I spent most of the afternoon with him, curry combing him, fly spraying him, giving him treats and back rubs. I filled him up on some really good hay in Echo's corral and let him take a nap with the cows while Brad fixed up the electric fence around the horse pasture. Then I led him over to the horse pasture and turned him loose. He immediately started begging me not to leave him but the grass his better there and he won't have to walk as far to find it. He called for his wife and it was really sad. Wildairo was calling back to him in his little filly voice.
Echo thought it was really neat to have company.
These photos are not very good quality because they were taken with my cell phone.
Fox is on the right. He's 14.3 hh so it looks like Echo is about 14.1 hh.
Echo finds Foxsun's itchy spot in an attempt to win his friendship.
While Fox was taking a nap this calf was playing with his tail.
I was sitting on Dandylyons's back as she sat down. I was right in the middle of sleeping cows and calves and nobody cared I was there. It was so peaceful.
The farrier can't come out till the forth. In England I remember seeing horses twitched to be clipped or shod if they were acting up. I'm going to talk about twitching Wildairo with our farrier. Has anyone twitched their mustang?
I'll keep Fox in the horse pasture, feed him a little grain, get his feet trimmed and if he doesn't improve in about a week, I'll take to the vet in Ritzville to try to find out what's going on with him. Dr Johnstone has been his vet for 21 years and is a great equine vet.
I have a feeling that Foxsun has an internal infection from the pigeon fever he had last year and it walled it's self off or something. I can feel no signs of the pigeon fever under the skin.
4 comments:
Arlene, my ferrier wants to twitch Cali. She moves off the minute you even LOOK at her back feet! I've worked and worked with her...to no avail! She has a chip on one hoof and I NEED to get him out, but...like you...I'm hesitant to have her twitched.
I hope Foxsun is okay. I can't wait to hear what your vet has to say.
If someone suggested twitching one of my horses I'd be horrified. But I guess if it were an emergency and I didn't have time to train them to do whatever it was they were refusing to do, I'd have to do it.
I bet those of us who are camping up there this weekend would be happy to come play with him and maybe help him get over his "stranger danger" problem if you wanted to do that. You can join our yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Inland_Empire_Mustang_Club/ and email everyone through that. Or email or call me. andrea v at turbonet dot com or 509-432-9021. I need to get a hold of you to talk about returning your saddle too.
I was leary about the mustang's feet too so we had them trimmed when the vet came out to float their teeth. They were under sedation, so were quite cooperative, and after that, they were really good with their feet (they did remember the lesson under sedation). I'd think that would be a better option over twitching. I've also read stuff on www.mustangs4us.com about when they had the really old mustangs (Lewis and Clark) and couldn't get them gentled but they needed a trim. They put them in a squeeze (make a chute between two panels) and used ropes to pick up their feet and pull them to the outside of the panels for trimming. Just a suggestion.
I'm leary about the twitch thing too...the reason it works is because it is so painful that all they can do is focus on the pain on their muzzle (or ear) and not whatever else is happening to them. I don't think it would be a good learning experience. I'm sure you could get the job done, but how much worse will it be next time? I worry that you'd always have to twitch him, although I have no actual experience with twitching. In an emergency I'd do it, but not in a training situation.
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