Sunday, July 11, 2010

Weekend update

It's been a scorcher out there! Here's proof, this picture was taken Thursday afternoon as I was driving through town:
You may have to click the picture to enlarge it but, yes, it says 100 degrees.

It's been too hot to work the horses. Last week my daily schedule was get up, bring the horses in. Go to work. Come back from work. Grab a horse, hose it off and stand in front of the fan. Repeat with the other horse. Put the horses out for the night. Go to bed.

Nothing was interesting enough to post about. I did manage to get Coriander out for a short lunge to check his lameness status. He seemed okay on the lunge line so I got on him Saturday morning. Nope, still lame. After that, I got off and started a large-scale excavation operation. Fortunately I think I found the problem. Three itsy pieces of gravel came out of the white line area at his toe. I feel awful that I missed that for so long. Unfortunately for him, after living on sand for nine years and having inadequate hoof care his feet aren't in great shape. His white line isn't tight at all and tons of dirt and crud get packed in there. I'm hoping that with the regular care he's getting now his feet will shape up, but it will take a while. Anyway, I think I got the culprits because he took off galloping around the pasture last night for the first time in a week. I'll ride him today and find out for sure.

In other not-so-great news, Gwen did something to her face. Friday morning I brought them in from the pasture and her nose was horribly swollen. It wasn't hot and there wasn't any blood, so that was good. I imagine she just knocked her face on something and gave herself an awful goose egg. It's slowly coming down, thank goodness. Can you see it?
Here's another picture just for fun. This is Gwen standing next to the fence she jumped. Who knew my little 15h quarter horse could jump like that?

5 comments:

  1. Could be a reaction to an insect bite/sting - some of our horses blow up terribly.

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  2. Hi Kate, that could be it, the bugs here have been super nasty lately. Can you normally see a bite mark or no?

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  3. Sweltering here, too, although it's not 100 degrees - wow. I am betting that Gwen got stung by something nasty. Gem got stung on the soft part of his muzzle last year and it ended up quite swollen. It only lasted a couple of days. I did not see the "bite mark". Glad that you determined what was causing Coriander's discomfort.

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  4. It was that hot here last week too. And the humidity will kill ya.

    We've been doing night turnout too. It's just better for them. Hope the gravel was the problem and it's fixed for now. Gwen's got quite a goose egg. I though insect bite like Kate when I first saw it. You can't imagine how they can blow up sometimes. Or it could be she just knocked herself a good one. I'm sure it will be fine in a few days. Stay cool.

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  5. Yeah, I think Kate had it figured out with the bug bite- Gwen's nose is coming down nicely. I had horses that lived outdoors for years and I never saw that happen before.

    I'm a little concerned about Coriander, I dug the rocks out a couple days ago and he's still really sore. He's got a few more days and then I'm getting a second opinion.

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