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Tommy Blue Foot

Somehow I'm not able to figure out how to add the Follow Us on Facebook button to this blog.  I know it can be done.  I've seen it on other people's websites, I just can't seem to do it.  I'm going to blame it on Monday, and try again on a Friday.  In the meantime you can just click the link above.

Time for the Reveal!

Last Saturday was shoe removal day.  I was nail biting nervous to see what it looked like underneath.  I'm always biting my nails though so maybe that doesn't signify anything special.

Mark arrived and we got to work.  By "we" I mean Mark.  I just held the horse and offered helpful commentary like "I think he's going to move," and "Oops, did the dog just lick you?"  What can I say, Mark's lucky to have an owner like me looking out for him.  I'm sure some farm dogs are mean, right?  I mean, what's a little slobber between friends??  Annie's sure they are friends.  She's a little goofy though.

The shoe came off easily enough, and it appeared that the canker had not grown back.  The bad news is  the thrush came back strong.  Guess the copper silicone and my Thrush Buster didn't do it's job.  Or here's a scary thought...maybe it DID work and it's still this yucky.


Lucky for us it was one of the last nice days we had before our winter weather hit so we went right into a Clean Trax soak.

The hardest part is finding a bag big enough to go around and his hoof and strong enough to hold up to him standing on it that long.

I love Clean Trax.  It makes the hooves look so nice and clean and pretty when it's done.  One day I will do a Clean Trax soak on all four hooves and take before and after pictures so you can see just how nice it looks.  I think I need to wait till the $10 Congress sale first though!

I changed thrush medications.  I'd been squeezing some Thrush Buster under the silicone, but clearly it wasn't working very well, so I switched to Well Horse.  This product you apply with a toothbrush.  I squirted a bit in the hole and then scrubbed it all around.

Then I went a little crazy and applied it just about everywhere.

Then I put on our handy EasyBoot RX, and everyone went out for a little turnout in the beautiful sunshine.  Look - Weapon and I aren't even wearing our coats!

Tommy Blue Foot Rides Again

Thursday's weather was just too nice to resist, so Tommy and I saddled up and took a little jaunt around the wheat field.

It's been months since we've ridden, but he was just as well behaved as if he'd been ridden regularly all fall and winter.  I knew he would be though, because we're both firm believers that there's no sense in being foolish; and there's always time to stop and have a nibble.  Unlike Weapon, who spent the duration of our ride galloping the fence line.  Tommy and I agree this is exceedingly foolish behavior, and we would *never* behave this way.  Although it is interesting to watch...

Good Morning 2012!

This morning was an almost balmy 49 degrees.  I headed out to the barn to feed and then the weather started rolling in.

Hello storm clouds!

It didn't take very long for the wind to start howling.  Luckily the rain held off until right when I was walking across the barnyard with the grain. It would have sucked if I'd missed a good drenching!

Then the wind started.  I sounded like there was a semi truck coming up the lane.  I went around the side of the house to look, but nope.  Just the crazy wind.

The temperature has been dropping since then, and it looks like we'll be having some really yucky weather for next week.  Just in time for Tommy's farrier appointment.

It's been a slow couple of months.  Too wet for Tommy to get much turn out, and definately too wet for any riding.  I'm not complaining though, because I'd rather have 40s and rain than 20s and snow.  I'd like to do one ride in the snow, then it can go straight back to being warm!

I had grand plans of doing a Christmas photo of the horses in their Santa hats.  We did one test shoot just to see how that would work out.  Nobody was thrilled, but Weapon was his normal photogenic self.  I was going to crop out my hand and bit, but that just seems like too much work.

Tom was so far from thrilled it was funny. 

Then he shook the hat off and stepped on it.  That's what we think of Santa hats at our barn.

Next year I'll have to do Santa hat pictures in the summer when everyone's slick and shiny and pretty.  Clearly I couldn't be bothered to knock the mud off, but in my defense it was just supposed to be a test run.   I'd have done it properly later.  Really.

There is No Death

John Mowen

December 25, 1927

December 15, 2011

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts out upon the ocean.

I watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky mingle with each other.

Then someone says, "She's gone." 

Gone where?  Gone from my sight.  That is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and span as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.  Her diminished size is in me, not her.  And just at that moment when someone at my side said, "She is gone" there are other eyes watching her coming and other souls taking up the glad shout, "There she comes."

That is dying.

Chief Horse Holder

REUNITED

Virginia Mowen - August 22, 2011

John Mowen - December 15, 2011

Mad MacGyver Skillz...We Gots Em!

Public Service Announcement:  This is probably the longest post I've done, and it was raining so we both look like drowned rats in the some of these photos.

It took a little doing, but I have finally figured out what does and does not work for keeping the canker hole clean and dry, and we are settling into a routine.

Here's the line up:

And here's an overview:

I'm cracking myself up here.  

We have an assortment of socket wrenches, a hand drill, hammer, bolts and washers, several hoofpicks, tweezers, Softcups, OB tampons, plastic baggies, gloves, and the medication.  It's quite a bucketful of supplies.

We go through a lot of bolts.  The picture below shows what happens when a draft horse wears them.  It makes it really difficult to get them off once he's ruined them, so I carry several different socket wrenches with me.

First I use a big heavy hammer to crush up the pills in a plastic sandwich baggie.

Then I put the cream into a softcup and add the crushed pills.  We had liquid in the beginning, but it did not mix well with the crushed pills, and it was just a real pain to get into the hole without spilling all over me.  Plus it stunk to high heaven.

Then I mix the cream and pills together.  Normally I do wear gloves to do this.  I've had numb fingers and a nasty taste in my mouth too many times from sticking my bare fingers into some of Tommy's medication.  In this instance I've used this combination many times and know there's no side effects for me so I've become a little lazy with the gloves.

My mixture wasn't quite right, so I'm adding a little more cream and will mix it in.

It's baby tampon time!  OB's are the perfect size to fit into the hole in Tommy's hoof.  It's kind of scary isn't it???  

Here's our work area.  We use an old blue tarp, and a couple bags of shavings.

I use two sawdust bales because I don't want to hold Tommy's leg up that long any more than he does.  It didn't take him long to figure out that this was much easier, and we're both all about the easy route!  He will occasionally put his weight down onto the bales and the entire thing just lowers.  Better them than me.  

I also do this at feeding time.  He doesn't get much feed, but at least he's got a little something to occupy him.  

I use the drill to take off the bolts and washers.  The plate was set up so that I could just remove three bolts and use the fourth as a hinge, however I've found it's easier just to take the entire thing off.  That way if he pulls back and slams his hoof down I don't have to worry about the plate bending, or him stepping on it and ripping it off, or any other damage he could probably do with it.   That happened quite a bit in the beginning of the hospital plate process.

Tommy's been very good about the drill.  Even when it rattles the plate while tightening a bolt he stands for it.  I can tell you this scenario wouldn't have played out this easily had it been Weapon.

The pinkish blob you see in the hoof is the old softcup and tampon and the mud/dirt that's creeped between the hoof and shoe.  The mud you see is on the surface and has not worked past the softcup and tampon.  

I remove them and then clean out any mud that's gotten between the plate and under the copper silicone.  Then I use peroxide to disinfect it.

I take the softcup with the medication already inside it and push it up into the hole.  I'm basically flipping it inside out so that the medication is against the interior of the hoof and lined by the plastic of the softcup.  Then I put the OB into the hole to secure the softcup.  The softcups have a pink rubber ring along the outer edge, and it will smoosh together, so I can flip on side a bit under the lip of the shoe, and the other side under the silicone.

I have to admit that this photo was a surprise when I saw it because I thought I'd had all of the dirt off the silicone.  Since viewing this, I've since added a handheld LED light to my equipment.

I try to keep my supplies close, but it never seems to be quite close enough.  I especially hate it when I drop a bolt and have to search for it.

Once everything's been put in place and I'm happy with it, I slap the hospital plate back on and start the bolts. Then I use the drill to tighten everything up.

I've tried plastic baggies, saran wrap, and condoms, but the softcups and OBs seem to work the best.  If it's rainy and wet the tampon is sometimes soaked through, but as long as he's in the stall or in the feed lot I've not yet had problems keeping the interior of the hole clean/dry.  It's not a solution for more than a little bit of mud, and absolutely no water deep enough to cover the hoof.  I see another winter spent primarily in the barn and feed lot for Tommy.  Luckily Tommy doesn't seem to care if he's there...his hay is closer that way!

I'd like to breathe a big sigh of relief here, but we still have the entire winter ahead of us.  So I'll just give a tiny sigh and hope that the snow and ice don't throw us back to the drawing board.

Operation Hospital Pads Keep Out Mud and Dirt: FAIL

Well that title pretty much sums it up.  

All the work Mark did to create those shoes and plate, and it's not working.  It's not "kinda" not working. There's not a little bit of dirt inside the plate.  It's REALLY not working.  There was mud packed into the hole, in the access area, and under some of the blue silicone.

Awesome.  Lots of rain of course.  While the pasture wasn't standing in mud everywhere there was definately mud around the main gate, water trough, hay rack, and the entry to the run in shed.  I cleaned it out and medicated it again.  I really packed the hole with the gauze this time to see if it made a difference.

Nope.

So Tommy went straight from the horse pasture into a stall that opens onto an empty concrete feed lot.  It's not ideal for the ringbone by a long shot, but neither is not being able to clear out the Canker.  

I have another gripe too.

This hospital pad is a PAIN to get off and on.  I thought it would be No Problem.  Tommy's waaaay used to me working with his hooves.  This one in particular, and I thought it would be a simple matter of propping his hoof on my knee the way we used to do and taking off the plate.  

Nope.

It's way more difficult.  Plus Tommy keeps shearing down the bolts so the socket wrench won't grab them.  And two of the four bolt threads in his $200 custom shoes are stripped.  So I can hardly get them in OR out.

I can't imagine having to deal with this all winter.  We haven't even had any sleet, snow, or  really cold weather yet.