It looked innocuous enough and added some green to the pasture. The horses avoid eating it, but merrily ate around it. My dog as well had no issues running through the stuff. While I was waiting for Calvin to get his feet done today, he was poking through these bushes and I figured now was a good time to handle his feet. I grabbed a hoof and my arm lightly brushed up against this green plant and holy hell...I felt searing pain! Yet when I looked down at my arm...nothing? Hmm. So I endure the pain and move Calvin away from this location, the pain hasn't really subsided so I begrudgingly wandered over to the hose to wash it off. Only then did I discover my arm had boils! What!? But whatever, it's probably fine so I just washed it off and decided to ignore it (kinda like I do with all my pain).
I feel your pain little man!
So the nasty boil things go away fairly quickly (or not...I didn't look at it for hours) and turned into just a regular rash. I got on Google and searched for this demon plant and I found out it's "burning nettle," which is not to be confused with stinging nettle (because it burned, obviously). I learned that they are native to Europe...so thanks a lot Europe for bringing your evil plants over here. Couldn't you have just stuck to bringing beautiful horses over?
Okay enough about an insignificant plant burning nettle. How was Calvin today? Well, we had a full day of Calvin activities! First, Calvin had his feet trimmed and he was SO GOOD! Turns out that he just wants to be by his buddies and having him tired (I turned him out and forced him to exercise beforehand) also helped. However, my trimmer informed me that his feet are not as good as they used to be :( His white line is stretched and fungus has gotten all up in there resulting in more separation. This isn't Calvin, but gives a picture of what's going on:
Arrows pointing to stretched white line (looks like dark brown fungus line here), bracket emphasizing which part is considered the white line. This area is supposed to be "tight" and basically non existent.
Truly wild mustang hoof, notice the "tightness" of white line Here's a trusty diagram for reference
He's also not building as much sole as he used to and his soles look much thinner due to this. His frog also is not as strong as it used to be. All of these things can be due to a number of factors, but most likely is due to feed. My trimmer thinks that the feed is too high in sugar content here since all the other horses are fat and hooves look terrible too. They only feed orchard in my pasture, which is fine, but rotation is always better. Also, his pasture is cleaned daily, but since they poop pretty much in one location (by the food area) it gets stepped in frequently. So standing in moist poop is, of course, no bueno. On top of his feed is could be less exercise, less rough terrain, etc. No place is perfect unless I keep him on my own property...which based on my location is near impossible. *Sigh* all the more reason to move some place where horse property is cheap!
After his pedicure, Calvin got his shots today and his teeth got the all clear, despite loosing so many of them, he didn't have to have them floated. I rode him in the arena today and since he wanted to be distracted by everything, we had a long and sweaty workout! Our workout consisted of trotting for about 30-40 minutes straight until he finally decided he wanted to relax. Maybe next time it'll only take 20-30 minutes ;)
Anyway, I need to hit the trails again soon to whip his feet back into shape! I miss the mountain trails!
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