New Home, Take 3!

Today was my final day at crazy people's house. The day started early with trying to load Calvin into the horse trailer around 9am. He was having none-of-it. He would rear and run backwards, refusing to stay in the trailer. He even ignored my carrots I was trying to coax him in with! We finally got him in the trailer and he calmed down, for some reason that threshold was more scary than being in the actual trailer. My hunch is that it's because it's a small trailer, he loaded into the 6 horse without issue. Ah well, horses will be horses.

We unloaded Calvin onto the premises and he was very well behaved. He let out a few neighs, just to make sure that everyone heard who he was! He's currently in a 24x24 stall because I need help treating his cuts still. Once his cuts are fully healed, he will go into the free-feeding pasture with the two other horses. I told the crazy people at the last place to feed him 3 flakes/day, but who knows what they were actually doing. He seemed to have lost some weight this month so I'm free feeding him in nets in his stall. Meanwhile he'll have turn-outs (being turned loose) in the large arena for some exercise.

He settled in really nicely and met his friendly horsey-neighbors. Hopefully this place is a match, already the staff have been more professional.

Happy to be eating his fill again! Although he's eyeing that larger bale.

I moved the purple net to the back of his stall, so if he want hay he'll have to switch between the white net (above) and the purple one.

Priceless

The daughter of the current boarding location offered to buy Calvin. Um...what? 

Your mom just complained that he was eating too much and now you want to buy him and keep him in the same place where he sliced his face open? Yeah, I don't think so. Not to mention that their personal horses are way too skinny and hooves look terrible. They also don't get ridden.

The BLM requires that you own the horse for a year before you can sell them anyway, so even if I wanted to sell Calvin (which I don't!), I can't sell him until his title comes in February. Luckily this was the perfect excuse to tell her as to why I can't sell him to some crazy people. I don't want to sell him anyway, he's such a sweet boy and really one-of-a-kind. I've had to sell all my previous horses so this once I'd like to have a horse that I can keep forever, fingers crossed. 

How could anyone sell this sweet face? 

House-Hunters: Equine Edition

What a crazy adventure this house-hunting-for-the-horse has been! Good news though, we found a place that we absolutely love. Some of the other places were nice, but had strange rules like "no coming at night"--well, I don't like not having access to my horse at certain times and some days I need to come late. Or they had more unsafe things like barbed wire fencing, which is just an accident waiting to happen with my accident-prone horse. However one place checked all the boxes and it's a full-service boarding facility. This means that many people board there and there are other "amenities" like arenas, washing facilities, all different types and sizes of stalls and pastures, and trails! Most importantly, they take amazing care of the horses. The waters were crystal clear, unlike my last boarding stable where they refused to scrub the waters nor let you touch them, and they feed a variety of hays. Overall, they're very accommodating and professional.

This stable has a free-feeding pasture that is likely the best option for Calvin. Currently, two other teenage horses are being allowed access to orchard grass hay 24/7. The owners of these horses rotate cleaning pasture and filling up the hay net, which I would also have to do. In a way cleaning the pasture again is annoying, but at least the other owners will contribute, with Calvin and Graf I was cleaning for two horses every time I was there! The only other option was a pasture with alfalfa feedings 2x/day, which I wasn't sure would be enough with winter approaching as horses eat more in the winter to stay warm.

I talked to the manager of the stable about wound care as Calvin would still need treatment on his sores. They said it would be easier to monitor and treat him in a stall, so I may have to house him in a stall temporarily (maybe a week or two) until his wounds are fully healed. The price is right with this facility and it was clear the other boarders were very pleased with the care and more importantly, all the horses looked happy.  Also, if anyone wants to ride with me they do horse rentals at $10/hour for a trail ride! This place was recommended to me by my vet as she frequents this place and even said "it's a place I'd keep my horse," truly a great find.

I'm moving him to this new location this Sat and I can hardly wait!

One of the many arenas available.

I gave calvin a rinse off yesterday, here he is standing in the 94° heat falling asleep.  He's looking a little scraggly, I'd trim his mane but he needs it for fly protection right now.

9/15/14

I had to go out to work today for orientation, but we finished very early so I decided to go over and see Calvin. His lacerations look very gnarly, unfortunately he popped all his staples under his jaw so he'll likely have some bigger scars than we were hoping. He's healing, but in the meantime it looks really gross, but the vet said it will heal fine. 

I told the boarders I was coming to see Calvin and they informed me that all 4 horses were together now. Um...okay? I would have liked to have known or heard how that went, but alright. I get there and see all 4 horses interacting very peacefully! Calvin only had one bite mark on his haunches and was tired, so I'm sure he ran this morning. Perhaps to get away or just running in unison. Anyway, I waited these 15 days for him to be turned out 24/7. Something I was told would happen immediately, but they were afraid to turn them all out in case a horse did something and wanted to introduce them slowly. Perhaps it worked, but I'd rather him just be thrown in and perhaps we could have avoided the vet bills from being stalled!

Anyway, the pictures below are of the 4 horses hanging out together. It was 104 but they enjoyed standing in the sun, crazy horses. Poor Calvin, his winter coat is coming in now but it is far from winter in terms of temperature! Hopefully it will cool off soon. I hosed Calvin off because I assumed that would be refreshing! 

"I'm coming mom!"

"Feed me!"

I went to look at a new boarding property today after visiting Calvin. Unfortunately, for what they charge and the distance, I don't think it will be a serious contender. Also, they don't have trails and most of these horses are boarding here because their owners can't see them very often and/or their horses are retired. Although, they took very good care of their horses and they had TONS of acreage. The good thing is that if I couldn't make it out to see Calvin often, I know he'd be safe at this place and plenty exercised! I'm checking out more properties this weekend.

Separate, multiple acre pastures

Moving Again...

Today I received a message from my boarding people that starting in October, they will be increasing board as Calvin, "eats more than their horses, hay prices are going up, and their stall cleaner is increasing his prices." They're not just increasing it by $20-50 either, they spiked it up $100 more per month. Yeah...I don't think so. As I mentioned before, the mom is in the hospital and can't help out like she wanted, so boarding Calvin is apparently too much work for the father and daughter.

I thought this was a bit strange, they have three horses so I wouldn't think one more horse would be that much work, especially since I was a paying customer. I feel the need to justify to you readers that Calvin does not eat that much! This is outrageous and those who've followed my story know that his old roomie, Graf, ate much more than Calvin ever did. Calvin eats 3 flakes a day while their horses, and they have 3 horses, maybe eat 2 flakes.

Needless to say, I'm moving Calvin again! I have 3 very, very good potentials that I just need to go visit this month before he leaves the 1st of Oct. These are 2+ acre places that feed 2x/day and have been recommended by other people. The plus side to this whole ordeal is that Calvin is getting lots of trailer experience :) Stay tuned to hear more about our experience in moving toward the end of the month.

As for how Calvin is doing, he's healing up very slowly and is just the sweetest boy ever. Also, thanks to everyone who has been so supportive in this process as it's been stressful for both of us! 

Ah the good ol' days...

Hi, my name is Calvin and I like to hurt myself!

Calvin is pretty notorious for showing up with random scrapes on his body ever since I got him. I'd find random scrape marks on his head and wonder how he even got those in the first place since his pasture didn't have anything sharp. I chalked it up to him being dumb young and feeling the need to test his boundaries.

Yesterday I planned for a nice relaxing day (first mistake). I head out to the barn and it's already 88ºF at 10am, no problem though because I'll just brush him and maybe bareback on the property. I go to get him out of his stall and notice an inordinate amount of flies around his face. That's weird, I know it's fly season but this is kind of excessive. Oh I see, he scraped his neck! Ouch, that's kind of a deep scratch but will likely heal fine. Then I go to put on his halter and see it...

**Before I continue I'm giving a WARNING to anyone who is squeamish or doesn't like to see blood and gore. Please DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS TO THE PICTURES IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH GORE OR SEEING HORSE INJURIES. If you just want the text story and don't mind gory details then it's safe to keep reading, but if you don't even want to read about gore then I suggest stopping here.

Calvin managed to slice his chin open on both sides of his face. This didn't look like an ordinary scrape, oh no, it was an inch deep and I could see some lovely proud flesh. Well, now I have to call the vet! It's Sat though, so regular vets are closed and I'm trying to find an emergency on-call vet to come out and see him. Luckily I got ahold of one who was able to make it out fairly quickly. In the meantime, I rinsed his face and tried to find where on earth he would slice his face open. If you're wondering how he sliced both sides of his chin, it's because he's a horse.

L side initial injury after rinse            R Side after rinse           After vet prepped the area

The vet comes out to examine the wounds and says they are a bit older than she would like, probably 12-24 hours old. I hadn't been out since Monday due to starting school this week so I just saw this injury today. She was also able to identify where he hurt himself: on a piece of sheet metal in his stall. I feel bad that I didn't even notice this glaringly sharp object near his stall and mention it to the boarding lady. The boarding people felt awful and rightfully so. The main horse caretaker (the mother) was actually hospitalized last week for pneumonia deep in her lungs and is still in the hospital so the daughter and husband have been watching the horses. The daughter broke up with her fiance and just moved back in with her parents. The point is that the person who mainly cares for the horses was hospitalized and therefore the dad with MS was doing the horse feed and the daughter would only watch them sporadically. The daughter didn't know that her dad wasn't letting Calvin out to roam on the acre. I then made it very clear that he needs to roam and have "turnout time" because he's such a playful boy that when he's bored and confined, he'll get into trouble. Needless to say, they're turning him out more now.

See in the center how the wood has been chewed down and there's just enough room for a curious horse to stick his head through? That sheet metal siding is very sharp, poor Calvy! This area is now covered. 

The good news is that this injury was actually not that bad. The vet said that the lacerations were straight, which apparently is rare with horses and normally when they get lacerations it's in an L shape, making it more difficult to stitch up. Calvin was sedated with a "medium" dosage during this time, but he still had a bit of fight in him so the vet ended up having to give him more sedation. He doesn't like shots (who does?), so he'll shake his head when she goes to put the needle in, hence why he needed more sedation. This isn't the worst behavior (like say, a horse throwing their head up and running backwards), but it's the smart and annoying way to avoid shots. Finally she managed to get the needle in and drug him up. As the drugs were kicking in, I noticed he was stumbling and asked if he would fall down. The vet said that sedated horses do a good job of standing up and she's never had one lie down on her. Well, Calvin decided to break that trend and take a nap. He then very gently decides to lay down and let out a deep groan. We both stood there in shock for a few seconds before the vet exclaimed, "In the 4 years I've been doing this I've never had one lie down...until now" haha.

Oh and now it's about 105º at 12:30pm and I'm sweating profusely and haven't been drinking enough water. Not only that, but we're having to stand in the sun because Calvin decided he didn't want to stand in the shade. All of the sudden I start seeing stars and getting dizzy, I tell the vet "I feel like I'm going to faint!" She immediately helps me sit down in the shade and gives me a water while I suddenly can't hear, I'm seeing stars, and I feel tingling in my extremities. She said that lots of people get squeamish with blood, but this didn't make sense to me as I've seen lots of blood and been fine. I chalked it up to the heat and being dehydrated, I've had this almost happen before when I got overheated but this time it came on so suddenly, I didn't even realize I was dehydrated until it was too late. Perhaps I was locking my knees? I read online how standing in one place causes blood to pool in the feet and not return to the heart as easily which can also cause fainting, and I was doing a lot of standing, so that could have been it. Let this be a PSA to anyone else who's heat sensitive to not make this mistake!

Alright so let me set the scene for you now: we now have an 800lb horse laying down, a tiny female asian vet, and now dehydrated owner (myself) having to sit out and unable to help. The vet said normally she has her 6' male assistant with her to help, but since it's Sat he wasn't working. The vet tries getting Calvin up by pulling on the rope, yelling at him, and of course encouraging with a lead rope but he's very content to lay down. However, not content to have her stitch him while he's laying down, so we need to get him back up. She then sticks her finger in his wound which then irritates him enough to finally stand up. At this point, I'm a bit horrified yet also pretty impressed at how hard core this vet is! She definitely earned her $$ for that day. Calvin finally gets stitched, stapled, and cleaned up with lots of bute (Phenylbutazone-a strong painkiller) and antibiotics to give over the next 2 weeks, so he'll be absolutely fine folks! Now if you guys can just send positive vibes to Calvin that he won't itch his staples out and he'll heal nicely with no complications, that would be fantastic.

Needless to say, I've had better days. Here he is all stitched up: frankenhorse