Mustang Camp

06/23/2024

Learning to wear a halter. Kudzu is a little worried

05/28/2024

Naemi got to play with lemurs in Crete. I am so jealous!!

05/24/2024

There are still a few rocky bits of frog to shed, but we don't have far to go.

05/24/2024

Sam Elliott is starting to look good.

05/22/2024

Naemi has Ivy in advanced training.

05/18/2024

Morus is now a gelding.

05/10/2024

It was a really hard week here. We had to euthanize two horses, one of them being the foal, Bromus.
Last year, as it became clear that Lantana was pregnant, we were a bit horrified to realize that the buckskin stud, Morus, was probably her son and also the father of her foal. When Bromus failed to thrive, I was ready to accept he might develop slower. I called the vet to see how to give him a boost. A foal goes downhill fast so I wanted to nip it in the bud but without going to the horse hospital, there is only so much you can do for a still-nursing foal. I bugged my friends and wracked my brain. He was getting worse.
Then I realized that he was licking the salt lick pretty often. He was peeing a lot. It was dark urine. The vet didn't take me seriously, when I started talking about salt toxicosis. I threw the salt lick out of the pen. The foal kept returning to it's spot to find it. He didn't understand drinking water.
But by then, his electrolytes were totally screwed. He went into convulsions. There was nothing to do but to stop his suffering.
Lantana was okay about her foal being lifeless, but she got hysterical when we tried to take the body. So we returned the body to the roundpen where she stood over it for 24 more hours. She started leaving the roundpen to engage with other horses, so we distracted her with a bit of alfalfa, and closed the round pen gate. We snatched the body and removed it so she didn't see it go and then put Morus in the round pen. When she came back to the gate and called for her foal, her other child, now a stallion, was there on the other side of the gate.
She has asked me several times to bring the foal back because if I returned him once, perhaps I would do it again. But he is out across the rainbow bridge running free with his sister, Hyacinth, who was the other horse who met an untimely demise last week. It was the hardest week ever at Mustang Camp.

05/09/2024

The sole chunks on the sides have popped out but not the toe callus chunk. Sill, I have been rasping it down.

05/07/2024

Sammy's right hind still has me struggling. My hand is on the medial side. The old sole sloughed off on the medial side and is still stuck tight on the lateral side. The toe callus is hard as stone. The frog is riddled with thrush. I am thinking about teaching him to soak it in a bucket to fight the thrush.

05/07/2024

Morus needs an adopter. He will be gelded on the 17th and could go to a new home as soon as the 27th. He's gorgeous!

Rescuing Horses Through Training

05/06/2024

Donatello landed in the best possible situation.

05/06/2024

Both foals have the same latte sort of color.

05/06/2024

Bromus wants to be a show horse when he grows up.

05/05/2024

Finally!! Another c**t.

05/03/2024

Mimosa is starting to leak. Foal watching crescendo!!

04/29/2024

Bromus is nestled in for a nap.

04/29/2024

There are 12 horses one pen away from baby Bromus. They spend their time staring at him. Foals are so important in their world! Makes mucking easy too... All the poo is near the gate.

04/28/2024

We named him Bromus. Lantana was extremely anxious for the first 10 hours, but I just kept randomly showing up with treats. Now I am allowed into the inner circle..

04/27/2024

This photo doesn't quite capture how sunken the rump looks before birth, and it didn't help for me to comb her and bring up the dust, but this is also a sign that the foal is on its way soon. Waiting for another foal.

04/27/2024

It's a buckskin

04/27/2024

Waxing. Lantana might be first.

04/26/2024

We got word that Donatello had been rescued from a starvation situation. A good lady named Sky has him in Texas and is giving him the TLC he needs to live a good life.

04/26/2024

Sam Elliott moved in with the burros so the foaling mares could have separate quarters. The long-ears seem to like him.

04/22/2024

My primary goal is to make it easier to trim him the next time so we go slow in 5 second increments. Everything is rock hard. I nip tiny bits off but it is taking shape. I also conditioned him to the hoof grinder. It is going to help. I want to get him on the hoof stand. Lucky, he is a quick learner.
Today I let him run around our gravelly yard. He had a blast taunting Morus the stallion and then returned to his home pen with some healthy chipping on his hoof walls. Yeah, Sam!

04/18/2024

The forked crack is on the lateral side and the big bar thing is on the medial side. The frog is not well attached at all. I was able to clip away an inch of the distal hoof wall that looked like a duckbill as per Veronica's strategic plan. Everything (the sole - bar crap) is ready to shed so it is not the nightmare I was fearing. He seems to remember the rules of the hoof game. Dacodah's plan (see last post on Facebook) is the ultimate goal, but how I get there is going to require strategy. I have good nippers and new rasps but my back is 70 years old so it's all strategy from here.

04/18/2024

First look under his flipper. The elongated frog 🐸 is what surprised me most. Advice welcome.

04/17/2024

Looking forward to cutting that toe back.

04/17/2024

Finding out that adopters totally neglected the animals we entrusted to their care is the most depressing aspect of running a horse rescue. I expect people to have the intention to have an additional new family member when they adopt an animal. It's like adopting kids. How is it okay to just get bored of them and neglect them?
Please comment with photos of your beloved animals to make me feel better.

04/16/2024

Milk veins are really popping today!