Gracie

Just a couple of shots of Gracie's first ride back in months and months.

She was a little tense (she only moved to the new agistment a week previously!) but she was so good she even got to have a canter on the racetrack up the back.

Good girl!

Gracie

So this blog is about Allie AND Gracie but Natalie hasn't written about her horse here for years.

Anyway, here's a comparison of the day she got Gracie as a (suspected) 2 year old, and a photo of her today, as an 8 year old.

Wow. She sure has changed!!!

The Plan

Above is our plan for New Years Eve tonight. Specifically, avoiding what happened last year.

This year, the girls will be locked up in their stables (where they have spent the night for the last week), sedated, and out of sight of the fireworks thanks to our nifty blue tarps. They will also have some loud music playing from the radio to help drown out the noise.

We can not go through what we went through last year ever again. This will be my NYE every year for the rest of my life. Overkill? Maybe. But it is not worth the risk. Not one bit.

The neighbours had a couple of fireworks last night (maybe 3?) but they were over very quickly. The girls were already stabled away and they were fine. But that loud booming noise - it makes Nat and I feel like throwing up everywhere. I got physically sick and felt exactly like I did last year when we heard them last night.

Last year when we drove in the driveway and saw the fences down, was the absolute worst moment of my entire life up until that point. Then it just got worse and worse as the night drew on. We stumbled through the spider riddled bush looking for any sign of them. Calling, screaming, hearing hooves and soft neighs in our heads but thinking it was real. I even remember thinking "even if we find them dead, at least I know where they are".

When there was a car accident around the corner from my house about a half hour after we got home that night and I thought the horses caused it - cop cars everywhere and the cop I spoke to couldn't tell me what was going on. I swore I heard screaming horses and I envisioned my girls trapped between a car and a tree. It was really just the cop car radios distorting voices but it was all I could do to stop myself from pushing past them and running to see.

Hours of trudging through the bush, calling to them, praying to God, bargaining to just help us find them. Many many friends coming to help us look, some with their horses, some people I had never even met before, in over 40 degree (104 Fahrenheit) heat, all helping to find our mares.

And then the relief, when I thought all was lost, the relief when Andrew called me in hysterics telling me he had found them and they were safe (albeit cut up, thirsty and hungry).

Never ever ever ever again.

Gracie's Sarcoids - Day 7

We have finished treating Gracie's sarcoids - now we have to wait for them to fully scab up and fall off.

It does not look pretty.

(Day one, for comparison)

Scabbing up and peeling at the edges.

Ewwie

She is still happy to be ridden with a bit in as it doesn't affect the sarcoids, but she is itchy and scratches it on the ground quite a bit. Natalie called the vet today and apparently this mess means that the treatment is working and they will be gone soon.

More photos in a week or so.

Gracie's Sarcoid Treatment - Day One

So as Nat mentioned in the last post, Gracie has had some lumps diagnosed as sarcoids.

Here is an awesome link on sarcoids.

As they are on her nose surgery is not an option (and from what I have read, sarcoids don't respond well to surgery anyway) so the vet prescribed a cream. We are to treat it once a day for 5-7 days and then stop treatment and leave it alone. If this doesn't work, then we need to have the vet re-think treatment.

The normal side (for comparison)

The sarcoids aren't that bad compared to some of the photos I have seen online.
The cream is already applied and has soaked in for 20 minutes in these photos.

Grumpy Gracie

These are crappy pics, sorry.

I took a little video too - it shows the sarcoids better;

The cream

Wish us luck - we really don't want the sarcoids to get any worse.

Spring spring spring spring spring!!!!!

FINALLY!!!



I am so excited for spring. Spring means to me the anticipation of daylight savings, feed costing less, warm sunny days while still getting a good nights sleep. It means currying your horse til your arm falls off, while your horse looks less patchy every day. Perfect riding (and trimming) weather. The water trough being emptier at the end of the day than you have seen it in months. Grass, clover, bees and the beginning of flies (where do they go in winter?!). Rugging less and less until that magical night where they stay naked and you know you are on the home stretch for summer.

We got Gracie in spring.

Spring is happy geldings sniffing mare pee.

Spring is fat happy ponies.

Spring is playing in the dam!

I love spring. I really do.

Winter

Winter for me means keeping a set of 'morning' clothes - my snow jacket, thick trackie dacks, my favorite long red and black checkered socks and quite often a beanie or ear warmer and scarf. I get dressed twice in the morning in winter.

 

Winter is fluffy horses, cold pony-nose kisses, rugs, rugs and more rugs, and even more hay than rugs. Riding in the semi-darkness with the plug-in standing flood lights that are not much taller than me (i.e. either blinding when riding towards, or totally blind riding away!). Weekend rides where horses get WAY too sweaty. Not much riding at all really. Very little to no grass. Vests. Cold nose, ears and fingers while you try to ride and not get dribbly-nose drops on your horse.

 

Winter is the time of year when we pay for all the lovely warm daylight hours, fat horses, warm breezes and dry ground that we enjoy during the warmer times of the year. Winter isn't so bad here, you can still normally ride outside every day, there is absolutely no chance of snow where I live. It is normally crisp and sunny during the day. But when it rains it rains in the afternoon, after work, when you want to ride. Every time.

I don't mind winter, it's the daylight savings and the thongs I miss the most. (These type of thongs, not this type!)

Aussies feel the cold. We do. These pictures are from the coldest morning we had over the last winter - it froze all the water in the pipes and in the animal's water troughs. It was a freak of nature morning. It was -3 deg Celsius (26.6 Fahrenheit). I think I wore my winter morning uniform to bed. Under the doona and 3 blankets too. This year I'm getting an electric blanket dammit!

Brick sitting on top of the dog's water.

Me, my winter morning uniform, ice sheet from the horse's water trough and my headless horse thermometer.

Ice! This is a big deal people!

Minus 3.

Frosty!

Ponies didn't seam to mind. They were extra fluffy that morning though.

After a rug change.

My neighbor told me that the water in the troughs at her place didn't melt until 3pm that day. I had to get a brick to smash mine, even with boiling water.


What I find really interesting is what winter means to others? I once got an email from a friend... I'll look for it...

"Whaddya reckon about this? I was reading on a forum today about what people feed their horses. Apparently in Wiltshire, UK where  it goes to -6 degrees each night, they feed EACH horse an 18kg bale of hay plus 2kg of hard feed (she said grain)... EVERY MORNING... AND EVERY NIGHT. 2 bales of hay per horse per day! Wow! They were saying that in cold weather, you need to feed ad lib hay, these horses don't have any fat on them at all so they know they are not over-feeding them! Everyone on there was saying that that was fine. How bizarre is that? Can you imagine the feed bill? No wonder no-one can afford a horse in the UK!"

It blew my mind away, having to feed a horse that much! 40kg (88.20 lb) of feed every day. My horses get maybe 4-5 biscuits of hay a day max in winter. It's all they need, plus maybe one or two smallish hard feeds (no more than 1kg grain a day normally excluding chaff, but this year I have a big warmblood who will be in work so we shall see how much feed she needs!). Probably about 10-15kg feed all up.

So how do you manage your horses over winter? What does winter mean to you? I would like to know!

Not Much (plus a video)

Yeah, so Not Very Much has been happening on the horse front, mostly due to rain. We haven't done much except a little schooling and maybe a couple of lunging sessions. Allie is doing much better getting the right canter on the lunge, and is improving under saddle. I think we are super ready for lessons. I need to get off my butt and organise it!

Gracie we think has been having hormonal problems. Mood swings, cranky, very kicky when we touch her flanks and not being happy under saddle at all, very very tight tense muscles, then the next week she is fine again. We are keeping an eye on it over winter (as she will stop cycling and the symptoms probably won't show) and then readdress in spring. If the symptoms persist, then a vet visit is in order.

For the last few weeks they have been living in the stables overnight (due to the mozzie virus going around and the possibility of Easter fireworks). They took a while to settle into the routine but now that they are in the paddock at night again they seem a little offended at being left out! Pretty cute. We will probably stable them only if the weather is horrendous or if it is bitingly cold over winter. It's a lot of work! So much money spent on savings! I discovered this stuff called Struflex which is a pelleted dust reduced straw bedding. Allie is a bad stall walker and spreads her poo EVERYWHERE so I was finding it impossible to pick the poo out of the shavings even with gloved hands. With the Struflex I can use the pitchfork. I was throwing out at least a whole heaped barrow of soiled shavings from Allie's stall alone every day, (normally two!) but with the Struflex I only threw out the poo and the (much smaller) urine soaked patches. Equals about a quarter of a barrow of total waste per day. This is with her being inside for about 10 hours.

So, want to see a cute video of our girls taking it easy?

Things of note in video:

• My baby-talk horse voice. I didn't realise it was that bad...
• The traffic - see how much the girls have quietened down? No WAY would they have taken a nap while even one car was going past before we moved here!
• Look at Allie with her head on the ground in the beginning of the video. What a ham!
• Please also note that they are both ADORABLE!