Well my Saturday did not go as planned. I missed the Friesian Christmas Fantasy and I was really looking forward to that. Instead we spent the morning fixing an entire pasture fence line. Paha, again, got himself caught up in the fence wire but he must have panicked this time. We had to replace about 30 t-post caps that were broken when the top wires were pulled and about as many clips but not before pounding 8 posts back into the ground. The hay tire was moved over about 2', the salt block was smashed and the ground wire for the fencer had been ripped off the post. And 1 hoof print outside the fence line. My initial check on them was no cuts as I removed them and put them in the round pen. Once the fence was put back and the fencer turned on I brought Meins out and cleaned him up and braided up his tail, and thoroughly checked his legs but he had no marks on him. So I turned him out in the pasture and brought Paha over for his grooming session and once over. By then I noticed his right hind was a bit swollen and he was favoring it a bit. Picked up his foot and the pastern looked badly lacerated, so I went to get the hose to clean up his legs and it was frozen! Went to the back faucet, same thing. Put Paha back in the round pen and went in a got a warm bucket of water, some rags and the betadine wash. Went into the pen and started to clean up his leg and he drank the ENTIRE bucket of water! Good thing I had not put the wash in it yet. sigh!
Back in the house to get another bucket of water. Hubbs came out to fiddle with the hose and finally just had him put the whole thing in the water tank since it's heated and see if that helps.
In the meantime I was cleaning up Pa's leg and there was nothing but mud, no blood. whew. He does have some minor scrapes on both back legs and a spot on his nose where the hair is missing.
He is favoring both his right legs so once the hose had a nice steady flow I was able to let the water run on his legs. The swelling on the back went down considerably by the time I was done. So for now my accident prone baby as in the round pen and maybe will keep him in there overnight and see how he is in the morning. He will have to deal with cold water in his drinking bucket and no shelter but it should only be for the night. Tomorrow morning I'll give him another once over and go from there.
Damn animals! I'm wondering if he cannot see well at night. Something to think about.
Never a dull moment with animals, eh? And winter brings with it, it's own set of challenges. bah.
ReplyDeleteHang in there,
~Lisa