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!

(0:

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!!