Big Ride Today!

Sonny had to return to earning his keep today. Yesterday we had quite a bad storm that produced a mini twister. It blew over some trees which landed on fences & required fixing straight away. The rest I left until today. I was going to walk around the boundary fences but decided to ride Sonny instead.

So wearing his Easyboot Trails on his front feet I rode him in a halter with the bareback pad on. I just wanted him to walk but as usual he had other ideas. He just can’t help himself! lol He pig rooted, farted, squealed, grunted, humped up, high kicked particularly going up or down a slope. There are much easier ways to get bucked off than when he does his high kicks when he is frustrated that I won’t let him go at the speed he wants to go at. Any amount of pre-ride work is always 5mins too much  or too little for him. He’s such a card!

So we mostly walked around the boundaries a total of a bit over 1000m (1km) on soft soil through a lot of long thick grass. I tried as best I could to find gentle slopes into & out of the creek so as not to overwork his front feet too much. I tried very hard to give clear signals for riding since it was his first ride in 19mths (& mine too) other than the few ultra short rides in the round pen during the last few weeks. I didn’t want to have to get firm with him for being exuberant but I didn’t want him going silly & hurting his feet. So if he went along 50m without acting up I stopped him & gave him a treat carrot ring. That is new for him.

So I watch to see how his feet are over the next several days. The new highway opened tonight so I now have the old highway bitumen road to ride him on to exercise him & his feet.

There still isn’t very much growth in his feet. They were looking good today so I didn’t trim anything off prior to booting him. He has a nice evenly thick wall around all feet now where it touches the ground. My new camera has arrived at the retailer so I will hopefully pick it up later this week. I can take some photos of his feet then.

I have been ground working him at a trot & canter (usually booted) around some road markers that I set up in various patterns including knee high jumps over logs. He likes that as it reminds him of gymkhana. I’m aiming to increase his exercise daily as much as my body will tolerate without putting him online or overworking his feet. For him I think online is not good as he develops lazy biomechanics. While I rode him today I could feel the muscles along his back working. He hasn’t used them for a long time. They used to just go limp & I could feel his backbone. So he must now be using his topline & HQ much more now. So the less online I can do the better I think. It would also be due to his feet not hurting probably too.

 

So yet another milestone! More good things happening.

 

 

Things looking up again

Well it's a little over a week since I noted fat build up on Sonny & his lameness.

Cas called by 2 days ago & was happy with the trim on all horses & I have done them all again since then.

Fatty Deposits
Sonny has lost the extra fat deposit since I reduced his feed again. I gave that bit of feed to Jude to get some weight onto her. His feet are better too with no apparent heat now. I've been just playing with him doing stick to me through minature gymkhana type patterns laid out using road markers. He likes doing those. He also likes doing the bow down exercise but so far it doesn't look like turning into laying down.

Boots
Cas thinks it would be better for Sonny to wear his boots when I do all the 'work play' sort of stuff with him. She thinks I should go back to riding him a few minutes at a time but do it with his boots on. I may have overdone him riding him without boots that time. So I'll have to buy a pair of Easyboot Trails a size smaller.

Going Walking Again
The new highway will be open next week meaning I will have miles of sealed road of the old highway mostly to myself so we can go walking along that to promote his feet to start growing again. Walking on the bitumen road will still work his feet without the prospect of stone bruises like happens now on the dirt road.

When he runs around the paddocks it's clear he is still a little lame on the right front. But his running around is happening more often.


Galloping
The other afternoon after play session, I told them it was dinner time which usually means they line up & await me. When I arrived with their feed they were nowhere to be seen. I called & whistled & waited several minutes. I was about to txt someone saying aliens had stolen my horses!! lol

Then I 'felt' them coming before I saw them! They had been attracted by something at the far end of the far back paddock & finally heard me calling from 10ac away, upon which they hightailed it back to me. They came at flat gallop right through all the tall dead grass 3 abreast. Sonny was kicking up so high & hard his tail hair was cracking like a whip. How he manages to gallop AND high kick at the same time is beyond me. lol

They ran right past me to the other end of this paddock before wheeling around & sliding to a stop with lots of trumpeting, prancing, tail flagging & rearing right in front of me. He didn't show much lameness then nor the next day so that was good.

So from now on when I do proper play sessions with him I'll put his boots on his front feet. Improptu sessions will be done barefooted.

Hopefully this last 2 weeks of small set backs has come to an end & we can move forward from here.

Rain (or lack of!)
It's been 2mths (8wks) since the last rain which was only a couple ml & before that it was dry for 10days. So it's pretty much been dry as a bone here for over 9wks. 8wks is the all time record, so that's been well & truely broken. A little may fall next week some time but it will be another week before any real rain is expected. I'm not bothered about it. It's fortuitous that this dry spell has occured. I couldn't have asked for better weather for the repair of Sonny's feet (& Jude's & Cassie's feet too really). The dry won't do any long lasting damage to the land or plants because it's only dry down a few cm. Under that the ground is still damp. The grass is very dry/dead but there is still plenty of it.

Also hopefully my next photos will be taken in 2 wks time using my NEW CAMERA!! woohoo (if it arrives on time that is)

Birthdays
Jude turned 15yo during the week & Sonny turns 13yo in 4wks time. Cassie was born on Melbourne Cup day 8yrs ago this year!

Indicators of his diet

   

As can be seen from this photo Sonny isn't carrying any extra weight. However the pellets I'm feeding him are obviously too fatty for him. This next photo shows his sheath which a few weeks ago had no fat around it.

Also he has got very sore in his front feet agan.

 

  

A few weeks ago I had to change the type of pellets he was buying from 'pony' pellets with virtually no fat in them to same brand but 'horse & pony' pellets which are supposed to be pretty much the same except higher energy content according to the nutrition panel on the back of the bag. The pony pellets had a price increase of  almost 50%!! So since the horse pellets didn't have the price increase, I decided I'd buy them instead & just feed half the amount.

That works out to 1.25 cups or a bit less daily, just enough to contain the Supreme supplement & the 1tablespoon of salt Jenny suggests I feed him to counteract the potassium in the grass. Actually she suggests I feed him 2tbs salt daily but that small volume of pellets isn't enough to hold that volume of salt without him rejecting the feed as too salty.

He developed the same very fatty sheath last year when he was getting a Mitavite feed 'Promita' that was supposed to address all his mineral requirements in the dry season in this area. Obviously there is too much undigestable fat in the pellets & his body is storing it as fat in certain areas much like happens in humans...celulite! Once I took him off that feed he lost a lot of weight & his sheath returned to the normal shape it should be.

So I am wondering if the same undigestable fat or sugar is also causing the laminitis again. Perhaps there is a lot of hidden sugar in the pellets included to bring the energy quotient up to a certain level.

I chose this brand of pellet because they had the least energy & protien content & were just basically filler or something to eat for overly fat ponies, rather than have any sort of nutritious content. They were supposedly designed specailly for fat ponies etc.

Obviously these feed companies just can't help themselves, they HAVE to add all this crap oil & sugar content for some reason.

So I'm not sure what to do now. I have no idea what I can use as a feed to hold his supplement & salt.
Perhaps wheaten chaff? The volume of grain in 2cups of wheaten chaff shouldn't be too much for him surely?

We've had a bit of a setback

I think riding Sonny the other week was too much too soon. He wasn’t lame for a few days then gradually got worse over a few days. He’s reluctant to walk much now & really doesn’t want to walk on the road or even the driveway.

 There isn’t any extra heat in his RF but it is certainly a lot sorer than the LF. So I wait now to see if it’s an abscess. So far it doesn’t seem to be one. Actually it would be better in some ways if it was an abscess! At least it would come out somewhere then heal up. If it’s not an abscess it must mean something worse, ie internal problems or bruised sole.

 Today I have realised one reason why this may have happened. I ran out of the ProvideIt supplement some time back & while I saved for the next lot I fed Sonny the last 5 weeks worth of Dr Kohnke’s Cell Provide. At the time of running out of the ProvideIt  Supreme all the horse’s feet had stopped growing as per usual in winter. However within a week or so of putting Sonny back on the DK’s, his feet began growing again. They grew quite fast (which may or may not be a good thing). It was at that time that I began walking him on the road & the ridges began growing along the sides of his front feet in response to the hard ground. I was able to trim his feet weekly & be back walking on the road within a day or so of the trim. In previous years I have noted that his feet grew fast when getting DK's. I have no idea why the DK's might cause Sonny's feet to grow faster than the ProvideIt. Maybe, like humans, all horses are different & some things work better for some horses.

 When the new bag of ProvideIt arrived I put Sonny back onto that & I now realize his feet must have stopped growing within a week or so. However I had already trimmed him again at the end of that week & wondered why there was less to trim & not the heel growth I was expecting. I walked him a few days on the road & rode him that one time after the trim. Upon checking his front feet each day since the last trim I see there hasn’t been any growth at all & in fact his feet are wearing away again.

                                                 

 

 I will have to put his boots back on to do any ‘work play’ as he is getting too sore to walk. This afternoon he was reluctant to move much. His front feet are hot underneath. Now that the ground is very dry & hard his soles are wearing away faster than they can grow. The same thing happened last winter & I ended up with nothing to trim to correct problems.

 Trouble is, his Easyboot Trails that I purchased earlier this year are now too big because his feet have changed shape. So I can’t put his boots on full time like earlier in the year when I had him around the house yard. They are ok for just a quick walk or a bit of work play. But by the end of that at least one boot will have rotated 45degrees or more even with extra packing.

 The dry weather is becoming a double edged sword. We need the dry for healing purposes but it makes the ground very hard & abrasive. A bit of rain each week would keep the paddocks a bit softer to help him until his feet begin growing again naturally.

 So I’m in a bit of a quandary. If I put him back on the DK’s to get his feet growing I can get back on track again within a few weeks. Or I can do nothing with him until his feet naturally begin to grow again later in the year. However until then he will have to just hang around in the paddock on soft ground because I don’t have the right sized boots for him anymore & I have to hope his soles don’t wear away too much.

 Decisions, decisions!! lol