Because horses...

Owning horses often feels as though it is an endless procession of repairs, both to the infrastructure and to the horses themselves. This was the state of one of the stalls this morning. 



My money is on Major as the perpetrator because he does like to lean and has quite a bit of body mass to put behind that leaning.

J. did some temporary repairs this afternoon and will reinforce everything tomorrow. He keeps wood on hand because he's always needing to repair something, but the supply is dwindling. 

That's the infrastructure piece, now into the horses. The ponies are now sporting five poultices on their feet between the two of them. When the farrier was out a few days ago, she found the beginnings of an abscess in one of Buddy's hooves. That's one poultice. Moving on to Vienna, she has them on all four feet. The good news is that the farrier didn't see any damage from her insulin spike which means we caught it and acted in time. But she still has some soreness because the scar tissue she has in her feet from a couple of years ago is easily irritated. This means that she is still putting a lot of her weight on her heels... which exacerbates the general wellness of the hooves. She's in some pretty thick poultices right now to allow her to stand flat on her feet. I'll be looking for some boots for her to wear full time once we get past this part of the process. 

(Horse people, you know this next but, so feel free to move along.) And how does one poultice a horse's hoof you ask? With disposable baby diapers, of course. I put some Epsom salts in the bottom, add water, put the diaper on the bottom of the hoof and secure the Velcro. This allows it to stay on while duct tape is wrapped all around it to keep it on and to stop it from shredding. Every day. Times five. Vienna has the added bit of a maxipad put in the bottom of the diaper to add more cushioning. And I had mistakenly believed I was done purchasing these items. I'll try to remember to take a picture to share because it is rather amusing. 

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