Fourth Week Skinny Horse Picture

I can definitely see progress!!

Whew!  I'm so relieved.

I tried and tried to get her to stand square, but she's a big brat.

And so she's not square, but much improved non the less!!

Her top-line could still use some more work, but so glad the her lizard back's going away!!

Hurray!!!

And of course the before....

And this one....

The full side view!

She of course also looks so much better because she's gotten her summer coat on!

But her hind end even looks better!

So glad that feeding her up is working!  (0:

Sent off some of these pictures to the vets office and they "bounced" back, so I've gotta call them tomorrow and see where to send them so I can get feed back from Dr. Peters.

And a few more pictures just because I took them!!

Spa De' Nikki

'Er something like that!!

Took the tractor out and scraped a giant low spot out in front of the stall that Fiona uses for eating her grain.

I'm not going to sugar coat it.

I don't have the time to tie her out and soak her feet in a mud puddle like Jake suggested a couple of times a day for an hour or so...

I work 32 hours a week and have a toddler, and a husband who works 65-70 hours a week...

Not enough time in the day for it.

And goodness, it's been so damn hot...that it's all I can do to get her fed (and everyone else too) and the rest of the chores done before Kase and I have heat strokes!

Then lets not forget the all crap that has to be done in the house!

Oh, poor Nikki!

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So this I feel works.

I've made it a tad bit deeper and wider since I took these.

I'm doing me darnedest to get her entire foot soaked twice a day while she eats her grain.

It does prevent her from cleaning up after herself, but she is robust enough now that I'm not too stressed out about it...

Well mostly that's what I'm telling myself.

Fiona doesn't mind the water for the most part.

But she did decide to try and skinny up against the rail where she was eating, and thus I widened it.

She drinks from it after every meal, not really sure why.

It is "fresh" every time she's in it.

So maybe it's tasty!

Due to this nasty hot weather, my hay guy's fields only produced 1/4 of their usual crop, so instead of getting 15 ton from him at $160 a ton, I got 4 at $200.  )0:

I had enough money saved up for my usual with some to spare, but Fiona's "new" feed bill kinda put a dent in it.

Now I'm getting 10 ton of alfalfa grass mix (hoping it's a better mix than last years...which had some alfalfa in one flake every third bale..)  From my old hay guy at $210 a ton.  The long and the short of it is my hay bill went up $600 and for less hay than last year.

Sigh...

What do you do??  /0:

So due to my $$ horse money crunch, I'm passing on the soaking boots for now and hoping this will do the trick.

And if it doesn't...

Then I'll get the boots as a last ditch effort.

I'm pretty hopeful that this will do the trick though!

And then I can "fix" the area in front of my stall!

Third Week Skinny Horse Pictures

I've learned a lot from the comments offered up about Fiona's weight gain and I really appreciate them all!

I had no idea that it takes on average 4 weeks for my horse to start to bloom while being fed up.  I really thought it'd be obvious after the first week, two at the most.  Which is why I decided to take pictures along the way.

I also thought Dr. Peters was being generous by telling me to watch her for that long, because I try to fight being a knee jerk reaction-er while dealing with my horse's health.  And really NEED to have time lines clear "start and stop" places.

Now I know it's just the "norm", I' not sure if I feel like an uneducated dork, or just someone luck enough to never have to have been educated on such thing.

It appears as though I really never do stop learning!

Hurray for me!!

I looked back through Mindy and I"s texts and can't find our conversation about using a probiotic or Brewers Yeast, but I know we talked about it.  

So I can't really pin point why I didn't add one to her meal plan.

I will be adding one to her diet once we start our maintenance phase though. 

It makes good sense and isn't a really expensive or difficult thing to add.

I NEVER want to go through this again!!  It's been expensive and stressful.

And it's July and I haven't even thought about riding her.

She looked so bad, it would have been abusive to stress her out with any kind of physical activity.

Or so I felt!

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The above pictures were taken on June 30th.  Rounding out our third week of "work".

I'll be taking some pictures of her next Tuesday and sending them to Dr. Peters so that he can evaluate her via e-mail at the end of her 4th week and get yet another game plan together...

So that I can consult my sister and anyone else who wants to offer up anything and continue to move forward!  (0:

And once I speak with him again, even though I am quite sure it's like Kelly commented, I'll probably never know why she got so far down, I'm going to ask what he thinks made this all transpire...

Just in case! 

I am happy to report, that although all the handling that she has been getting is graining 2x's a day and fly repellent application, she hasn't gotten "naughty" about being caught up for feeding...  You know the way some horses do when they start anticipating goodies. 

She really is such a nice mare.

I love her!  (0:

Kase's pony continues to be a gem as well...

She's gotten "mad" at him a few times, but it's funny...not really aggressive, explosive, or ridiculous...

Just some head bobbing, and a couple of foot stomps.  Kind of like she'd do if her baby was being naughty.

I'm trying to get him to stop some of the things she doesn't approve of, but he's not quite 2, so it's a slow process.  

I'm working on keeping her nice and respectful despite the kid handling her and trying to get her to "play" with him.

So far so good.

It's easy to forget she's a horse some days because of her size...and the fact it's so easy to handle her!  (0:

She had her feet trimmed by Jake on Thursday.

He said, "hey this horse has a crooked foot!"

I said, "so, she's a pony and 11.  Probably been like that her whole life.  Trim it accordingly!"

Then we both laughed, because he knows of the people that I got her from and we had just discussed that it's a crap shoot with them on whether you get hustled or not.

He agrees that I didn't get hustled.  He also offered to be helpful in anyway he could the next time I go looking for a horse for my "Little Feller".

I'd thought about calling Jake when we started looking, but decided to go it alone, because he may have been busy... Nice to know that I have him to rely on next time if I need it!!

Of course this ridiculous heat and dry spell had affected the girls' feet.

Jake got Horse Girl and Little Nikki AKA Beep-Beep trimmed but told me to get to soaking Fiona's feet as they were too hard and dry for him to feel comfortable re-shoeing her.  He said that they split like mad and will abscess at the drop of a hat when this dry and hard. 

He gave me instructions and two weeks to get them better.

I'd be stressed out about the time in between her shoeing appointments if it weren't for the fact that I'm not riding her...  And as Jake pointed out, she really didn't have all that much hoof growth and it was his "expert opinion" that another two weeks wouldn't hurt her.

So now I will be soaking her feet while she eats her grain.

Anybody have any easy-ish, economical re-hydration of the hoof suggestions?  (0:

Have a Happy and Safe 4th everyone!!