Thursday, April 3, 2008

The recovery horse in better days





Here's a picture of the mare, taken last summer. I am thinking this was taken around June, and since that time, she had packed on some additional weight-she was right where I like them coming into the winter months. About the weight of the pretty red mare pictured with her, as it happens.


(Yes, the date is incorrect in the photo-it *was* last summer, during the time that both mares were being ridden and trained by a great local guy)
As of today, I have worked her up to 12 pounds of superior quality alfalfa hay a day, plus unlimited imported grass. She is only eating about 6 pounds a day of the grass at this point, which is much less than I would like to see her consume daily. Her warm mashes consist of 2 pounds Senior, 2/3 cup oil, FastTrack, half pound of Nutrena, 1 cup beet pulp, plus BOSS, flax and v/m sup. Right now these are just twice a day, and as soon as I think she can handle it, I will be adding a third mash as well. She is still eating slowly, but shows anticipation for the meals. I will be working up to two cups of oil a day, and 6 pounds of senior, along with about two pounds of Nutrena roughly. If that doesn't seem to kick start her, I will add alfie cubes to the mash as well-even though she is eating the alfie hay pretty well. Eventually I hope to wean her off the senior and replace that with the Nutrena and other goodies, to cut down on the sugars in that ration. She does much better on a lower carb, higher fat approach as I learned from her previous stay with me. I forgot to weight tape her, me bad-will do that tonight.
Also hoping to find someone to come give her a snack during the daytime after my hub leaves for work next week-any takers?

3 comments:

Missy said...

WELL HOT DAMN! Look at RED,bet she has a nice hip and rump to go with that front end !? And look at Brownie,no hip bone,or ribs showing!That's how all horses are suppose to look "LETA",WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT!!! Pay for somthing like this???? Just a fine I'm sure,just a slap on the hand! WACOS!I hope there's a lot of boots out there,waiting and ready to go up her arse.

suvalley said...

Missy I am so angry over this I could do something....well, not nice!

Yeah, that red mare is one FINE combination-the best of QH/Arab. Quite likely the best I have ever seen and moves like a showboat. Unfortunately she has little anger management problem (haha!) and the red coat suits her temper quite well....um, she can buck like you've never seen, heehee

Now the other mare, she only bucks when she's playing-she was always up, interested in something and fooling around. She can open almost any gate latch and is a busy little thinker. Any tool was fair game for play ;) I enjoyed having her very much, even if she could sometimes be challenging. I think tomorrow I will start the third mash, see how her poor starved digestive tract can handle that.

Oh, recently heard a rumor that Leta is claiming its because of teeth (NOT!) and another one that the horse is a rescue she'd just gotten in three weeks previously (another lie) and that the horse had a co owner (more untruth) and so on and so forth.

If it was me, I would be over there asking WHERE IS MY HORSE?

But that's just me. I am not one to get physical with folks, but over this, it's tempting!

If we don't speak for the horses, who will?

suvalley said...

A little update:

The horse is learning how to eat a beet pulp mash. The first one, she sort of looked at it suspiciously-then gave it a taste. Then obviously couldn't figure out how to get it down the best, lol Now she has it down-a mixture of slurp, bite and lick ;)

As of yesterday, she has really started chowing down the hay. This is a very positive sign, and shows that I am feeding sufficient for her appetite as it is right now. My hub was all worried because she didn't seem to be drinking as much as did before-which is perfectly true. I pointed out, however, that her hay consumption is much less than it was, and that the hay is dense versus bulky. So far, she's at around 7 gallons a day-acceptable for now.

This morning I attempted to use the weight tape on her. I got four wildly varying results, from 874 to 960, roughly. Tonight when I have some help, I will get a more accurate measure of that, and it will go on her record.

Tomorrow we will get her front hooves trimmed, which are no doubt causing her some serious pain. They are very overgrown, poor thing, and pretty underrun at the heels. Even just removing the excess wall and taking care of the flares should give her some comfort.