Posts Tagged ‘farrier’
First Shoes
Baby gots new shoes! Sadly, it’s not all fun that led to this milestone for Cayenne. She has shown virtually no improvement in the last week with her painful inflammation of the tissue that connects the hoof wall to bones in her hoof. Cyndie has put in extra time with the horses to get them indoors overnight, where the footing is soft and the horses can spend extra time safely off their feet.
Cayenne has also been receiving regular doses of anti-inflammatory medicine. Still, she continues to show signs of being so uncomfortable that she will resist walking down to the waterer to get a drink. Cyndie put out an additional bucket of water to accommodate Cayenne’s trepidation over crossing the crunchy distance to the usual waterer.
When the vet visited to confirm Cayenne’s laminitis diagnosis, he listed options related to the pending farrier appointment for our horses regular trim. He assured us that George would know what to do.
We started with a modified trim to help distribute the weight away from the most tender pressure point of Cayenne’s hooves. Since improvement was not apparent, we moved to the next level. Cayenne would get shoes.
Not just shoes, but also a leather pad that George enhances with the addition of a special void-filling concoction to maximize the protection of her sensitive tissues.
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George gave us extra attention at the end of his work day to squeeze in time giving Cayenne her first-ever experience of nails pounding into her hooves. She responded as well as we imagined possible and though obviously uncomfortable, stood long and calm while George fit the shoes and hammered them home.
Cyndie held the lead with a handful of hay as a ready distraction and Cayenne accepted the pounding on her feet as though she understood it was for a greater good.
The shoes are only on her front two feet, as those are the primary weight-bearing two and are giving her the most trouble.
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George finished the job with an application of hoof sealer that gave her a shiny look of high fashion. I’m sure she will be the talk of the herd with her new fancy feet. Now we continue the anti-inflammatory meds and watch for improvement.
Hopefully, her pain will ease and we’ll have our healthy old Cayenne back to full activity in the shortest time possible.
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Trimming Time
After last week’s extremely cold weather, the swing of about 60° in the direction of warmer yesterday made our decision of waiting until this week to trim the horses’ hooves seem like a brilliant one. I thought Legacy looked particularly more limber than his usual self and credited it to the warmer temperatures.
Who doesn’t feel less tensed up when first day of winter turns out to be a melty, well-above freezing temperatures day?
Unfortunately this warm up comes with a threat of rain and some thunder in the days ahead, and for some areas near the Mississippi river, a flood warning!
What will they think of next?
George made quick work of the 16 hooves and Anneliese helped me finish the housekeeping in the space beneath the overhang. We were done before the sky turned dark. Pretty impressive for the shortest day of light.
From here on through winter, the days will be getting longer. I don’t know about warmer or colder, but they will definitely be getting longer.
Hopefully, they won’t get colder right away. Something is up with our geothermal heating system such that it doesn’t seem to be able to reach the set point.
During the cold snap, it was logical that it couldn’t keep up, but now that it has gotten so much warmer outside, the furnace shouldn’t have to work so hard.
Desirea shows off her new hoof-icure while munching from the slow feeder.
I think the horses are happy to have their blankets off. We’ll see what they think in a few days when rain, not snow, comes down from the sky.
Happy winter!
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Nail Appointment
The horses had their hooves trimmed yesterday. We are nearing the end of the season of rapid hoof growth, as the days grow shorter and the horses’ bodies shift their energy to growing a winter coat of hair. The hoof growth is still going summer-strong and combined with the wet weather we’ve experienced all summer, our horses’ feet have looked pretty rough around the edges.
Cayenne has received some special attention since her days of lameness when she developed an abscess on one foot. George has been slowly reshaping the hoof over a period of multiple trims to correct the way it will support her weight. She has one hoof that tends to develop a crack in it.
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The horses weren’t the only animals having an adventure here yesterday. Delilah was exposed to a wonderfully submissive female bob-tailed Australian Shepherd. We are always grateful for a chance to work on Delilah’s socialization, and this episode verified we are a long way from having control over her aggression.
Delilah is good at blocking out our attempts to command her to stand down, soldier. I’m afraid she requires reprimands that equal her outbursts, and I’m not sure our level tends to match hers.
I don’t know how to balance an intense level of reproach between that which would be effective and one inducing unintended trauma to her canine psyche. We got her when she was already almost 10-months old, not knowing the full extent of her early history, and it seems to us that she shows occasional signs of possible past trauma.
Cyndie is considering shopping around for a training school course this fall. She has my full support.
Our feline had a different sort of adventure last night. Pequenita was conspicuously absent overnight and this morning, such that it was the very first thing Cyndie and I spoke of this morning. Where was the cat?
She has a history of wanting to get outside. Last night we had company over and ate dinner on the deck, so were in and out of enough doors that ‘Nita had plenty of opportunities to sneak out. Our first thoughts were to look outside, but logic told me that there are plenty of indoor places where she might have gotten trapped behind a closed door.
With that in mind, it didn’t take long to hear her distant call from the storage room downstairs. She was thirsty and starved for affection, but otherwise unharmed by her overnight confinement away from her peeps.
We dive into another day of relative animal normalcy with our crew…
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Hooves Trimmed
Taking full advantage of the quick-dry we are enjoying this March, I was out raking the lime screenings on the upper slope around the barn and picking up the never-ending crop of manure the horses like to deposit there. 
As I often choose to do lately, I had Delilah tethered to an outside hook on the paddock fence where she was doing her best to behave like she was an integral participant in my project.
For whatever silly reason that only dogs can understand, she picked a perch that looked like she was claiming ownership of one of the piles I was trying to pick up.
I was hoping to get the area cleaned up in time for the scheduled appointment to have our farrier/neighbor, George Walker, give the horses their routine periodic hoof trimming.
We are starting to get the hang of the process and for the first time since he has been coming to do this, we prepared by getting a halter on each of the horses and tethering them up near the barn in advance. I give Hunter credit for this bit of wisdom, as he always played hard to get when it was time for his turn. George would be stuck waiting while tried to quickly talk Hunter into cooperating.
Quickly cooperating is not something he is inclined to do, especially when it is our agenda and not his.
Case in point, just getting him into his halter yesterday took 3-times longer than it did the rest of the herd. Having done so, the 4 horses were in an out of the hoof trimming station in record time. The only thing that slows down the process is all the precious gabbing we end up doing while George works.
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Stitches Out
We traveled to the big city yesterday for Cyndie’s follow-up appointment to have the surgeon’s nurse inspect the incision and remove the two stitches in the long wound. The way modern medicine closes surgical wounds in this day and age amazes me. Everything looks good and Cyndie says she is a lot more comfortable having that sticky bandage finally removed. Her movements have improved visibly as a result.
This morning our farrier, George, is coming to trim the horse’s hooves. It was scheduled on his calendar after the last appointment, but I had completely lost track of it. Luckily, he sent a text alerting me. Suddenly my morning routine is squeezed a bit.
The horses were in good spirits when I showed up to serve their a.m. feed and put out hay. I’m hoping they will be cooperative for me in an hour, because Cyndie will not be able to do more than offer moral support as I take on the role of chief handler for George as he works.
Delilah is another challenge. She has been hyper-focused on critters out the window and doing her worst to destroy glass and window trim to claw her way after them from inside. We have tried resorting to instant “time-out” when she loses control and jumps at the window, bringing her back to the spiral staircase and leashing her in place for a spell. After the second instance in a row this morning, instead of lying down in acceptance of her fate, she took to boldly barking her defiance.
I tried the “ignore” technique, because I was busy trying to write, but that didn’t help Cyndie. She couldn’t stand it. I understand that totally. There are plenty of times when I absolutely can’t tolerate the bark. It’s interesting that I was determined enough to try to finish my task with the looming appointment in the barn creating a tight deadline, that I was fine in this instance with letting the loud bark float in one ear and out the other.
The dog will unfortunately be restrained in her kennel during the hoof trimming today, since we don’t have enough hands to tend to everyone at once. Sadly, I think her time in the kennel while we were gone yesterday is the reason for her rambunctiousness today. It just means I will have to give her extra attention this afternoon.
I have taken to letting her run off leash inside the pasture fencing, while I toss discs for her to chase. The fence has worked well to keep her from giving in to the urge to dash off into the woods after some tempting scent, even though she can finagle under it if allowed. The lowest strand is not electrified, and I think she has figured that out.
Time to go prepare the horses for their hoof-icure appointment!
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Farrier Visit
The horses finally received their long-awaited hoof trim; the first since they arrived here last fall. I learned a few more new things to add to my long list of “firsts” since we moved here. The quarter-inch of hoof that was cut off after over 6-months of growth will be about the same amount that gets cut off in 8 to 10 weeks.
The hair and hooves of a horse are linked, in the sharing of nutrients for growth. In the fall, when the energy shifts toward growing longer, thicker coats of hair, the hoof growth slows. In the spring, with reduced need to grow the extra hair, and the change of diet to include grazing fresh grass, the growth of hooves increases significantly.
I was intrigued to see how the farrier, our neighbor, George Walker, held the horse’s leg between his knees while he worked. That takes some strength to do. I wasn’t all that surprised to see that Delilah loved having new chew treats from the discarded portions of trimmed hooves.
We were lucky to have Elysa visiting at the time of the appointment, giving us another experienced horse handler to assist with wrangling the 4 members of the herd. One issue we didn’t really plan was that the appointment for their “pedicure” (hoof-icure?) was happening about a half-hour before their usual afternoon serving of feed.
If horses know nothing else, they know routine, and they have a keen perception of when it is time for grain. Their anticipation grows into a bit of restlessness if the feed isn’t being served when they expect it. As it was, we were already throwing in the unusual circumstance of haltering one at a time and bringing them into the barn.
Since the barn is where the feed comes from, they grew a bit more perturbed by all this activity in the barn, with no feed being served as a result. As Cyndie and Elysa worked to separate Dezirea, the last horse to have her hooves trimmed, the herd crowded the gate. When Cyndie headed in, Elysa got trapped between horses and Hunter took the opportunity to jump the line and head into the barn, untethered.
I had left the big barn doors open for extra light, but that meant Hunter was entering space where he could easily get loose. The only thing in his way was, me. I put a hand at the base of his neck, just above his chest, and held my ground while Cyndie worked to calm Dezirea and Elysa reclaimed authority as gate-keeper. I was eyeing the gear hanging nearby, hoping for a quick, handy lead rope, but just moments earlier I had taken that rope for use as a leash to lead Delilah out from underfoot.
The situation resolved without further incident when Hunter made the good decision to turn around on his own and head back out to the paddock. Luckily, Dezirea didn’t freak at the uncontrolled activity playing out in confined space, because the dance of people and horses left me squarely in her kick zone as I moved with Hunter’s turn.
At that point, the relatively easy decision was made to give the three outside horses their pans of feed, and allow Dezirea to nosh on her share from a hand-held bucket during her turn with George. Calm was restored, and the next thing we knew, the first farrier visit to Wintervale Ranch was in the books. Done!
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Relative Something 