Fiona's Dental Work

Seems like I've been caught with my head in the sand a few times in the past couple of years with my horses.

This time Fiona was the one to give me a giant piece of humble pie.

I usually make sure we have a dental visit every other year unless I have a reason to do it more often.

With Kase's arrival and Mikes schedule being so flexible for me and her pick up, Fi ended up being gone an entire year longer than I expected that pushed out her dental care a year more than my usual.

But for a young healthy mare who was on grass pasture for the entire 18 months she was gone, it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

But I was of course wrong!

I kind of thought I noticed her hip points sticking up more than I though they should/had been.

But her winter hair was on, she always presents her head to be petted, and when I petted her body (which wasn't all that often honestly), she didn't really feel too thin.  I could feel her ribs easily, but with hay in front of her 24-7 I really didn't panic, and figured with the warmer weather coming it wouldn't get any worse.

I was wrong on all accounts.

First, young healthy horses with bad teeth can get under weight.

Even with an easy warmer winter and hay in front of them 24-7, they can get under weight....

And they will.

And mine did.

I called MPEV and made an appointment with Dr. Peter's.  It was a 3 week wait.

Why did I wait?

Because I really like him.  He does a great job, and comes to my house to do it.

(I'm still not too sure about hauling a horse into the vet with Kase in tow.  I'll have to one day, but if I can avoid it, I'm going to.)

He is one of the best in our area as far as dentistry goes, and hauling to WSU wasn't an option.

So we waited.

I started her on beet pulp and alfalfa pellets soaked in water with ReNew Gold on top.

I was more or less feeding her 7lbs of the soaked stuff and 1lb of the ReNew Gold.

Each week I added one cup of the ReNew Gold.

After the vet came I kept her on the same diet until all the beet pulp was gone, stopping adding the ReNew Gold when we got to 6 cups.

(Dr. Peters said it would take her mouth about 10 days to heal.)

The long and the short of it boiled down to a front tooth.

Yeup, a broken/cracked lower front tooth that cause her chewing to be off and then everything to wear oddly/off.

He said that more than likely she bit a rock just right and set everything into motion.

She had some ulceration's in her cheeks, but no other damage, waves, or other issues.

He put in some bit seats and called it good.

We talked a bit about her regaining weight and then about his mounted shooting and rehabbing his good gelding for over a year, and he was off.

Oh, after he gave Kase a handful of M&Ms.

He loves kids...  (0:

And of course Kase was enthralled with all of the "gadgets" that he had and used on Fiona.

Kase was also a little bit concerned about her altered mental status.

Poor kid, so much to learn and understand!  (0:

I just love these pictures.

Not because they are good, but because she was using the wires on the fence to try and get Kase's attention after he had walked away.

She is bright!

It didn't bring Kase back, but I did give her some love and then caught her up and gave her her grain.

She is gaining just fine, but I'm still giving her 3 cups of alfalfa pellets and 6 cups of the ReNew Gold.

The ReNew Gold says to feed 1lb per day for maintenance.  I'll probably start that after this next bag is gone.

I may start the other two on it as well...

but not the Hee-Haws.

I really don't think they need anything extra!  (0:

Well, maybe some minerals.

I keep seeing good things about the Hoffman Minerals, but last time I looked, no one carried them.  

It's not really economical to bring in a couple of bags for myself...

But, I'm going to give it another look see and see if I can find a dealer close.

Once Fi has a bit more weight on her, and shoes.

We'll hit the trails ASAP!  (0:

My Little Snack Bar...

I've got some "new information" on who really is dining there.

Without spending a dime....

My daycare lady took the day off on Thursday of this last week, which turned out to be beneficial, because Kase was under the weather and I'd already planned to be at home rather than at work.  Soo, before  he took a nap, we went out and "played".  

That more or less put us outside around 10:00 am.

I haven't seen the hawks or the eagle in about a week or so, but the crows are active almost non-stop.  They are always moving around, squawking and doing their thing.

I can only assume that they have some sort of route that they fly as I see them coming and going from basically the same areas.  But I could be imagining things also...  Trying to be all sooper sloothy in my spare time.

Anywhooo, we were filling our water bucket with rocks and water when the couple of love birds came flying in...  What I decided was the male bird in first with what I decided was the female bird coming in behind him...

I gender assigned them this way, because the first bird was being berated by the second for some wrong doing...

The second bird was so mad at the first that it was hop/flying up to the eye level with the first bird that was on the fence post, squawking at it, then landing and repeating the process. (Imagine someone so mad they are jumping up and down yelling at someone.)  It really did this about 5 times, then Seven charged over there to see what was going on.  

The birds left when the dog invaded their space.  Once they left, the dogs interest did not, the dog just kept sniffing and circling the post, so of course I had to investigate.

There it was.  A lovely snack.  Kind of.

It was some nasty, smelly, half rotted piece of hide with flesh still attached to it.

It smelled REALLY bad...

So I guess that Mrs. Crow really didn't like the dinner that Mr. Crow had brought home.

On the flip side, it was ALL gone when we came out to feed the girls after Kase's nap.  (0:

As a side note, Seven found a deer hoof on the side of the road yesterday, Friday, while we were driving the tractor up and down the road.  So maybe they are related...maybe not.  Kase and I also spotted a chicken wing with a spine attached to it on the side of the road, only farther down.

So maybe we live on the death road... 

Or the eagle is eating the neighbor's chickens and various other small birds- but probably not the deer, as it was too big to be a fawn, or the coyotes in the area are actively hunting anything that they can, or maybe it's an owl who also would not be taking down a deer, but would be hunting.  Everything dead could have definitely been brought in by the crows including the deer pieces as it could have been a road kill.

No matter how you look at it, someone or some thing is hunting, eating, and leaving parts and pieces behind.

Pieces like these.
Not sure what kind of bird this one was, but it fell at some point today.
And Jack-Jack was pretty darn interested in the feather pile.
Poor little bird, little bits and pieces of him left all over the place.

Chad's supposed to help me measure the distance from the nearest anchoring point for a camera to the dining post to see which one would be able to get the best pictures or any pictures at all as they all need some sort of trigger, and although I haven't read up on it, I think that they are all motion activated.

On the horse front, I finally got a hold of the shoer.  

Jake had to have surgery on both of his eyes for cataracts and is just now back to work.  So he is really, really, really behind.  He is supposed to be out on Monday around 4 to get everyone done.

Fiona will be the only one getting shoes.  It's a trim for everyone else!

I wormed everyone the week before last, and gave everyone a tetanus shot.

I am not sure who will be leaving the property for group activities yet, if anyone.  So I am not going to worry about the flu and all that other jazz right now.

But if we decide to haul out this summer, I'll worry about that then.

I kind of gave up on the west nile stuff after 15 years of vaccinating for it.  Not sure if that's good or not, but haven't heard about a breakout around here so I'm just going to skip it too, until I hear of a reason not to.

And The Feasting Continues!

I failed to catch a glimpse of the eagle on Friday.

But it was pretty loud in our usually quiet neighborhood.

The Motorcycle Neighbor had all of his friends out riding his track.

The Shooting Neighbor had all of his friends out at his range squeezing off everything from .22 to .338. 

Then Chad and I were trying to burn some of our piles, so I just assume that the eagle decided to lay low until we had all quieted down and went inside.

 

 Wednesday the eagle finally stopped and had lunch.

I'm not sure what kind of tweety bird fell victim to it's appetite.

It looked bigger than a robin, but maybe it was a robin...or a kill deer...

Who knows!

 

 

When I arrived at the pasture to get Fiona out, she was sniffing the wing and pushing it around with her nose.

I thought she was a weirdo.

But after I got her out and fed, Remi took over her sniffing and pushing job.

She seemed quite serious about it, not playful like Fiona.

"This," her face said, "is serious business!"

Her serious business lasted until I put out her feed.

Then.......

 

....well, you guessed it, the Hee-Haws took over. 

The don't get to eat until Horse Girl decides to go and eat with Remi.

So they have a few minutes of "down time" until their snack is available.

(I do wonder though, what kind of information they were collecting from their investigation!)

 

 

And when they got to eat, Seven stole off with the wing.

We of course can all guess what Seven did with the wing.  /0;

 

I have also decided that my desire to catch the diner in the act is great enough to purchase a new game cam.