Rescue update; Nova

Nova is the oddly coloured mini pony that's photo features on this blog (see right) and also on the SC main page at the moment. She came to us from Gingin with her companions after her owner passed away.

Nova had severely overgrown and deformed hooves as a result of founder coupled with no farrier attention for around 6 years or so. She and the others lived on sand, so there was no hard ground to wear away the hooves naturally either.

Here is some photos of when she first came to our care.




At first we thought she would have to be euthanased but after consultation with several Equine Veterinarians, Xrays, farrier and physio treatment coupled with a careful diet and some TLC she is still with us and as happy as anything.

She still stands with her toes pointing down because her tendons have contracted due to having to stand like that for so long on overgrown hooves.

However our trusty Vets (she sees them regularly) assure us she's in no undue pain, she's getting around OK and ever so slowly the tendons are beginning to let down again. It is likely she'll never be 100% normal however she will very likely be paddock sound enough to make a great pet as she's the sweetest little girl with a heart of gold.

It isn't that hard to keep a horse healthy

Oh sure, it is hellishly expensive, and takes a fair bit of adequate knowledge, but keeping a horse healthy ain't that hard. If you're not spending a lot and you're finding it 'hard' to keep the weight on your horse, please find help fast before things get unmanageable.

Case study; Asha.
12yo TB mare, came to SC's care on the 14th of Feb. She had a 4 and a half month-old foal at foot. Despite her owner telling us that they'd 'done all they could and fed her heaps every day' this is how she looked.




Now she's had her foal weaned, her teeth seen to by a qualified dentist, she has been wormed properly, she has also been fed correctly. Yes, mares do tend to drop off weight when suckling a foal however if they are recieving adequate care, they DO NOT drop off this much. If your broodmare has dropped off this much weight with adequate care and no other serious medical issue being tended to by a vet, you're doing it WRONG. This photograph below was taken today just 5 weeks later.





If she can look this good in 5 weeks after just receiving basic, correct care, imagine how good she'll look in another 5 weeks as we step up her feeding and carry on with her handling and training & exercise?

Her personality is also changing. She is no longer agitated and nervous. She comes trotting to the gate, calling when she sees her carer appear. She is content to stand with a person to be groomed or scratched whereas she used to fidget and stress. She no longer has the fear of having her legs brushed and she is well mannered to handle.

This is not ethical horse care

Folks this is not how a horse is supposed to look! This girl is Duchess, the most recent rescue for SC. She was bought from the pound for $1 because her owner couldn't be bothered coming to get her. So now she is not his problem and he gets away with allowing his animal to look like this. He still owns tonnes more that are, we are told, always getting out. At one point he had 14 horses impounded at once! Can I say "FENCING"? It is most important to maintain good and safe fencing!

This girl has a list of issues as long as my arm. Are you ready?
- Superficial cuts/bites
- Body score of 1.5 (healthy is around 3 or 4)
- Skewed spine
- Knee that bows out when she walks
- Full of worms
- Teeth are in shocking condition
- Hooves are just about falling apart under her, she is walking on her soles
- Deep cuts on two legs
- Deep cut on her side which got her artery (been sewn up)

And this is mostly external stuff! Who knows what's going on inside, we're going to arrange to her her pelvis and knee Xrayed as apparently she was hit by a car some time ago and her back is right out. The knee is another story, who knows what is going on with that.

Would you just look at her?





Duchess will be undergoing some serious rehab and will never be ridable. Apart from the obvious like feeding, worming, dental work etc, she'll also need a lot physio too. At this stage our Vet is confident she isn't in undue pain and once given TLC her qulity of life will be good as a pasture pet but we just don't know what those Xrays may show.

Even so she is an absolute delight to handle and will allow us to do anything at all with her. She has perfect manners and has been such a good girl.

Her two companions who were also bought from the Pound are in much better shape and indeed look superb on the outside. We are yet to investigate their inner workings to see what they need. Dental and worming is definate but the youngest, a 3yo, needs some work first as she is so scared of everyone.


Cut on her leg


Skewed spine

Full-on February

As usual it has been all systems go.

The newsletters have been giving us a bit of grief. First up a new computer program has not worked as it should although this may well be due to the operator who isn't overly familiar with it, and then for some reason our printers haven't recieved it so with any luck we'll have them printed and posted by Tuesday!

We've checked out a few more reports of skinny horses and helped along the owners where possible. Now we hope that they take the advice and sort their horses out rather than just leaving them to get worse. I always give the owners benefit of the doubt to begin with and sometimes I am delighted with how it turns out and sometimes I am horrified at some people's lack of responsibility for their animals.

We had a foster carer workshop this morning, Louise Atkinson who is a Parelli Level 4 person donated her morning to go through some tips and tricks and exercises to assist foster carers with common problems that crop up with rescues. It was very useful and enlightening, and I know I am safe to say all those who attended came back with something they could use in the future to help their horses.

We have been notified about some needy neglected horses needing help however with a couple, somebody else has already taken them on (and good on you whoever you are, we wish you the best of luck with them) and the last one, the owner is reluctant to relinquish the horse. We're not sure why as it is clear he either cannot or will not provide her with proper care but there is some reason.

I am beginning to think I should've gone to Uni to study phsychology... there's so many things I just can't understand about people that I wish I had some sort of insight into! I think I get along with troubled horses much better than troubled people.

The Quiz night is fast approaching and we're hoping it will live up to expectations. Gail Kegie one of our project managers has done such a stellar job organising the whole thing and we've got some truly super prizes up for grabs. I can't wait! It's gearing up to be another fantastic night.

Have you booked a table yet? No? Well I do hope you're coming because we're aiming to have something for everyone on the night.

Amazing what a difference a little TLC can make

On my travells today I went up to see 2 of our rescue ponies at their foster home. The difference in the pair is amazing!

The first difference most noticable is their appearance. One of the mares, Beauty, is very much the same as she wasn't in too bad a condition when we picked her up, but Velvet (we think is Beauty's daughter as they share very very simular unique markings) is a whole new pony!

Here's Velvet when we picked her up:


Disgustingly over-length hooves, bald at the top of her tail, obese and absolutley riddled with worms.

Now, 6 weeks later she has lost some weight, her hooves have been trimmed back comfortably so she can actually walk rather than just hobble! She's been wormed and the hair around the top of her tail is growing back beautifully.

She also has daily interaction with rowdy children and both she and Beauty have proven themselves to be practically bomb-proof lead-rein ponies. Beauty is quite timid around adults but very gentle and perfectly obedient for the children. Velvet is a touch more confident and will boss the kids at tea time but is generally very well behaved!

Another month or so should see both ready for new homes.

Whirlwind

What a busy week!

To add insult to injury, poor Romeo had an abcess on his cheek which burst and of course we're now cleaning it out twice daily which he isn't enjoying and to be honest neither are we much, nasty stinky thing. Poor boy!

We have been assisting the property owners of the location we rescued Asha and Harmony from, offering advice for a tricky situation involving two of the remaining horses on their land and have made several trips out at their request to give what assistance and advice we could. We've recieved word that their owner hasn't been to see them in almost two weeks now and so feed has been provided as she has not organised feed for them.

Also Asha's foal which is currently in care due to his pnuemonia was well on the mend when the poor fellow have his carers an absolute heart attack started having seizures or fits at around 8:30 last night. The Vet was called immediately and went over him from top to tail and her diagnosis was a concussion. She began treatment immediately which involved an injection of steroids to help stop his body reacting so violently and now the poor lad must be kept in and quiet for a few days and very closely monitored. However great news; he's eating well and looks like he's recovering nicely but he won't be completely out of the woods for a day or two. If he survives I'd like to vote a name change; to Cat - he seems to have 9 lives! (well, 7 now)

I made the trip down to Boddington yesterday to see Oscar and Nemo and to try them under saddle to see how they'd go. Oscar is so fat if he's a mare I'd be expecting a foal any day! He truly runs on the smell of a chaff bag as he has 3 hours of grazing and 2 tiny hard feeds a day for his vits more than anything and still looks like a beached whale. So we're restricting his diet a bit more whilst he isn't working.

He's not a happy camper under saddle. He was incredibly grouchy about the whole thing, and incredibly resistant. There was no go button at all and it took half an hour of ask, turn and reward to get him even walking around the round-yard. He resisted at any change of direction, resisted any attempt to get a trot and resisted any effort to get his walk more animated. He crabbed and cow-kicked and even managed a full pig-root, ears plastered to his head.

I get the distinct impression that the poor chap hasn't been broken to saddle at all and the people who owned him just jumped on expecting a good ride and then gave him hell when he didn't know what they wanted. Now he's just sour and still doesn't know what we want. So over the next couple of weeks, we'll move him up to one of our more specialist carers for some riding and groundwork to install an accelerator! (The brakes work just fine, thanks!)

Today the feed order has arrived and so I must sign off and get out there and sort it all out.

First Aid a real success

Yesterday saw us launch 2008's educational services with the Horse Health & First Aid Workshop. I was so pleased, it went very well and everyone had a great time and learned a lot about general horse health, various diseases, illnesses and lamenesses that affect horses and how to diagnose and treat them. We will be holding another in March so keep your eyes open for information on that one!

I had a busy morning, got up early to feed the horses here, then scooted to Oakford to pick up two of the test subjects only to find Shishka, one of the Gingin rescues had foundered! The poor girl has been borderline since we collected her and we've been working hard to try and prevent her going down that road as we can tell by her hooves she's foundered before but sadly she went downhill yesterday. So I put her in a sandy yard, gave her water and shifted the two horses for the Workshop and then drove back to Oakford to meet the Vet.

She checked Shishka over, gave her a shot of bute and we booked the poor darling in for Xrays. The farrier's booked and she's now on a diet of soaked hay (gets a lot of the sugar out) and a handful of chaff to mix her magnesium and bute in.

Then I drove back to Kelmscott to help with the workshop, and then came back up for our other vet Donna Colvin to take a look at Spud and she decided she wanted to Adopt him which is fantastic! Then back to the workshop for the end of it, load the horses up and take them back to Oakford again.

Then I had my own horses to clean up after and feed, then a family to feed as well. It never ends in this line of work but every minute is worth it.

Today was orientation for our new Apprentices and everyone seems very keen and gung ho about it so I have a very positive vibe about SC's 2008 progress!