Barn stuff
Jun. 10th, 2008 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziThere've been a number of things going on at the barn over the past few weeks.
Another new horse was purchased. He's a gelding named Pudge who I think really must be a draft mix. There's not really any information on his parentage other than 'he has some quarterhorse in him' but, in my opinion, he's got even more draft in him. I'm suspecting that he's half Belgian. He's got a thick neck and is about a mile wide. I'm surprised the barn even had a saddle that could fit him.
Unfortunately, it looks like Pudge just isn't doing well on the footing in the indoor ring where he'd be doing most of his work. That means that he'll probably be sold. It's a pity. I rather like him. He seems nice enough. It's kind of strange, though, that a number of people say he's very pushy and has bulldozed his way out of his stall when people open the door. Both I and Carla, one of the regulars at the barn, were surprised to hear this. We've both been in his stall with him with the door wide open and Pudge has been a perfect gentleman.
On another note, I hate his name. His name was Rascal, but the folks who sold him started calling him Pudge and that name came with him to the barn. He's really not fat. He's just big 'n very stocky.
There was a bit of a scare on Thursday when one of the ponies, Mickey, laid down in his stall and wouldn't get up. That's never a good thing, but it was even more worrying in this case since Mickey is 45 or 46 years old. That's not just old for an equine, that's ancient. Kinda a Methuselah pony. Folks really thought he was going to die. Later that morning though,he stood up and acted fine. He's been moved to a box stall and is loving it. Pudge, who is in the stall next door seems to want to be friends with him, too. Mickey is quite a fixture at the barn. There are at least two cases where he's been ridden by 3 generations of the same family who took lessons. Old as he is, he just keeps on trooping along. He's old though, and there's no ignoring the fact that he's not going to live forever. It'll be a hard day at the barn when he does die. It's never easy when any horse dies, but for most of us, it's near impossible to think of the stables without Mickey. He's just always been there.
Casanova, who has had a chronic problem with one of his legs, finally went to a new home. He's not worked in a couple years. It's just taken a while to find a place to take him so he can be a pasture horse for the rest of his life. He's now a companion to an old retired horse.
Cascade, the boss mare, demonstrated that horses can be both clever and less than bright at the same time. She was with the other horses in the grass pasture the week before last and apparently decided that she wanted to be in the next pasture over. She's ridden over jumps and must've decided she'd just hop on over and have a whole field of grass all to herself. Unfortunately, she's never been ridden over a jump as high as the fence and she didn't have a human on her back guiding her as to when 'n where to jump. From the looks of the results, she got her forelegs over just fine, but then landed on the chest with her fence and went down on the other side, dragging her back legs over as she either fell or pulled herself the rest of the way over.
The end result is that she tore a big gash in her chest that required a lot of stitches, and scraped up the front of her hind legs pretty badly. She's confined to her stall on stall rest for a while. She's not really very happy about that, but there's really no other choice.
Lad, a former school horse who is now privately owned, had a foot issue recently. The vet determined that it's due to the way his leg is built causing some uneven pressure on his foot. Lad just turned 20 last month and it's likely that the issue just started causing more discomfort for him as he was getting older. The regular farrier couldn't come out for a bit, so his owner called in another one who actually came in Sunday before last. Now, granted, the regular farrier has been shoeing horses ever since he was a kid (he took over the business from his father), and is used to shoeing many horses a day. I don't expect every farrier to be as fast as he and his brother are, but the guy who came to do Lad's shoes literally took nearly 4 hours to do all four feet. It's a good thing that Lad is a very easygoing and patient pony.
That same Sunday I ended up slightly dehydrated while working at the barn. We were also using another brand of fly spray temporarily and something about it just set off my sinuses. I had a kinda bad sinus headache that wasn't going away. When the first trail ride came back in, I went over to close the doors to the ring on the side where Lad was being shoed. Didn't want the horses getting worked up about the noise and the truck parked over there and such. Talk about bad timing. Just as I walked over to close the doors, the farrier hotfit one of Lad's shoes.
Hot fitting a shoe is a standard part of shoeing a horse. It also results in one of the worst smells there is. Basically, once the farrier gets a shoe to the right shape for the hoof, he heats it up again in the forge, then presses it against the hoof. This burns the hoof wall so that it ends up pretty much a custom fit for the shoe. It also makes space for the toe clips. Now, horse hooves are made up of the same stuff as fingernails and hair. When a shoe is fit, there's smoke and the resulting odor is a mixture of burning hair, manure, urine, and who knows what else. That wafted right over to where I was at the door and really got the headache going. Ugh.
This past Sunday was also a retirement party for Don at the barn. We started the trail rides a couple hours early so they'd be done in time for the party. The heat was horrible. Upper 90's and high humidity for a heat index around 105. We ended up canceling the 2nd and 3rd trail rides. It really took a lot out of me working in the heat. I was careful to stay hydrated though. Still, I was really too beat to stick around for much of the party. I ended up heading home about an hour after it started. At that point, I just wanted a shower and a nap.
There's some talk of naming the pastures after some of the school horses who used to be at the barn. I don't know what the names under consideration are, but I really hope that Bucky and Tuck are on that list. I also hope that if the fields are named, they'll kinda reserver one for Mickey. Someone also suggested planting oak trees in the name of some of the horses. It seems kind of an odd thing to do, but I do like the idea of some kind of tribute to some of the ponies.
Unfortunately, it looks like Pudge just isn't doing well on the footing in the indoor ring where he'd be doing most of his work. That means that he'll probably be sold. It's a pity. I rather like him. He seems nice enough. It's kind of strange, though, that a number of people say he's very pushy and has bulldozed his way out of his stall when people open the door. Both I and Carla, one of the regulars at the barn, were surprised to hear this. We've both been in his stall with him with the door wide open and Pudge has been a perfect gentleman.
On another note, I hate his name. His name was Rascal, but the folks who sold him started calling him Pudge and that name came with him to the barn. He's really not fat. He's just big 'n very stocky.
There was a bit of a scare on Thursday when one of the ponies, Mickey, laid down in his stall and wouldn't get up. That's never a good thing, but it was even more worrying in this case since Mickey is 45 or 46 years old. That's not just old for an equine, that's ancient. Kinda a Methuselah pony. Folks really thought he was going to die. Later that morning though,he stood up and acted fine. He's been moved to a box stall and is loving it. Pudge, who is in the stall next door seems to want to be friends with him, too. Mickey is quite a fixture at the barn. There are at least two cases where he's been ridden by 3 generations of the same family who took lessons. Old as he is, he just keeps on trooping along. He's old though, and there's no ignoring the fact that he's not going to live forever. It'll be a hard day at the barn when he does die. It's never easy when any horse dies, but for most of us, it's near impossible to think of the stables without Mickey. He's just always been there.
Casanova, who has had a chronic problem with one of his legs, finally went to a new home. He's not worked in a couple years. It's just taken a while to find a place to take him so he can be a pasture horse for the rest of his life. He's now a companion to an old retired horse.
Cascade, the boss mare, demonstrated that horses can be both clever and less than bright at the same time. She was with the other horses in the grass pasture the week before last and apparently decided that she wanted to be in the next pasture over. She's ridden over jumps and must've decided she'd just hop on over and have a whole field of grass all to herself. Unfortunately, she's never been ridden over a jump as high as the fence and she didn't have a human on her back guiding her as to when 'n where to jump. From the looks of the results, she got her forelegs over just fine, but then landed on the chest with her fence and went down on the other side, dragging her back legs over as she either fell or pulled herself the rest of the way over.
The end result is that she tore a big gash in her chest that required a lot of stitches, and scraped up the front of her hind legs pretty badly. She's confined to her stall on stall rest for a while. She's not really very happy about that, but there's really no other choice.
Lad, a former school horse who is now privately owned, had a foot issue recently. The vet determined that it's due to the way his leg is built causing some uneven pressure on his foot. Lad just turned 20 last month and it's likely that the issue just started causing more discomfort for him as he was getting older. The regular farrier couldn't come out for a bit, so his owner called in another one who actually came in Sunday before last. Now, granted, the regular farrier has been shoeing horses ever since he was a kid (he took over the business from his father), and is used to shoeing many horses a day. I don't expect every farrier to be as fast as he and his brother are, but the guy who came to do Lad's shoes literally took nearly 4 hours to do all four feet. It's a good thing that Lad is a very easygoing and patient pony.
That same Sunday I ended up slightly dehydrated while working at the barn. We were also using another brand of fly spray temporarily and something about it just set off my sinuses. I had a kinda bad sinus headache that wasn't going away. When the first trail ride came back in, I went over to close the doors to the ring on the side where Lad was being shoed. Didn't want the horses getting worked up about the noise and the truck parked over there and such. Talk about bad timing. Just as I walked over to close the doors, the farrier hotfit one of Lad's shoes.
Hot fitting a shoe is a standard part of shoeing a horse. It also results in one of the worst smells there is. Basically, once the farrier gets a shoe to the right shape for the hoof, he heats it up again in the forge, then presses it against the hoof. This burns the hoof wall so that it ends up pretty much a custom fit for the shoe. It also makes space for the toe clips. Now, horse hooves are made up of the same stuff as fingernails and hair. When a shoe is fit, there's smoke and the resulting odor is a mixture of burning hair, manure, urine, and who knows what else. That wafted right over to where I was at the door and really got the headache going. Ugh.
This past Sunday was also a retirement party for Don at the barn. We started the trail rides a couple hours early so they'd be done in time for the party. The heat was horrible. Upper 90's and high humidity for a heat index around 105. We ended up canceling the 2nd and 3rd trail rides. It really took a lot out of me working in the heat. I was careful to stay hydrated though. Still, I was really too beat to stick around for much of the party. I ended up heading home about an hour after it started. At that point, I just wanted a shower and a nap.
There's some talk of naming the pastures after some of the school horses who used to be at the barn. I don't know what the names under consideration are, but I really hope that Bucky and Tuck are on that list. I also hope that if the fields are named, they'll kinda reserver one for Mickey. Someone also suggested planting oak trees in the name of some of the horses. It seems kind of an odd thing to do, but I do like the idea of some kind of tribute to some of the ponies.