Monday, October 19, 2009

Pitfalls of a Pasture Horse


When your horse lives on pasture with 6 other mares...

And your horse has major attitude and refuses to be the bottom rung...

And they introduce 2 new members to the pasture...

And your horse is extremely food motivated...

You find this:

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Here, let me put my man-hand in there for reference:

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And then there was this:

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A cankle!

And this:

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Inside and right above the hock on the cankle leg

And worst of all, this:

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Here, let me pick the scab off for you:

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Eeeewwwwww...

Sigh. This was about two weeks ago. Fortunately, the swelling was only caused by soft tissue trauma, i.e. getting kicked and the tendon itself was not damaged. It took about a week for it to go away completely, but she was never lame during that period. The gash (from a kick) healed fairly nicely, and hardly a scar is visible. The rake on her haunches is another story; the hair has just now started growing back in!

4 comments:

  1. Poor baby.IWhen Dusty was in the gelding pasture he had owies all the time. The last one was bad. Had to have the vet out. He was concerned about bone chips in the xray, but it was just air bubbles. 27 days of stall rest, twice daily going out and inserting a syringe and cleaning and medicating and wrapping. We were worried about proud flesh. It healed very nicely, I don't even notice the scar. He is in private turnout now!

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  2. I at least hope Maria is giving worse than she got!!! LOL She is your worrisome child I know! Trouble should be her middle name!LOL

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  3. Oh goodness! I know how that goes! Fritzy is the dominant mare and always picks on Brandy. I find bite marks on her all the time. Thankfully I haven't had to deal with any kick marks! Although Fritz does kick out at Brandy, only in the pasture, but Brandy has gotten good at getting away before the kick can make contact. That is another reason Fritz doesn't get shoes on her hind.
    I hope she gets better soon!!

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  4. That scrape on the leg looks a lot like the one my horse had a few weeks ago. He still has a scab....I wish I was as brave as you and could pick it off!
    I hope she heals up soon and stays out of trouble!

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