Life On and Off an Acreage

In-sights into moving from an Acreage back to Town, plus a few things I find of interest.

Two things that horses are scared about:


1. Things that move
2. Things that don't move




Old enough to be eccentric, but not rich enough

January 6, 2013

We had a bit of a scare with Tucker. With the cold spell that we just experienced, she went from 1150 pounds down to 925 in nothing flat. Her eating rate slowed to about 30% of the other horses and it looked like we were going to lose her. With segregation and an extra heavy feeding I managed to get 75 pounds back on her. The vet came up and floated her teeth which seemed to help, but we both figured this would be her last winter. However, with the weight gain, it looks like she will make it. Tucker is now 26 years old and that's getting long in the tooth.

Weight at 1000 pds, 150 to go
 Tucker has always been prone to abscesses in the front feet, probably due to foundering before we got her. With that history, I have to be careful not to feed her too much sweet feed or beet pulp, or risk another break out. So, extra hay, a half gallon of sweet feed once a day and some tender love and care. My vet donated the horse blanket for the next few months to keep her body temp up, and to prevent a chill. Our neighbour donated some left over sweet feed ( above what I bought) and some used horse blankets to lay on should she want to. This is what I really like about country living...great vets and great neighbours.
 I took the precaution of letting Tucker smell the blanket, and rubbed her with it before putting it on, just in case she had never been blanketed before. The precaution was not required and she took to it well. Today, she was her normal cranky self and pinned her ears to move Biz out of her space.
 I have a whole bunch of funny looking trees. Bad horses!
Boots takes it all in stride. Find a sunny spot in the hay and let the world go by. Smart dog.

On the plus side, I took Biz out for an hours ride  (+2 C}, but could not get into the fields due to the snow pack. She decided to go any way and left the plowed road to go through the grader bank and entered belly deep in the ditch. It's really neat to be sitting on a bounding horse trying to extricate herself from an almost stuck situation! Love it!

6 comments:

  1. i'm glad tucker is getting better! i hate when animals (of any size or kind) get old. i had a mare that would drop weight drastically, then we'd have to fight to get it put back on her - and bad or no teeth, too. good luck!

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  2. 26 years old? Wow! That's amazing. I really hope she continues to do better. It sounds like she's in good hands!

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  3. Best of luck to Tucker. Getting old sucks. We helped our neighbor get his old horse up this week. It took 3 of us, and we were about frozen, but he's doing okay.

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  4. Boots has the right idea. Blanket should help Tucker retain some body heat, hope she gains some more weight back.

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  5. It's hard to see a beloved animal getting old. How nice that she has you to take care of her. I see Boots(?) in the background of the first photo looking at the horse. Funny.

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  6. A pet's only fault is that they don't live long enough. Glad she is recovering and hope she does better for the rest of the long winter.

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