Saturday, December 29, 2007, 06:10
A Draft Horse -- Of Course?
I am beginning to wonder if Isabelle is part draft horse instead of Quarter Horse and Paint -- Percheron perhaps, seeing as Percherons are black. Or at least some of them are black. Some are dappled gray.
Friday morning when I went into Isabelle's shelter to check on her water, I discovered that she had torn open a bale of two-year-old straw we had put on the low end of the shelter to block the wind along the open bottom and had eaten about half of it. We put the straw in there the first year when we put up the shelter, but before this, she hadn't bothered the bales.
I have been trying to put extra hay in Isabelle's shelter all fall so she can pick through it and then have the rest of it for bedding.
It hasn't worked. She keeps eating the extra hay.
But, after discovering that she had eaten part of the straw bale, I decided I ought to put more extra hay in her shelter. A friend of mine had a horse that colicked badly after eating soiled straw and had to be put down. This isn't soiled straw, but it's old and probably moldy.
I chose one of the bales from the barn for Isabelle's shelter that has quite a bit of June grass in it. The horses like to eat June grass when it is green and growing in their pastures, but they don't really care for it after it has headed out and has been baled into bales. Our hayfield is so old now that it has pockets of June grass in it. The hay we put up last summer was dried to perfection, though, when we baled it and doesn't have a speck of mold in it. Thank goodness.
I put a half a bale in Isabelle's shelter Friday morning for bedding, intending to put the rest of the bale out there in the evening when I had more time to do it. I was certain that a half a bale of hay would last a couple of days as bedding, and that a whole bale might last a week.
Right.
When I went into Isabelle's shelter late Friday afternoon -- I discovered she had eaten most of the bedding hay. And that was in addition to the hay I had given her for breakfast in the morning.
That kind of hay consumption is bordering on the way a draft horse eats!
When I lived near Whitewater and kept my horses at Thompson's Stable east of Whitewater, I used to help with the chores. One year, a woman boarded a Belgian and a Percheron. The two of them would eat two bales each of hay every day -- one bale each in the morning and one bale each in the evening. They ate twice as much grain as the riding horses, too. The owner of the stable said if she ever had any more draft horses come in, she would charge twice the amount of monthly board, seeing as they ate so much more than other horses.
I don't really think that Isabelle is part Percheron, of course. She's too small. Although, lately when I have been standing next to her, I have found myself saying, "Isabelle, I think you're getting taller."
And perhaps that's it -- she may be going through a growth spurt that is giving her a bigger appetite. Yes, horses eat more when it's cold out, just like any other animal eats more when it's cold out. But not *that* much more!
It will be interesting to see how tall Isabelle actually gets when she is done growing. We have had her for two years, but I still don't really know how old she is.
More Snow
The weather forecasters were wrong AGAIN. They kept saying we were only going to get a dusting of snow on Friday, perhaps an inch *at the most.* It started snowing Friday morning, and by later afternoon, we had gotten another two inches of snow. That's a big difference from a "dusting." Not that I am complaining. Snow is good. It will help saturate the soil in the spring and will help to fill up the wetlands.
Guinevere
I talked to the vet about Guinevere's abscess on Thursday. He was afraid to try a different antibiotic because it could be harder on her kidneys, and in her debilitated state, she doesn't need kidney problems. He did, however, suggest that I try squirting an antiseptic into the abscess hole to keep it open so the thing can continue draining. Randy wondered if the antiseptic would sting Guinevere. I've got a cut in the middle of my right thumb, so I squirted some of the antiseptic on my cut. Didn't feel a thing.
Randy said squirting my own painful thumb was a "brave thing to do." I don't think it was particularly brae. I just don't want to cause my poor Guinevere any pain if I don't have to, and I really wanted to know if the antiseptic liquid would sting.
Our little black kitty Snowflake continues her nursing duties and keeps a close eye on Guinevere. Snowflake spends much of her time curled up next to Guinevere. I might be tempted to say that Snowflake is only there for the heating pad, except every now and again, I see her licking Guinevere's face or her paws or her tail or sometimes rolling over on her back to be "coy kitty" and gently patting Guinevere with her front paws from her upside down position. None of the other kitties come to see Guinevere. It is as if Snowflake is saying, "Don't be afraid, Guinevere. I am here with you." I guess that must mean Snowflake has forgiven Guinevere for biting Snowflake's tail when she was a tiny kitten.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Thursday, December 27, 2007, 06:13
More Snow
The weather forecasters were wrong again. The forecast for Tuesday night into Wednesday was for a few flurries or a light dusting of snow.
We ended up with another five inches. All together for December, we have gotten 29 inches of snow. That's as much as we had all year last year.
The snow Wednesday morning covered everything.
The jackpine by the driveway was heavy with snow.
The cedar tree was heavy with snow, too.
So were the lilacs.
And the spruce tree.
The snow added a little height to the snowdrift flowing into Kajun's pasture as well. The strong west wind from the snowstorm on Sunday blew the snow over the hill and caused it to settle at the edge of his pasture.
My little black kitty cat Juliette and our Springer spaniel Charlie were outside while I was taking pictures Wednesday morning. Juliette and Charlie were happy that I had shoveled a path they could walk on.
Out on the trail. . .
Wednesday afternoon I set out on the snowshoes to open my trails again around the old pasture. Pixie, my brave little Shetland sheepdog, went as far as the barn and then sat down in the snow to watch me make my way across the hayfield. Charlie followed me to the edge of the old pasture and actually made it about halfway.
As I was completing the loop at the end of trees in the old pasture, I became aware that I was snowshoeing alone. When I got back closer to the barn, I could see Charlie sitting on the trail across the hayfield, too, watching me.
I guess both dogs thought there was too much snow to slog through.
I wanted to make a trail around our old pasture where the elms, oaks and box elders are now growing up into a woods so that I would have a shorter trail to take the dogs for a walk when I don't have time to go across the road to the back of the farm where I grew up.
Snowshoeing across the road is lots of fun, but it's a longer route. To really get "anywhere" I have to cross two fences. It's rather precarious climbing over fences with snowshoes strapped on your feet. So far, I'm happy to say, I have made it over the fences without serious incident. Pixie, bless her heart, always follows behind me on the snowshoes, and when it comes time to cross the fences, she knows enough to stay far back so I don't have to worry about whacking her with the snowshoes as I lift my feet over the fence.
I'm hoping that once I get the trails cleared again, the dogs will come with me on my walks. It's hard for them when they have to wade through snow up to their bellies. But when the trails are cleared, they can walk along fairly easily.
Yippee! My snow is back!
Guinevere
My silver tabby friend Guinevere is much the same.
Well, actually, that's not quite true. For the past month or more, the swelling on the left side of her face has been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I wondered if it was a tumor or an abscess. The swelling felt soft -- as have all of the swellings that have moved around on her face, first on the right side and then on the left.
The swelling on the left side of her face, as it turns out, was a huge abscess. The thing broke Tuesday night, and an enormous amount of pus drained out of it. She has a hole in the skin on her throat the size of the end of my little finger. The extent of the abscess is evident by the spot where it chose to drain. Not on her face, but far under her jaw, on her throat. That tells me the abscess was massive.
The poor cat has been on antibiotics for months, but apparently the antibiotics have not been enough to clear up the abscess. I am thinking that this has been her problem all along -- an abscess that the antibiotic is not able to fight completely. I am afraid that she is so debilitated now that even though the abscess has started to drain, she will not be able to come back from it. I am not going to take her into the vet clinic because she is so weak, the trip alone might kill her. I am, however, going to talk to the vet and see if there is another antibiotic I can try or if I should increase the dosage of the current antibiotic.
And I don't mind saying that I feel sick. The first vet who saw her made a snap judgment based on an assumption and could not be shifted from that assumption. She assumed Guinevere had a sinus tumor, and nothing was going to change her mind -- even in the absence of x-rays or anything else diagnostic. The whole thing started after a virus went from one house cat to the next last spring. I think it started out as a sinus infection and then moved into being an abscess. Getting antibiotic for Guinevere has sometimes been an uphill battle, and I have, I fear, been been viewed as a woman who is "off her rocker" and "unable to accept reality." Fortunately there is more than one vet at the clinic.
I cannot say I am surprised that the antibiotic has not controlled the abscess. Charlie was on the same antibiotic last year after surgery to remove fatty tumors -- and he developed a huge abscess, too. It was only after the dosage of antibiotic was doubled that the abscess cleared up.
Guinevere continues to lick up a little canned kitty food every day. And I am giving her kitten formula with a syringe to get more calories into her. She doesn't mind the kitten milk. It's funny how she knows when it has antibiotic in it, though. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
