Corneal Ulcer

While showing a horse to someone on Sunday afternoon, I noticed that several of the horses eyes were watering. One of them had quite a bit a pus in his eyes so I meandered down into the herd for a closer look. His eyes were fine but I started looking at other eyes and was shocked to find Naylor, our two year old, AQHA, solid bay gelding with a painful, runny and milky eye.

This looked very serious and we tried to get him in to see the Veterinarian on Monday but he wasn't available. On Tuesday morning we tried again to get him in to see our Vet and failed. So we called the new Vet who just opened a practice very close to where we live, she is just a young girl starting out and when we had called her once before her prices were too steep for us but we were desperate this time. She said that she could see him at 2:00.

She did a very thorough exam of his eye and diagnosed him with a corneal ulcer caused by an injury of some type, which she wanted to treat very aggressively. Very aggressively means that we have to keep him out of the sun or keep a fly mask on him and give him a shot every day plus put three different ointments in his eye twice per day and two of those ointments 4 to 6 times per day.

It wouldn't have been so hard if we could have put him in a stall and kept him here at the house but he had never been stalled and he wasn't having any part of it. He nearly tore the barn down. Naylor is a very quiet and gentle boy, my DH just got on him and rode off the very first time he was ridden but he didn't like being confined at all.

Since my Husband was going to be working all week, I didn't want to have to deal with him getting himself in trouble or hurt in the stall, so we stuck a fly mask on him and turned him back out with his herd. His herd doesn't want anything to do with him and treats him like he has cooties or worse.

They are savage, vicious and down right nasty to him. They bite him, kick him and chase him. He is totally confused and so pitiful, these were his best friends. We take the mask off of him at night and they are all happy to see him. Then the next day it's the same old battle.

This has been difficult for us, having to walk so far to get him in the dark and bring him back to the house. We have to twitch him to get him to hold his head still to put all that stuff in his eye. Tonight it was raining and cold, we drove to the top pasture and my DH had to walk out into the herd to find him, which isn't easy in the dark, he went right past him to another bay horse. Then he had to bring him back to me and the Blazer headlights to do the dirty deed.

What is shocking about the whole thing is that he never tries to get away from us when we come after him with a halter and lead rope. Sometimes he even sees us coming and walks to meet us. I don't understand why except that he loves to be petted and loved on, he doesn't exactly like having his eye messed with or getting a shot though. We have tried giving him some grain as a reward for his good behavior but he won't eat it, he just wants to get back to the herd after the loving and petting is over.

The Vet called to check on him yesterday evening and I didn't get her called back until this evening. I told her that we weren't seeing much improvement except that he doesn't act like it is hurting as much. She said that we wouldn't see much yet but that he should start keeping it open more, even if it does continue to water and look white. She said that it might even take a couple of months before all of the milkiness goes away.

I have to say that she impressed me, she is a very empathetic Doctor, her eye watered the whole time that she worked on Naylor's watery eye, plus she didn't charge us too much and that earns her a lot of points.

While The Cat's Away

My DH took yesterday off to get the new horse and Zircon gelded plus have the Vet sleeve two mares. The geldings went well and the sleevings went really well. When the Vet announced that both mares were empty, we breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that was funny because usually when he tells people that their mares aren't bred, they are disappointed.

These two mares are 3 and 4 yr. old riding horses and not broodmares. Jazz, our stallion, got out with them on Christmas day while we were away and they both looked bred. We hadn't seen them come into heat since then either. So, we were expecting Thanksgiving babies.

My dear Husband put the new horse in my goat lot after his traumatic event, he was moving slowly and he is a quiet horse anyway so we didn't think it would be a problem. We went to town for several hours and when we returned home, the fillies in the main pasture had broken a strand of the goat lot fencing trying to get to the new horse (haven't named him yet).

The strand that they broke was holding my gates, so all of my goats got out. Which was fine because they get out all of the time anyway. The problem was that Cooter had somehow gotten loose from his stake-out. So when we got home there was all of the goats together as one happy family. One of the does was breathing very hard and I assume that it was from running from Cooter.

I had planned on putting Cooter back in with the two does in December, so that they would kid in warmer weather. I wasn't going to breed my milking doe until Spring, so that we could have milk all winter. Now all I can do is write down the date that he got loose with them and hope for the best. My milk doe was clean, so I don't think that he got to her but the other two acted pretty receptive.

This type of thing always happens when you are away from home. I know that I shouldn't be this way but I would just prefer to stay home all of the time. I am fairly sure that Jazz planned his Christmas day surprise well before Christmas Eve, he knew that we would be gone all day.

This is the first time Cooter has gotten loose, I thought at first that he must have gotten his halter off but he didn't. Somehow he had released the bull snap, that takes some skill if you don't have fingers, but desperate times call for desperate action.

Replacement

We can't seem to get ahead for falling behind. We sold our last AQHA Palomino gelding and delivered him yesterday. He got a good home where he will be spoiled to death. This brought our number of horses down to around 32, when you have this many horses, you never know for sure how many you have at any given time.

On our way home with the horse trailer, my DH suggested that we run by a friend's place who had a 3 yr. old, Black Tennessee Walker Stallion for sale. I should have screamed and cried and refused to go, but I didn't. I also forgot to make him wear his light green sweatshirt that reads, "I do not need another horse" three times on it. Needless to say, we brought the horse home with us.

We are going to have Zircon, our leopard colt, gelded on Friday, so we are going to have this new guy gelded as well. He is a tall black horse without any white on him. He is green broke and very well behaved. You would never know that he was a stallion.

We don't know where he came from originally but he looks like he should probably be registered, he looks and carries himself like a full-blooded TWHBEA. With the value of horses being what it is right now, many people just aren't going to the extra expense of putting papers on their low valued younglings. This is a real shame for this horse, if that is what happened with him. Because he is nice looking, calm and well behaved.

We put him in the stall right outside our bedroom last night and he didn't make a sound all night. He has only nickered once since we loaded him. The man that we bought him from had never ridden a gaited horse before and said that he really enjoyed riding him. I am assuming that someone probably gave this colt to him, he had him broke, put some weight on him, then started trying to sell him.

We will have him gelded, try to put some more weight on him, give him some more training and try to find him a good home. I will post some pictures of him as soon as I get some taken.

Unofficial

The unofficial word is that our trainer, Mark Burnette took 4th place in the 2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover in Fort Worth, Texas. No word on how much money his horse, Hoof Hearted brought at auction. I will post it here when I hear from Mark.

As a side note, we currently have three horses left that were trained by Mark, so you had better buy them while they are hot. Leroy, a bay ApHC leopard gelding, Zana, a sorrel AQHA mare and Heath, a red dun AQHA gelding have all had 30 days training with Mark Burnette. Joe, a Palomino gelding was also trained by Mark during the winter months and was not touched all Spring or Summer, he recently sold for $2500, he had not forgotten any of his training after sitting idle all of those months.

Catching Up

I seem to have gotten behind in my life and need to do some catching up. I have several rope halter orders that need to be made and shipped.

It seems most of my website clients wanted updates after Christmas. We had a horse come home from the trainer and his info and pictures had to be updated on our site. I even took some videos of Leroy with the trainer and posted them, you can see them here: 2004 ApHC Bay Leopard Gelding For Sale . The page has a lot of pictures, so if you are one of us poor peasants who are still on a dial-up, then it will take a while for the page to load and you will have to really be patient if you want to watch the videos.

Leroy may be a famous horse, we got a call the other day from a friend who sent Leroy and Biscuit's pictures in to a magazine, I forget the name of the magazine but he said that they had gotten back with him, wanting to know the reason for their names. I don't understand that, doesn't everyone name their horses Leroy and Biscuit? Leroy had actually been named by the owner of the mare that he is out of. We bought him after he was already registered. Biscuit is an actual descendant of the great Seabiscuit and Lady Bugs Moon, so thus her registered name, PS Lady Seabiscuit, you can visit her page here; 2007 ApHC Chestnut Leopard Filly For Sale .

I just got back in from doing the morning feeding, I can walk on top of the mud now, it is frozen, we have several days ahead calling for cold temps, so I can take care of my animals myself and give hubby a break. He only has 30 something horses to feed grain to every evening besides my stuff, it is taking him around 3 hours at this point.

I broke the ice for water this morning, it was pretty thick. I have to carry water out to my goats and chickens in a gallon bucket because that is the most my back will allow, so sometimes I have to make several trips. I don't even mess with the hoses, even if they have been drained and aren't frozen, they still hurt me to drag them around, the bucket is easiest. I usually get warm water from the bathroom for everyone when it is cold, they appreciate it.

Angel was very needy this morning, I had to sit down and spend some time petting and hugging on her. I really enjoy my life, I would never leave home, if I didn't have to.