A Daily Dose

 Phantom had her hocks injected about 4 weeks ago at a vet exam where I said I suspected it was either her hocks that were sore and she was overloading her front end, or she was sore everywhere.

She definitely looked better after the vet appointment. Much less stompy on her front end. But she still didn't feel as good as I had hoped she would. 

I've let her loose in the arena a couple of times recently to get rid of some energy and I really wasn't happy with how she looked. To me, it still looked like she was trying to unload her hind end, and there were a few transitions from canter to trot that looked like they stung (specifically on the left hind).

While waiting for Phantom's Ventipulmin to kick in I dumped my grooming kit out to clean out the hair. I forgot there was an open pack of elastics in there. Oops.

So this weekend I started her on some Previcox. I had gotten some at the vet appointment to have and see if it helped her over the colder months in the winter when she always seems to be stiffer.

Two days of Previcox and I rode on the third - Phantom felt fantastic. Probably the best she's felt in the last couple of years.

We had easy bend in both directions and she wasn't falling onto her left shoulder through turns. I braced for the downward canter/trot transition expecting it to be ugly but she stepped right underneath herself with her left hind.

I also had a whole lotta sassy speed to deal with. Girlfriend was feeling good!

It might not look like it but this is her sassy walk.

I didn't do too much - she hasn't "worked" in a while and I don't want to tempt fate with her ending up sore somewhere else. Plus she just rides up and gets herself all wound up as I continue riding. With her, it's better to do some short rides until she's been ridden down enough to keep her brain from spinning. 

So it looks like this might be the way we are going to go with her. Last week my vet had sent an email to follow-up with how Phantom is doing after her appointment so I finally replied back with how she felt on Previcox. I asked if I should be spending money to try to fully investigate where she feels sore (which could just be peeling back layers of an onion) or, if a daily dose of Previcox works, do we just go with it? That's what my inclination would be, especially knowing how much my horse dislikes being uncomfortable. I really don't want to have to inject all the things on her body.

My homemade horse cookies work great as pill pockets. Break it in half, and it's soft enough inside to squish the pill in there and then squish the two halves back together to feed. I don't know if Phantom realized there was a pill in there - or she didn't care because it was encased in pony crack!

Phantom's "moar pony crack cookies" face. (This is old - we don't have snow yet!)

Hopefully, this continues past the first ride. It's always hard to tell when there is a bit of extra fuel injection propelling them forward!

Sweet Sixteen

Tuesday was Phantom's sweet 16!

I wanted to buy her a silly hat to wear and a sash or something sparkly to go with it - you know, embarrass my kid. But I left it too late, and the dollar store I checked didn't have anything suitable. So no decorations. Just cake.

And by cake, I mean pony popsicles.

It's become a birthday tradition. Chop up some carrots and apples (sometimes bananas), pour some unsweetened apple juice over them, and place the rubber dish in the freezer overnight.

This time I remembered that I own a good camera and wanted to use it, so Pony Grandma and I took the ponies over to a grassy area to eat their popsicles so that I would have a nicer background to work with. Unfortunately, the popsicles were harder to eat than the grass was so we had to drag them back into the barn so that they would finish eating them without any distractions.

When I made the popsicles I used a full liter of juice in each dish - it was too much. Neither horse finished their serving. Maybe brain freeze kicked in.

The kids definitely enjoyed their treat. Afterwards, Phantom got the night off, but Cisco had to work - it wasn't his birthday!

Happy birthday Princess! I hope to make you many more popsicles in the future!

Cisco's Carrot Privileges Have Been Revoked

I picked up a bag of carrots for the kids last week. Mostly because I went grocery shopping and realized that everything in my cart was either frozen or boxed. I figured I should get something fresh, not that I would be the one eating it.

Both kids had some carrots added to their food one-day last week, and then again yesterday. I watched Cisco eat from his dish, and was of amazed to see that he didn't pick out all the carrots first, but started on one side of his dish and systematically worked his way to the other side. I even took a picture and posted it to Instagram when he was almost finished.

Then he stopped eating. There was still a handful of beet pulp left in his dish, but no carrots. He wasn't licking his bowl and the floor clean. Hmmmmm.

I watched him closely. His neck kind of gave a big twitch, then he let out a big cough. Crap. He was choking on the damn carrot.

Kind of, maybe? That cough was the only one. There was no drool or snot coming out of his nostrils or mouth. But every few minutes, his neck gave this huge convulsion like he wanted to vomit. Which, of course, horses can't do. I heard some gurgly sounds seemingly from his neck area. He was quiet otherwise, with no attempts to eat, and not showing any signs of stress. 

I walked him back and forth down the barn a bit, cursing out loud at how expensive the vet bill was going to be (Sunday evening, long weekend). I didn't know what I would tell the vet though - I think my horse might be choking because it looks like he wants to puke?

I managed to get a video of the last puking convulsion I saw.

As I was walking Cisco, Phantom, who was eating her dinner in jail a stall, decided that she was done and wanted out. Now. I was in no mood to deal with her temper tantrum, so I found Cisco a stall with no food to stand in and took Phantom out. 

When I came back Cisco was pretty quiet in the stall, but he had a bit of sweat around the neck where his blanket was. Hard to say if it was because he was inside with a blanket on, if he was stressed because of choking, or stressed because he had been abandoned by Phantom. I took the blanket off just to be safe and tied him up in the aisle. I figured I might as well run a brush over him while I watched him.

And it seemed like nothing was wrong. There were no more convulsions. He was perky and enjoying being groomed. I gave him a handful of hay. He took it in his mouth and just held it there. My heart sunk and I started to think about which credit card I was going to use to pay the vet.  But then he started chewing, and continued to eat the rest of the handful I had. 

I brought his dish that had just a handful of beet pulp left in it. He licked it up and played with his dish, just like he normally does. Vet call averted! It seemed to have cleared.

Then the big dilemma - turn out. Do I turn him out into a different pen with no food? Or back to his regular pen, which has a netted bale in it? 

I opted for his regular turnout, and asked the barn owner to check on him in a couple of hours. I watched him for a bit when I turned him out, and he was eating and harassing his girls, so he wasn't feeling too sorry for himself. 

Hopefully I am able to just chalk this one up to a learning experience. I know that Cisco choked once before - as a 2 year old on a hay cube. He's had them since with no issues with his previous owner, and on the couple of times I've given him cubes I've added some water to them just to be safe.

This was the result of the last time he choked - he was sedated to be tubed, but apparently it wasn't enough. When the first squirt of water went in he went straight up in front and a hoof connected with my thigh. Then we remembered how much sedative it took to knock him down to be gelded as a yearling. (It was a lot)

I've seen choke 2 or 3 times, and in each case there was lots of coughing and snots (lovely green snots since hay cubes were involved). I've not seen the "vomiting" before, but I just googled and that apparently is a symptom of choke.

I'll probably be hard pressed to trust him with a carrot again. Unless it's gone through the food processor or been pureed like baby food. He'll have to make do with cookies for treats - not that I think he'll care that much.

Pastry Chef in the Making

I actually baked this week. Not for me of course, or any other humans. The only thing that would give me the incentive to bake is my kids.

This recipe popped up on my Facebook feed a couple of weeks ago. It looked simple to make so I saved it. Throughout the week I actually planned ahead and bought the ingredients and decided to whip up a batch this weekend.

It was super simple to make. Mix up four ingredients, a half a cup each of applesauce, flour, steel cut oats and grated carrot. Next time I will add the flour last to make it a bit easier to mix up.

Not cheese biscuits.

The batch made just enough cookies to fit on one cookie sheet. So, like, two days worth for my two treat moochers.

But the big question to be answered - were they deemed edible?

I found a use for the plastic mason jar I picked up at Michael's on clearance at Christmas. One batch fit perfectly in there.

Oh yes.

Cisco is still getting used to being spoiled treats. So he tends to be a bit dramatic with new food and there is lots of head nodding as he chews (and these are a bit chewy). But he finished and immediately looked for another one.

I think Phantom literally inhaled her first one. I didn't actually see her chew it.

A couple other horses at the barn got to try one and they thoroughly approved.

16 hooves up.

It looks like I'll be baking regularly now.

Find the recipe at Baking Mischief. She has a couple of other ones for horses to try out too.

Christmas Treats

I called US Rider for the first time on Wednesday to get someone to come and boost my dead car. Within 40 minutes he arrived and we got my car started. I drove it straight over to a local shop and had the battery replaced.

Which meant that I was finally able to head out to the barn in the afternoon. I bundled myself up extra warm - it was about -22 Celsius with a windchill of -29 (-7 and -20 F). I was just planning on bringing them in to make sure everything was good and stuffing them full of the treats I had bought them for Christmas.

I was actually quite toasty in my winter attire.

Phantom volunteered to come in first. She was nice and toasty in her Rambo, mainly because she's turned into a polar bear. She's so fluffy!

So much fluff around her ears!

I couldn't tell if she was being itchy or crabby about her shoulder when I took off her blanket.  She'll make a face when my back is turned, so I don't quite see it, and when I turn to look at her she looks completely innocent. I'm leaning towards itchy today, as she wasn't complaining when I gave her shoulder a good scratch with my fingers.

Each of the kids was getting 2 apples, 2 bananas, a pear, and banana and gingerbread cookies. The apples and cookies were safe bets, but the bananas and pears were new territory.

Polar bear cookies for a polar bear pony.

Phantom ate the first banana, a bit slowly, but ate the whole thing. Then she had her pear - that was gone in about 3 bites. After the pear, the second banana was deemed not acceptable. The barn pig ended up with it.

Apples are of course awesome, so they disappeared in about 4 bites. Phantom turns into a juicer when eating apples - you want to stay well clear of her lips.

Cisco isn't as spoiled accustomed to getting apples as Phantom is. So he eats it in a bunch of smaller bites. The banana was a flat out no-go. He took a small bite and immediately spit it out, and wouldn't touch it again. There was a very happy pig in the barn.

He was kind of funny about the pear. I think he was surprised by the taste of the first bite. I didn't think he would eat the rest of it. But he kept coming back and nibbling off a little piece at a time. Like, the tiniest bite a horse could take. But he ate it all!

The cookies were inhaled by both horses. As I expected them to be. Two chomps and down the throat.

Cisco also got some scratches on his withers, which he loves. He's going to love the grooming gloves I ordered.

That was it for my visit. I spoiled them and put them back out into the cold. The weather is supposed to change and get warmer after this weekend, but first we have to make it through Friday (the day this is being posted) - the temperature is supposed to reach a high of -27 celsius, and a low of -35. That's frikkin' freezing, and I'm not going to leave the house once I get home from work.

Orange You Glad to See Me?

I finally made it out on Monday night to visit the kids. Again, I only had an hour to spend out there, so didn't do much with either of them.

For the first time in a long time, Phantom and Cisco were eating from different round bales! They finally have new friends!

Thankfully, they haven't forgotten that they like each other, as I brought them in together to save time. Speedy Gonzales was all over the Turtle, and she puts up with him bumping into her.

They were tied in the barn to check blankets and goop Phantom's scratches. They are still crusty, but kind of a different kind of crusty. Don't know if it's better or the same. It doesn't seem to be as sore though.

Cisco insisted that the blankets self-exploded onto the floor. Yeah, right.

I remembered that I had some oranges in the car. Phantom loves oranges. So I had brought a couple in with me.

She got to eat the first half of the first orange. She took each slice I offered her and very thoughtfully ate it.

Then I tried it out on Cisco, who has never had an orange before. He took it in his mouth. And spat it out. I tried a couple of pieces, but they were a no-go. Oh well, more for Phantom!

So I finished stuffing the rest of the orange into Phantom, then took the kids together back outside. I returned to the barn to clean up, and found some orange slices on the ground where Phantom was standing.

The spit out orange pieces. I think she spit them out when my back was turned.

Maybe she doesn't like oranges as much as I thought she did!

Pony Popsicles

It was stinking hot here last week - 30 degrees Celsius. I really dislike the heat. When it's hot I just want to hide in the house with the air conditioner on, watching Netflix and wearing as little as possible for clothing. So I thought that the ponies might enjoy some frozen treats. And Cisco's birthday was coming up, so that was a good enough excuse.

They both live in a pasture with other horses, so it would have to be made in something they could eat inside, which ruled out the hanging popsicles. And it would have to fit in my freezer and be transportable. So I picked up a couple of snack-size rubber tubs.  Then - what to put in it? Miss Picky likes some odd things, but she's fairly traditional when it comes to fruit. I still haven't figured out Cisco too much yet. So I stuck with apple, carrots and tossed in a banana. I actually bought 1 apple and 1 banana at the grocery store (and 2 boxes of cookies for me -they were on sale!). I had some apple juice that had a best before date of last fall, and I figured the ponies wouldn't complain.

Veggies got chopped up with a mix of apple juice and water. A couple of days in the freezer and I was ready to take them out to the barn. I brought both horses in together for the first time and it wasn't the gong show I was expecting. I was worried that Phantom would be pissy about him being within her bubble, but she seemed perfectly fine. What was more of a problem, and I didn't even think of it until we started walking, is that he is Speedy Gonzales and she is a turtle. So I was dragging one behind me on my left and trying to slow down the one on my right. But we made it in without incident.

The pony popsicles were a solid hit! They were licked and chomped, then Cisco stuck his foot in his and flipped it over, so I put the pieces in a bigger dish and he chomped them down faster. Phantom is always a slow eater so she took longer in eating hers. They both didn't finish their dish, I guess they were a bit too much for both of them. The other horse that was getting groomed was only too happy to finish the leftovers.

And no signs of brain freeze were shown.