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!