Blackie & Red Journal: Day Two

posted in FSHR Horses, Horses, Rescue Horses | Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Friday, Feb. 12

I ran out to the quarantine pen as soon as I woke up. I know it was irrational, but I had to see them, to know they had survived the night.

There they were, standing in their blankies beside the gate, waiting for me. Or, more precisely, for their food. I gave it to them.

Big Red gets love

They ate a little, and then we loaded them back into the trailer and took them to see the vet. It was about 8 a.m.

We unloaded them in the back parking lot by the livestock door.  There, while we waited for the vet, we took off their blankets. I took really good pictures of them, with the really good Canon, with Daniel and Erin holding them in just the right light. I got left side, right side, face, fleshless butt cheeks, and long, cracked hooves. They would be marvelous reference pictures.

There was no CF card in the camera.

At last, the vet came out to examine them in the parking lot. He told us what we were expecting to hear. He said their teeth were terrible, with points and holes in them. There was no point in taking them inside because they were too weak to be sedated for teeth floating. They were also too weak to be dewormed or vaccinated. Blackie, he said, was probably a Cushing’s horse, and we’d know for sure in the spring when she didn’t shed the thick, long, soft bearskin she was wearing. He spoke with us at length, taking his time and not rushing us.

Trying to get Blackie to prick her ears for the camera.

Poor Blackie just stood there, her teddy bear ears all askew. Red, however, was not too weak for parts of his personality to come through. He tossed his humongous head and rubbed on me, butted me, pushed me off balance. I didn’t have the heart to reprimand him. So every time he did this, I gently asked him to back up a step and petted him as a reward.

When we were finished getting the last feeding instructions, he sent us on our way without charging us a cent.

At home we began the feeding schedule, and I discovered the complete and total lack of pictures in the camera. So I took new, rather lame ones at our hitching rack, which didn’t show much what with all the trees and shadows and snow…and those are the ones I posted. The farrier came in the afternoon and trimmed their hooves. They were absolute angels for him. This was a good thing since my son fell and hit his head and I had to pay the farrier and ditch him while he finished.

By the end of the day, most of which was spent observing the horses and only a tiny fraction of which was spent observing my son, I concluded that though Red had the poorer body condition score (1.5 vs. Blackie’s 2), it was really sweet Blackie that I was the most worried about. She was very reluctant to walk or to move at all, and she picked at the hay just to be polite, I think. It reminded me of Winnie, who would not eat at all when she first came to us. Neither one of them was at all impressed with the beet pulp. Tomorrow I would change my feeding strategy.

I ran back there twice in the dark before I could go to sleep.