Thankful

Clarion, age 29, and Autumn, age 13.
Lil' Red, age 7
On left, Sedona, age 13 TWH. Middle, Spirit Seeker, age 13. Background, Beans, 21 yr chestnut. Way in the back ground, Snubbers, age 25. Dreamer, age 26, did not make it into the photos that day.

The horses are thankful for sunny warm days.
(Photos taken mid November 2009)

I am thankful for my 3 cats who help me to smile every day.
I am thankful for the horses who continually challenge me and help me to grow and learn.
I am thankful for all those who are helping those who need help.
I am thankful for family and friends.

More Cats Enjoying an Excellent Mid-November Day

Find the Cat

Cat Found

Happy Cat

Autumn Wind--the next week

Now Meg & son had their own corral and all was good. Until a week after his birth, that is. My vet was out for something I no longer recall and we were walking past Meg's corral. That corral sets lower then the driveway so we had a nice over view. The vet stopped and looked at Autumn Wind and then headed down the embankment towards the corral. I followed along with some puzzlement. Once inside, he pointed out to me that Autumn's legs had gone mildly knock-kneed. We both knew that he was not born that way and had not been that way on his first day, but some where in the following days, this had developed. The vet lifted each front leg to look at his feet, then checked out each leg. He told me to take the hoof rasp and with a few swipes trim down the outside of his feet. Foals tend to wear the insides lower as they spread their legs to reach the ground. He didn't want the feet lowered on the outside, just to keep his feet level in order to prevent the knees from further turning inward. I would need to be checking his feet every few days and probably rasping every 5 - 7 days. I also needed to keep his toes round--really round. Foals have pointy feet which normally is not a problem. But we needed his feet and legs to be able to break over squarely forward and for that we needed round toes. I had to round all 4 feet. That was the easy part.
The other part was that I had to restrict his running around which would put more pressure on his legs and would cause more deformity. I hate restricting foals to small areas but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. We figured out which panels to move where & I got the job done later that day.
So we rasped and we glared at the small pen. But it worked. By weaning time, he had wonderfully correct legs and today he wears his hooves (he is barefoot) in a lovely balanced manner without undue wear to one side or the other. My farrier loves his feet and legs.