Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Thai Grrrr - Too Cute!

Thai continues to gain weight at an astounding rate. It’s amazing what decent feed and lack of competition for it will do for a sweet mare.

I received pictures from Kerrie, who provided the transportation for Thai. They were taken in October, before Thai started dropping weight. From what I can tell, Thai has gained back all that she lost in the two months between October and when she arrived at my place.

Her leg is still terribly swollen, but I haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly where or why. I’m guessing that it is on the inside of the gaskin, just above the hock. Cathy is not panicking, so I’m trying not to either. She gimps on it, off and on, but doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. She was on bute for three days, and now gets a double dose of B-L Solution AM and PM for any discomfort.

She is still eating EVERYTHING I put in front of her, though she doesn’t care for the Teff hay so much. She is becoming quite the little Princess, in that she can pick and choose what she wants to eat and if she doesn’t like the hay, it become her bedding while she stands watching the back door and nickering pitifully.

She is very polite, moving her nose to one corner of the feeder while I dump in her Strategy and Amplify. She’ll nibble delicately at the feed until I walk away, then she dives into it, stuffing her face with the yummy breakfast. If I open the feed window and drop in her hay, she’ll keep her head up and allow me to pet or cuddle all I want. She never pulls away and is never aloof. When I walk into her stall, she will turn and face me, then stand while I do whatever it is that I’m going to do. She loves carrots!

When I was giving her the bute, all I had to do was stand on the off side, take her nose with my left hand and pull it around and push the gunk into her mouth. No drama. No tight lips, No tossing her head. She didn’t even do the yuk-face-try-to-spit-it-out thing until AFTER I’d left her stall. She did the same thing with the dewormer.

When I haltered her to shave her leg, she dropped her nose, “looking” for the halter. The way she faces me and moves when I’m working with her, you’d almost think she was a halter horse. She pivots on the back end and faces me, without invading my space or being pushy. She’s just being polite.

Below is one of Thai’s babies – Snort’s Sport.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, when will we find out for sure what's up with Thai?

I shared the "Letter to my horse" with my husband. Unfortunately, he read it during a conference call and all but squirt coffee out his nose in order to keep quiet!

Karen V said...

Cathy was able to meet one of Thai's former owners and ask some questions. Thais is a very sweet mare, the bottom of the pecking order, and pasture stupid. Therefore, she gets kicked a lot. We are thinking that this is what happened.

She's still gaining weight and walking around on that leg, though she does get gimpy. Cathy is taking the "wait and see" approach.

fuglyhorseoftheday said...

Yeah I tend not to freak out at this point...she's an old mare, she got kicked, 2 bute and see how it looks in a week...

Sounds like it is improving so I will not be too worried. I will remember this and only turn her out with a wimp like Belle when I get her, though!