Needless to say, on Sunday I was itching to get to the barn but since it wasn't an emergency and my husband had stuff he wanted to get done I didn't make it over until after lunch. *sigh* I really wish I could keep her at my house. Anyways, I get over there and go to the pasture and catch her. On the way to the barn we have to walk past a couple of paddocks where there are stallions being kept. I have never had any problem at all getting her past these paddocks. This day however, I was walking along and then all of a sudden Rosie had pulled back or something because I felt the line jerk and backwards and then she came forward and hit me with her shoulder. I pushed her back and she was still acting weird, looking over at the black stallion. I thought, okay, that is strange, maybe she tangled with him yesterday when she got out and is worried. Finally we get over to the round pen so I can look at her legs and she is acting like a fruit loop. She just about plowed me over trying to get away from a lunge whip with a bag on it that way laying on the ground, like she had never seen it before. I didn't want to lunge her but she was acting so strange that I didn't feel safe standing next to her so I sent her out to trot a little bit. She actually didn't even look sore. I called her back in and took a good look at her legs. It looks like she got some wire around her legs. There is quite a bit of hair missing and few places that are little scabby but the barn manager was right, nothing to make an emergency vet call over.
At this point the weather was changing, a cold front was coming in and she was still being fruity so I headed out to put her back in the pasture. Well, this didn't go well. To get to the pasture you walk down an alley way first with a riding ring on either side and then as you get further down towards the pasture there are two paddocks facing each other. In the paddock on the south side is the black stallion I mentioned before. What I didn't think about was that there is a sorrel stallion in the paddock on the north side. As I get closer to these paddocks Rosie is getting harder to handle. Once we get about 50 feet in between both the paddocks she is spinning circles around with urine flying out the back end and both stallions coming at her. Now it it's me what her problem is, she's in HEAT! Great. All I can think is A) I hope I don't get killed and B)I hope she doesn't back up to one of these pens and get bred. Now, I have retrieved and returned this horse to this pasture with these two stallions in these pens and never had anything like this happen. Of course, she hasn't been in heat since the two studs showed up either. So back to her stall we go. I just put her away and then waited for the barn manager so I could talk to him about everything because at this point I am wondering if she may have had a little "encounter" with either of these stallions while she was out the day before.
While I am waiting for him to show up I called my best friend to see what she would do and went out to do some investigating around the stallion paddocks. There wasn't anything suspicious around the paddock of the sorrel stallion but I did find some fresh hoof prints around the end of the black stallions paddock. They looked like they had been made with some force.
Finally, the barn manager got there and I got the low down on what happened on Saturday. He had been doing a pony birthday party (that is a service the barn offers, I think I might do my next birthday there!) when Rosie got out but the barn worker had seen her pretty much right away and went and got her. He also said that she was over by the black stallion. So I asked if he thought I needed to get her palpated to see if she might have been bred. He said he didn't think so, that the other guy had been pretty much on top of things and gotten to her right away. At this point we are both kind of thinking that she scratched her legs up on the fence either rearing up at or kicking at the stud. I'm just hoping that inexperience (Rosie's) and old age (the studs) will save me from having to abort a foal. I will not have my now two year old having a foal next year. I know some people would argue with me on this but right now I feel Rosie is too young, I don't want a foal and the horse market is in the crapper anyways. Now just is not a good time to be breeding, intentional or otherwise. So everybody cross your fingers and hope she comes into heat next month. Here is a picture of her legs on Sunday. The worst leg is the one on the right side of the picture which would be her left let. There is silvery medication on there so it is kind of hard to see the scratches.
I went back over on Tuesday night to check things out and she was still in heat and dingy but I managed to hose off her legs and get a better look at things. The left leg is going to take longer to heal than the right but I think she will be okay eventually. There was also seem heat in the left leg I think, I have never tried or had to feel for heat but it definitely felt warmer than it should have. Here is a picture from Tuesday.
I am hoping to get over and check on her tomorrow. I really wish I could see her everyday but I just can't. Suburbia is going to eat me alive. That is a post for another day however.
4 comments:
I can relate to not being near my horse, it sucks, especially in this situation.
I don't know how well you trust your barn owners/managers....but I couldn't help but worry a bit about that stallion and the accidental breeding. Only because I know someone who had a mare that showed up pregnant one day (they'd thought she'd just put on a lot of weight!) and they still have NO IDEA how she got in foal. The best guess is that someone was careless, or it was an over the fence breeding, while she was at the trainer's place for a few months (a very small facility.) There was an Arab stallion there for a short while, that is all they can guess.
Her leg injuries don't look bad, as long as they are surface wounds and not punctures, I'm sure they'll heal up well! I've only had one mare in my life and she was never mare-ish, I've mostly had geldings. ;) Keep us posted!
You already know my thoughts on this whole situation but I wanted to tell ya I'll trade places with ya - you take my crazy neighbor and my gaggle of critters and I'll take suburbia and a boarding facility..... :) Just kidding....kind of - I wish you could have Rosie at home. She'll heal just fine and I'm praying she comes back into heat in a few weeks.
Kudos on your opinion re: how to deal with the possible accidental breeding... I'm with ya 100%. Recently found out that two of my neighbors are expecting foals this spring, and it makes me want to hit my head on a cement wall... all last year these mares were in a herd with a whole bunch of mares and two studs, one of whom is unregistered and has a crooked leg (yay). Apparently one of the mares foaled successfully this morning and I can only hope that the foal is healthy and handsome...
As I was reading your post I wondering the same thing - did Rosie get those scratches on the stallion's fence? I'll be crossing my fingers for you and Rosie, hoping there was no accidental breeding.
Glad her scratches aren't serious.
Post a Comment