Badger May I?

Get it? May? Ahaha. Well, so I basically missed the entire month of updating for May and now it's June already. Good LORD where has the time gone?!

Well, partially things aren't so well with my own (human) family so that has been taking up some non-ranch time, but I'm happy to report that Badger had a very good (and occasionally exciting! Argh!) month of May for himself.

I came back to California at the beginning of May, and oddly Bakersfield was still kind of cool and breezy, and had some rain. Normally around this time of year I've already unpacked the tanktops and shorts and am still wilting, so returning to windy, drizzly Bako really weirded me out. Apparently Badger decided this was pretty strange too, because one lovely morning just a couple days after I came home (May 8 to be exact) I got a phone call at ~9AM from the ranch owner.

...Somehow Badger had broken out of his steel pipe-frame stall overnight and was gleefully running around the ranch, and had fixated himself on Zena, a plump black TWH? mare at one end of a row of stalls. Badger truly loves being a ladies' man, I guess. He'd given her a couple love bites and nipped Rowdy, her neighbor, on the nose too. Badger had decided Zena was HIS girlfriend and he did not take kindly to being caught and put back in his hastily-repaired stall. In fact, he was still pretty wound up, calling for her and prancing back and forth. Tracy was pretty concerned since he hadn't touched his hay or water since they put him away and so I shot out the door, flooring it all the way to the ranch. I think the trip normally takes me 20-30 minutes...that morning I don't think it took quite 15. Eep.

As expected, when I got there he was still pacing back and forth, shouting and making all kinds of snorty noises in the general direction of Zena and the other horses. Ah, another learning experience...I get to distract him by chasing him around his pen some and then putting his halter on and grooming him to calm him down. Worked like a charm, though...after a while he stopped being twitchy and settled down to enjoy the brushing. After leading him in a few circles and "back up" steps, he started glancing at the feed bucket (where the senior feed and cookies go) so I led him to it. Tentative snuffles, and then some mouthfuls, and inwardly I was cheering as outwardly I very calmly tugged his head back and removed the halter. He went right back to eating every last bit of the tasty bucket, then immediately went for the hay. Here's a photo of him and the busted stall wall:

(Yes, that is a lead rope tying the panels together. Lead ropes have lots of uses in a pinch, apparently!)

Later Tracy told me that they'd figured out how the escape had happened...apparently he was scratching his head on the bars, and had stuck his head through the bars and LIFTED the panel, which pulled the pin right out of the hinge. They'd only figured this out because one of the guys there saw him attempt to do it a second time...so after that, he'd gotten a bit of a rep for Houdini-esque tendencies. Darn smart horses!

The 18th was Badger's first day we put a saddle on him. Humorously, he looked incredibly bored with the whole thing. But as Tracy put it, better to be safe and move slowly than push too much on him all at once. :) So for that week and the next, I'd just tack him up, walk him all over the ranch, and then take everything off and put it away.

Ho-hum.

He really cracked me up the first time I took the saddle OFF, though. He just turned his head to look back at me while I was removing the saddle as if to say, hey wait a minute...you forgot to get ON me.

In the middle of all that, the 22nd was the big summer fundraiser for Bit-O-Heaven! Lots of people showed up, and I donated some My Little Ponies to the raffle prize pile. Noticed there were a lot of kids who showed up, so that was really nice...I think they liked having things they could win for themselves too. Cutest thing was I overheard one little boy say "I wanna win this for my sister" as he put some tickets in for one of the MLP gift baskets.

Badger was less than thrilled with the whole ordeal, especially because the live band's idiot bus driver decided to honk his freakin' bus horn really loudly RIGHT NEXT TO the horses' stalls while driving the equipment and the band in. Badger unfortunately is at the end of that row so of course he gets the biggest blast of it! (I was ready to give a big blast of something to that driver right then, argh) Thankfully Badger does tend to keep his head and all he did was wheel and spin in place, but after that he was pacing his stall a bit trying to keep a watchful eye out at all the goings-on.

Of course, he did have a change of heart as all the little kids started showing up to purchase $1 bags of baby carrots to feed the horses. Being on the end stall closest to the arena has its perks too.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, mostly because I was out of town with my fiance in a hospital in Santa Barbara. I was finally able to go back to visit Badger on the 28th, and by the time I'd gotten there the wind was starting to pick up again. (What IS it with this wacky weather, Bakersfield?) Figuring it wasn't SO windy, I thought I'd let him get out and stretch his legs since I wasn't sure if he'd gotten much turnout time while I was gone. I think between the breeze and being cooped up, rolling around felt *extra* good that day:

I left the sound in in this video just to give an example of how windy it was that day. Not HUGELY windy but definitely a strong breeze going on...

The downside of feeling so perky was another surprise and a new experience for me...not one I'd like to experience again, thanks! I don't know whether I forgot to latch the turnout gate or if I'd just done it wrong, but while I was cleaning his stalls I heard Badger whinny really excitedly and I saw him running, galloping at full stretch...and did a doubletake. From far away I couldn't be sure...but was he on the inside of that fence or not?!

Yep, he'd gotten out of the turnout, and so after closing the main gate Tracy and I got on the golf cart to chase him down. Excited from all the action, he was taking the opportunity to meet 'n' greet all the horses he normally just saw in passing (which thankfully meant he had no inclination to attempt to leave the ranch). Of course, now that he was out, he didn't want to give up this opportunity...as well-behaved as he normally is, this time he didn't want to stand still for the halter and ran off...though only as far as the next group of stalls.

Shortly, he trapped himself between two rows of stalls and we were able to box him in, get him haltered and put away. He was fine (aside from having cemented his reputation as a ranch Houdini and a rascal on top of that), but being that I had worn new boots I was trying to break in (figuring it was just going to be a short cleanup visit before Saturday) I ended up with two HUGE blisters, one for each heel. ARRGH.

Still, I was determined to go the following day (Saturday 29) to try him out on a bit and bridle, and get someone on him. So, shoving bandaged feet into broken-in, NON-blistering boots, off I went!

Excited to be in the other turnout!

THIS again...? Bo-ring.

You may notice, I also fussed with his mane some. :) Since he was being good, I did a running braid just for kicks. So then he was FANCY. 

Fancy.

After I did the usual, we tried out one of the ranch's bridles to see how he'd react with a bit. Turns out he's actually got a pretty good mouth and neck reins too, so that was nice to learn.

I was going to wait for one of the other gals to get on first, but I said to heck with it and we got out a bareback pad for him. This was my first experience getting on a horse with a bareback pad instead of a saddle, and Badger being so tall (and my blistered heels not wanting me to bend in boots) made it an embarrassingly awkward experience on top of that. After a couple of aborted attempts in which I didn't quite jump high enough to make it over his back (feeling like a sack of flour slung across his back), I made one more final heave-ho jump and I was on!

Badger mostly just stood there for all of this, though when he realized my voice was coming from on top of him instead of being in front or beside him, he had to turn his head to look back at me. Yes Badger, it's still me, just in a different location. I was thrilled just to walk him in a few circles and then hop off. Felt like a monumental milestone! (Outwardly I'm sure it just looked like an ol' brown horse plodding along.)

June is looking like it's finally going to solidly warm up, though at this rate it will probably transition overnight  from cool to blazing hot again. Gah. Hopefully more updates to come soon. :)

P.S. Today is Badger's birthday! He's 26 now and still a great guy. :D

April Update...

Well, April's finally here, though my update is not particularly exciting.

First off, Badger's evaluation happened while I was out of town on a trip, so I didn't really get to talk to the vet directly about any questions I may have had. The prognosis for now is that Badger is fine but he looked a little sore on his feet, so he's back on the bute for a while to see how he feels. He'll probably be fine with light riding to get him back in shape, but we're going to be really careful with him and start slow (perhaps with a really light rider first? Although I don't know how much difference ten or twenty pounds of rider weight can really make to a horse that weighs 1200 pounds, I don't want to push things too much just yet). Come to think of it, I don't even know *how* we'll start him in riding, because heck if I have a bit/bridle for him, or even know how to fit him for one. Oh well. Always learning!

Part of the reason my update is small this time is because I've been out of town, and so only had a single visit right before I had to go out of town AGAIN. So no more Badger time until the beginning of May. :(

Funny enough, though...when I came to visit him on Tuesday, he and I did the usual grooming before walking around. As soon as we were done with the grooming and I took him to a large open area to walk, he picked up his head and was all excited...he looked like he wanted to trot, so I started to jog with him. BOY, he wanted to GO. I kept up with him as best I could, but out of the corner of my eye I could see his legs moving faster...and faster... (Again I am SO glad he listens and will stop when I ask him to, because otherwise I think he would have just plain run off with me!) Then I put him in the round pen (the main turnout was flooded again...crazy late-April Bako rain! What the heck?) and he throws himself on the ground and rolls, with much drama, and then bounces over to the edge of the pen to socialize with the nearby horses in their paddock.

Hey Badger, weren't you supposed to have sore feet? Stiff legs? What's with all the perkiness?

Maybe he missed me. I don't know. But I'll certainly be glad if he's feeling that good when I get back, because that's certainly NOT what I was expecting from the way the vet's message sounded!

Oh, and a fun PS: Badger's going DARK! Super liver chestnut time! What I thought was still the bald patches on him from a few weeks ago is already hair that's grown back in.

It's so weird how now he looks completely different from Tio, where before they were almost exactly the same shade. Not really doppelgangers anymore...though they're still buddies. Except at snack time when they're slightly rivals...

(This looks like a sedate picture, but right before this Tio was bobbing his head up and down trying to get me to give him juuust one more baby carrot, and Badger had flicked his ears back at Tio being a doof. Kissy noise and then take the photo...ahh, now they're listening.) Looking at this pic, it's hard to believe these guys were almost the same color only a few months ago!

And just because I can, I'm gonna be a doting horsemommy for once and put up one more pic of Badger in the round pen, posing all nice and proper. :) I think this is my best shot of him so far...hopefully I can get him to duplicate 'the look' when he's fully shedded out and shiny.

Farrier Visit #2

Well, the weather is really warming up now! I actually feel kinda overheated when I go out to the ranch and it's barely into the mid-70s. I guess I'm glad summers around here are a dry heat, but that's not much solace when it hits 100°-plus weather. x_x

Anyways, Badger is nearly out of the woods now, his eye is almost done healing and doing great (hooray!)

We're leaving the eye cup on him for just a few days more to make sure, but by the end of the week he'll be free of it. I'm sure this will come as a relief to him too; he's starting to get grumpy about only being put in the round pen for turnout. With the ground drying out, he'll get to run around in the big turnout area again, and I'm sure he's been wanting that for quite a while.

Interesting to note, now that his shoulder is pretty bald (yet more shedding...how much hair is he going to lose?) I noticed something I'd never seen before. He's got a shoulder brand!

I went back and looked and looked...but I just don't see it in his older photos. Weird. The farrier visited on Tuesday and told me it was probably a "quarter circle b" though I think it looks more like a half-circle. Either way, it's a freeze brand (the hair there is supposed to grow in white) of a little curved rainbow-like arch over a lowercase b. Really neat. Goes with his background, too. I got in touch with the folks who bred him back in the early 80s and they still remembered him, surprisingly enough. Back in his younger days, he apparently did cattle ranch work and team penning. Explains a lot about his agility and love of running, I think...and also his smarts.

I wonder if it will still be visible once his summer coat comes in? Now that I know it's there, I can look for it...or I guess watch it disappear.

Tuesday was hoof-trimming day, and Badger again was fine, if a bit lazy about picking his feet up. The farrier says he's making good progress and he's got very good hooves, especially considering his age and last year's malnutrition. He also showed me a few scars around Badger's coronet bands making the hooves look a little funny...but thankfully they're not cracks, so there's no problem for now.

This time I took a video...it's really interesting watching a hoof get trimmed. Or maybe I'm just weird for thinking that. But heck, it's a real skill, and I have no idea how to do it, so it's news to me.





I hear on draft horses, sometimes the hooves are so big and hard that farriers need specialized tools to do them...and some just won't do drafters at all. Yikes!

I thought it was interesting that the farrier thought Badger was a TB as well. He's only 1/4, but I guess since he comes from a line of racing QHs, I suppose they're pretty heavy in the "tall and TB-looking" genes. When I told him that no, he was a Quarter Horse, he lit up and said, "ahh, that's why he has that brand," and then explained to me what it was. Since it looks like a ranch brand (which it is?) I guess it would look a little strange for a full TB to have one.

Anyhow, lastly here are the most current progress pics for Badger's growth. The vet says he's pretty much done putting weight back on at this point, a few pounds would be helpful along his topline but it's pretty much up to his own metabolism and build to pad his back up any more.

The Followup Visit

Badger's followup visit was today and things went very well for him. His eye is almost back to normal! I'm glad the vet waited until this point to tell me that some elderly horses don't have the physical ability to bounce back like he did and many end up losing an eye due to injuries like he had...gah. I mean, not that they can't function happily with mono-vision; but I think anyone, especially a prey animal, would be happier with two functioning eyes instead of just one, given the option.

I'm sure he'll be relieved to find out that he only has to get one dose of eye goop in a day, instead of the 3x poking and prodding he'd been getting. As much as he's a sweetie, it was pretty easy to see he was quickly getting tired of people doing stuff to his general eye region. He still has to wear the eye cup for at least another week, though...poor guy.

It seems like the wait time has gone by so fast...now we're only a few weeks away from finding out whether he can be ridden, when before it seemed like the months were endless. Is it really already 21 weeks? At this point I might as well count by months instead...so March 3 marks the end of five months.

Learned something new and unexpected this week, too...I was brushing him and noticed a random bald spot on his neck that wasn't the one that'd been shaved for his injection site at the vet's office. Horrified (OMG does he have some kind of mange now?!) I immediately asked Tracy about it. Turns out, older horses don't shed as evenly as their younger counterparts do (hormones and health affect all this), and some can get really big bald patches while waiting for the new coat to grow in.

I'm really glad I was told that, since while I was brushing him today the fur on his shoulder area started to get really thin...always find it funny though, he really seems to like being brushed down right now. Perhaps it feels good not to be carrying all that hair now that the weather is warming up. His head droops really low like he's dozing off...if I was being given a massage out in the middle of a sunny lot I'd probably fall asleep too. Thankfully I can already see the hair growing back in the neck patch where he was shaved for his vet visit, so I'm sure he'll be sporting his new sleek summer coat soon enough.

Since it's been so wet I figured it wouldn't hurt his hooves to wash them off, so back on Sunday I finally got to see what they look like under all that mud! I'm actually surprised they're kind of medium-colored and stripey...thought that lighter colors and stripes only happened when there was a corresponding white marking touching the foot. Until then I'd figured his feet were mostly dark. Only washed off the front two though, since I didn't want him to get too bored. (It was a LOT of mud.)

Because he was in the vet's office for so long, he unfortunately missed his scheduled hoof trim...funny enough, the next time the farrier is scheduled to show up at the ranch is directly on my birthday. I guess I know what I'm getting!

Badger's Home!

Well, as of last Friday, the vet has decided Badger pulled through well enough to be sent back home. It's a relief to see him actually open his eye again, instead of it being swelled shut like a big prune. Still not quite all the way, and we still have to put medication in his eye three times a day (in fact, I was sent home with a rather sizable grocery bag of ointments and pills) but as far as I'm concerned it's a big weight off my shoulders. Sure wish I could have taken Brownie home too, though. Always cute to see them standing next to each other on either side of the bars.

Badger still has to wear the eye mask for now, though, since we don't want him to rub his eye and start the process all over again.

Bringing him home on Friday, there was a new neighbor between him and Rey. The previously empty stall now houses a new grey mare named Alicia. She was formerly stalled across the way from them, but with the recent rains, her pen flooded and so she got moved over to the empty stall between the boys. Rey, not being a fan of most horses getting in 'his' space, had had an empty stall between him and the other horses for quite a while...but she wasn't having any of his attitude (I think she's gotta be at least a hand or two taller than him) so by the time Badger arrived back at home everyone was pretty peacefully hanging out. I don't think she'll be quite the buddy that Brownie was, but he was definitely happy to see Tio again (a couple small nickers to him) and he was pretty much settled in.

Not...quite pals yet...

According to the vet, he is now 1200 pounds! I kinda wish I had had some kind of a gauge on where he was when we picked him up originally, but that seems like fine progress and 'average' horse weight.

Spring is coming and Badger's already starting to get rid of his winter coat. In fact, when we went back to the ranch, there was a fine blanketing of shed fur all over the ground...carpet's steadily getting thicker each time I go out.

Again, very thankful he is so nice. He's definitely not a fan of eye medication and I'm sure he's tired of the weird people putting fingers and such in his eye, but I'm sure a horse's reaction could be way worse than squinching his eye shut when he sees the finger coming close.

Today was particularly happy because Badger's actively taking an interest in going out now; when I approach he'll actually come to the door and wait for me to open it. Of course, since he has the eye cup on right now, he can't be turned out in the bigger area...don't want him to get excited and run into something on his blind side, after all. However, he has made it pretty clear that the round pen is not nearly as fun: I'll put him in there and he'll roll, same as always, but instead of going over to the fence and hanging out with the other horses he beelines back to the gate and pokes at it rather pointedly. "I'm done. Can we go?"

Since I know he still wants to run around, I've been jogging with him back and forth across the riding area. Still not quite the same as getting to buck and gallop full tilt down the long stretch of the turnout area, but he seems to prefer it to being left alone in the round pen. Also, since the rains have made everything thoroughly wet, they've also caused an unusual amount of lush grass and what looks like wild celery to grow. Snacks EVERYWHERE. He only gets a few mouthfuls as we walk around, though. Don't want him to get sick on too much different food.

Too bad his new neighbor isn't as friendly as Brownie, though...he still tries to nicker at Alicia when I put him back in his stall, but she just pins her ears at him. I think she can deal with Rey easier since he's smaller than her, but Badger's a pretty hefty, tall guy. Poor Badger, he just wants to be a ladies' man! <:)

It's surprising how much fur can come off a horse without him looking bald...these photos were taken AFTER I brushed him, and he's still so scruffy-looking. Monday is his next vet visit (actually, she's coming to the ranch) so we're going to see how his eye is doing at that point. Keeping fingers crossed!

Photos for previous post

1/27: Trotting in hand since turnout area was too muddy. Whee! I think it's cute that Badger keeps looking over at my friend Gideon who's filming this bit.


1/27: Standard update pics. My friend Gideon helped with the video, you can just sort of see him in the second pic...

2/1: The vet put a green stain (dye) into Badger's eye so the problems can be seen a little more clearly. His keratitis shows up as that little green patch on the left side of his eye in this photo.

2/3: Can't let you rub that eye, Badger! The braids in his hair are there to help hold the eye tubing in place.

(Badger's girlfriend doesn't seem to mind his cyborg-ish look any, though. Can you say "Awwww!"? Also, she's in her early 20s, just a hair younger than Badger. ;) According to the vet assistant, they hit it off almost immediately.)

A new year, another month (weeks 14-18)

Due to some craziness in the schedule (my fiance's health has been a little quite rocky lately) updates to this blog will be slow. In addition, since Badger's been mostly stable and weight gain is slower and steadier, I'm going to attempt reporting only every other week.

The weather out at the ranch has been rather...well, muddy; and in this area, muddy = awful. Where I grew up, the ground was pretty porous, so even though the rain came pretty frequently the ground would drain pretty fast. At the ranch, when it gets muddy, the ground gets slippery and the water pools and grows mold. Ugh.

Over the course of January, Badger mostly took things in stride, and when the sun came out he (and the other horses) were noticeably perkier. Except for the turnout area being too soggy to safely let him loose, he was practically bursting out of his skin to run to the round pen so he could roll and bounce around in there. I ran up and down the open riding area with him as well, so he could at least let off some steam via trotting. (Again, very thankful for him being so considerate of the tiny human running alongside.)

On Sunday the 31st, I'd gone to the ranch with some concern, as there was a message on the answering machine saying there was something wrong with Badger's eye. Not sure why I missed the call or when it'd come in (possibly a day or two earlier?), except that I think it must have come in while we'd taken my fiance to the hospital...so I went out there to check on him, and yep, his eyelids of his right eye were all puffy and swollen, and a trickle of goo was leaking out of the corner and down his muzzle. On the other hand, he acted completely fine, and still pushed his nose against the gate of his pen to say "I wanna go!" so out we went, trotting in high spirits and out to the round pen so he could roll and then say hello to the neighboring horses.

As I understand it, ALL animals get sick on the weekends so as to cause the most worry to their owners because the vets are unreachable. :)

On Monday, the vet came out to the ranch to check him, and it unfortunately wasn't an easy fix. Some sort of injury to his eye has since been made worse because he's been rubbing it. According to the vet, the injury probably happened somewhere around January 20-22 because small blood vessels have already grown far enough into his eye to start healing the scrape there, but him being calm and polite and uncomplaining meant that nobody really noticed anything until he'd scratched at it enough to make his eye swell up. ARGH.

Rather than make the attempt to medicate him three times a day at the ranch, the vet offered another option: several days of care at the vet's office, with a drip system installed directly into his eye to deliver the medication in a constant trickle. This method keeps pressure off the eye and stress off the animal, so I opted for that treatment instead, at least for the immediate future (the ranch owner has very generously offered to take care of medicating him as well, so when he gets back home he'll still be getting great regular treatment). So, for at least this week, I'll be visiting Badger in the horsey hospital instead of at the ranch.

Yesterday they called to tell me he was doing alright, and had met a new girlfriend, which was really cute. :) Today when I visited, I got to see the drip system in place (the tubing is braided into his mane so it stays where it needs to go). He's got a mask with a big plastic dome over his eye so he can't rub it, either. Reports from the vet assistants all mention how polite he is as well, which I'm really relieved at. What a good-natured guy. :) (I was told not all of the current patients are, apparently, quite such a joy to handle.) When I visited he wasn't quite eating his hay as diligently as he does at the ranch, but as soon as he heard the snap of a carrot, the ears perked up and his nose was immediately in my face. He even ate a handful of hay in between his carrots.

I got to meet his girlfriend too...her name is Brownie and she's very cute. Can't be more than 14.2 hands, didn't even look that tall. I'm sure she's even cuter when not so banged-up...I was told she had a nasty tangle with some pig wire while her owners were out of town (of course) so she'd already been in there for almost a week. Lesson to horse owners: WIRE = DANGER.

The end of this week will mark his 18th week with me. Hopefully I'll have more to report soon. :) I definitely have a lot of photos to upload!