for hazardous footing. This morning we woke to ice covering everything and faced a slippery challenge walking Delilah and making our way down to feed the horses.
To our surprise, the horses were navigating the crazy conditions with relative ease. I suspect the advantage of having four points of contact with the ground and being almost ten times our weight allows them to deal with the slippery footing better than we do.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They were judicious about moving around and calmly settled into enjoying the feed served up in their pans on the ground. I get a sense that their ability to cope with the situation better than us is a function of their living outside in the elements. They were experiencing it as it was happening throughout the night and adjusting to conditions as they changed.
In contrast, we arose from our warm, snuggly bed and stepped out of our comfortable house into the shocking iciness that threatened to slam us to the ground with each slippery step.
I tried to prepare Delilah for the craziness on the front steps but she pretty much had to figure it out for herself when the pads of her paws couldn’t get a grip on the surface.
The outlook for the rest of the day is the opposite of sunny. There is more rain expected, possibly even thunderstorms this afternoon, but with a little warmer temperatures so maybe not as much ice.
We aren’t sure about how the horses will deal with heavier precipitation. They have shown significant anxiety about being confined to stalls in the barn so we are inclined to leave them out until they get uncomfortable enough to need a break from the weather. Maybe then they will be more interested in the indoor option.
In preparation for the possibility, we added pads to the floor of Mix’s stall after she carved up the soil something awful with pawing and kicking last time, when she kicked boards down in a tantrum. In addition to the dust storm that must have resulted, she excavated a few large stones with her aggressive gyrations in there.
Tonight might end up being a chance to test that new floor.
As always, the weather will dictate our decisions.
.
.
Just East
The most severe portions of the storm front slid past just east of us last night. I can’t wrap my mind around how much snow I needed to move last weekend. Yesterday, when I got home from work, there was almost none left. The outrageously warm temperatures throughout the day and the first half of the evening were worlds away from the experience I was having just days before.
In the face of the many advanced warnings of a severe thunderstorm with extreme winds and possible tornadoes targeting our region, Cyndie decided to bring the horses inside the barn so they wouldn’t get soaked.
I arrived with two horses in their stalls and two nervously pacing around in the barn, unconvinced they should enter the confined space. In the face of their large nervous energy, Cyndie looked really small and at the mercy of their willingness to cooperate.
The longer it took Light and Mia to enter their stalls, the more upset Mix became. She worked herself into a tizzy that included a lot of kicking and flailing about. Unfortunately, although we were hoping to keep them dry by bringing them inside, Mix worked up a lather of sweat in her little tantrum.
Eventually, the two chestnuts stepped into stalls but it took a bit longer for all four of them to settle down. Swings started to demonstrate some anxiety that echoed the pacing behavior she enacted shortly after first arriving here with us.
I got the sense there was a lot of post-traumatic stress triggered by the unexpected confinement.
We lingered in the barn for longer than we wanted to, hoping our calm presence would help them to settle enough to take advantage of the generous servings of feed and hay awaiting their attention. When the time seemed right, we slipped out to feed the dog and cat up at the house.
Before the storm front arrived, we did a follow-up check on the horses and found them all calm and collected, so we turned out the lights and left them in place for the rest of the night.
When the lightning became visible and the thunder triggered Delilah into a barking fit, we invited our pets to join us in the basement to await our fate. A short while later, the first intimidating gust of wind stressed the house and whistled above the chimney. A few blinks after that, the worst was over.
We took a short walk outside to check for results near the house and found nothing out of order.
Happy is having a threatening weather forecast not come to be.
Crazy is having over a foot of snow disappear in a couple of days in December along with summer-like severe weather outbreaks.
We didn’t even lose power.
Counting our lucky stars, and thinking of those who suffered damage just to our east.
.
.
Teeth Filed
Any time you think dental checkups are a big deal, just think what it is like for horses. The vets grab the tongue and reach their arm into the horse’s mouth. The horse gets to wear a speculum that forces the jaw to stay open and the rasp is attached to a power drill that looks like the one in a construction worker’s toolbox.
It was actually the first time we have moved the rescued Thoroughbred mares into the barn stalls since they arrived in April. They walked in without hesitation, but since we only brought in Swings and Mix at first, the other two that were left outside became very vocal and upset about the separation.
We haven’t reached a level where the four horses we are fostering have shown complete comfort with us yet, so we didn’t know for sure what condition their teeth were in. Our suspicions were raised because the mares all show some difficulty eating the feed pellets we serve in pans.
Since the upper and lower jaws of a horse don’t align precisely, the outer edges of the upper teeth and the inside edges of the lower teeth can develop high spots, some of which can become sharply pointed. The rest of the tooth gets ground down by regular grinding contact that happens naturally from chewing.
Occasionally the vet needs to file or “float” the high spots to give the horse a fuller flat surface for chewing.
Our horses were mildly sedated to minimize stress during the procedure and allows the veterinary team to focus more on the inside of the mouth and less on the thousand pounds of unpredictable equine energy attached to it.
We were happy to learn that none of the horses’ teeth were in terrible shape. There were some other sore spots and understandable aging evidence, but nothing requiring additional treatment.
When the work is done and the speculum comes off, the horses are kept in the stalls for a couple of hours to nap until the sedative has worn off.
I was happy for the sedation because Light became very agitated when we got her into a stall, even though she was now inside with all the others. Luckily, she didn’t balk about stepping in there, but once inside, she became very unsettled. I wondered if it might be a Post Traumatic Stress memory of the life circumstances from which she was rescued.
The horses had a very interesting day because I brought out the big tractor with the brush cutter earlier to mow the high grass around the perimeter of the paddocks and along the edges of the pastures. They showed a healthy curiosity about the big machine and my activities, as well as an attraction to the areas freshly cut.
It is our hope that their newly floated teeth will make both their grazing in the fields and chomping the feed pellets easier and more comfortable for them. I also hope the sedation will have left them with little memory of the indignities to which they were subjected.
.
.
Horses Endure
Our horses seemed about as pleased with the monumental April weekend of snow as we were. Despite the weeks of being confined to stalls at the beginning of the year, the relentless onslaught of blowing snow had them eager to get back indoors again.
In the picture above, you can see that Cayenne seems to have stepped up to the front position, which hints at her moving into the leadership void that was left by Legacy’s departure. We’ve noticed several instances lately where this new hierarchy appears to be normalizing. Dezirea, the senior mare, looks to be comfortable maintaining her usual position as the assistant manager, overseeing things from the back of the line.
There was a fair amount of urgency in their attitudes when it came time to bring them in each afternoon. Once inside, out of the wind and wet, the horses calmed significantly.
In the mornings, they willingly step out again for some fresh air, but after a few hours in the storm, they start to look for signs we are preparing to bring them back in.
When we didn’t get to it as quickly as they wished on Sunday when the snow was falling fast and furious, we started to hear a fair amount of vocalizations from them, expressing rather clearly that they felt they had endured enough of the harsh conditions.
It’s going to be a muddy mess out in the paddocks for a while now, but I think the arrival of some sunshine today, and again later in the week, will go a long way toward soothing their recent frustrations.
As it will for us all, I’m sure.
I can’t wait for April weather to actually get here for real.
As for this “Apruary,” we’ve had enough.
.
.
The Diet
Not that we want to compound the misery we put our horses through, but the weeks of indoor confinement they just endured have come with the added insult of decreased rations. If protecting them from the ravages of founder (laminitis) means we need to closely control what our horses are consuming, we need to do it regardless of how unhappy they act over the situation.
I am certain that the reason Cayenne was prancing around snorting when I freed her from the confines of her stall on Saturday was because she had grown so agitated over the lack of anything to eat in her “cell.” She had made that clear with the kicking of the wall and pawing at the floor when I showed up to greet the farrier and get Hunter some padded shoes.
The precisely measured portions I had meted out at noon were ancient history and she wanted more. Luckily, she settled down a little bit while Hunter was brought out of his stall to stand between both mares and be fitted.
Later, after the three horses were done thrashing around outside in the paddock, they settled down and took up stations over the hay boxes, where bonus servings had been made available to augment their celebration over the return to the great outdoors.
Now, even though it was a bonus offering, it was still a precisely measured meager portion of a bonus.
It didn’t take them long to show their feelings about the restrictions of this new diet still being in place, even though they have been released from confinement in the barn.
Yesterday, I spotted them grazing on the winter manure pile inside their fence line. It seems there have been a few morsels of hay raked up with the manure.
Cyndie fretted the other day that feeding our animals (and I might add, her family and guests) is one of the ways she shows her love. For the record, she loves me a LOT. It breaks her heart to see the horses stoop to digging through the manure pile for blades of grass.
I’m sure it’s not the first time a restrictive diet has brought on behaviors for which pride gets tossed aside.
In reality, they aren’t really that desperate. They were just checking out the pile for a brief few seconds. I thought it looked funny and snapped the photo. It makes for good story!
The diet is for real, and their adjustment to it is going to take some time, but we are optimistic a new balance will emerge and we will be back on a path to optimal health, soon.
Soon, in a relative sense of the word.
.
.
Relative Something 