This Past Week...very busy!

This past week flew by! The kittens have been here for just over a week, and they have already had a "Great Escape". I am trying to keep them in the barn until they get a bit bigger, right now they could easily become hawk food, or coyote food, so I have kept them in a "playpen" with a top. Well, creative little creatures they are, they did get out. Thankfully they remained in the barn and I was able to recapture them. They also have new names. The little calico is now "Cleo", and the black is "Devlin". Those names certainly fit better them better than Patches and Garfield. They seem to be adjusting well, getting friendlier and they have gotten used to the horses.

The addition to the back of our barn is almost finished. Brooke has been on stall rest for just over a year. She foundered on all four feet last year secondary to a tooth infection. After she recovered she was put on stall rest. She has made a dramatic recovery and is ready for her own in and out paddock. The vet suggests it start out small, so we have designed it so it can expand. It is 24 feet wide, not very wide, but two round pen panels can easily be moved to increase the length as she continues to improve. Yesterday was a huge step forward for her. She has been wearing heart bar shoes on her rears for 1 year, and glue on hospital shoes on her fronts. She had a 14 degree rotation in both fronts and her coffin bone sunk through her right sole. Her rears were not as bad, they were at about an 8 degree rotation, with the right slightly worse than the left. We did X-rays back in February after several acupuncture treatments. She has improved to a 8 degree rotation in her right front, 6 degree in her left front and her rears were about 4 degree in both.

We were hoping to change from a heart bar shoe in the rear to an egg butt. The most recent X-rays show her rears look like a normal horse and her fronts are slightly improved since February! The vet felt she could skip the egg butt and go directly into a regular shoe! We will re-x-ray the rears in 6 weeks, before the next shoeing to be sure there is not change. If not, well it is regular shoes for her in the rears! The goals is to change out of the glue-on shoes once she has a good enough hoof wall to nail to. This little mare came so close to dying 3 times I was given the option to let her go, I did not as she was fighting so hard to live! And soon she will see her in-and-out! The plan is to put her in her new stall next Sunday morning. I'm sure she will do a lot of jumping for joy when she is first released, but I expect she will soon exhaust herself and the novelty of freedom will wear off. When it does, we will move the panels out another 12 feet. This will be the plan until they are out of the paddock all together! I'll keep you posted !