Not for the Faint of Heart

Cree (paint horse) with her daughter, Shade (bay)
Photo copyright Wings, 2015; all rights reserved.

This life.

It ain't.

You can't be afraid of dealing with sick or injured creatures. You can't be wigged out by blood or other body fluids. You can't be too weak to lift and carry your share of the load, in very literal terms. And you have to do it all every day, even when your brain feels like it's about to jackhammer its way out of your skull.

Yes, that was my day today. For both of us, actually. And it was nothing new.

One of the chickens isn't doing well. Stormy, the one who helped Wings mock Dead-Crow Dude so effectively. She's been lethargic, and is now showing signs of inflammatory response. The usual treatment is antibiotics in the drinking water, but we don't want the other chickens, all of whom are incredibly healthy, ingesting them unnecessarily. So I spent part of the morning taking apart a capsule, mixing it into a solution inside a stoppered bottle, and then administering it. It took both of us, of course: me to hold her in my arms and keep her head still, and Wings to open her beak and syringe a few drops into it. 

She took it like a champ. We'll see how she is tomorrow.

Cree's another matter.

Her laminitis turned into full-fledged founder years ago, of course, and since then, it's been a management effort. A long, protracted, difficult one, with more valleys than peaks lately. Complicating matters is that she has since developed first insulin resistance, and now full-fledged Cushing's disease.

So, now that Spring is here two months early, of course she's feeling the effects already. Spring is a nightmare for horses with founder, Cushing's, insulin resistance, and colic. The drastic fluctuations in temperature combined with too much dampness sends their symptoms skyrocketing; for those with compromised hooves, as is the case with foundered horses, the wetness breeds thrush and abscesses and all sorts of complications.

For just over a week now, we've been working on the predictable abscesses in her forehooves. This is not a new phenomenon, nor an unexpected one, but it's one greatly complicated by the climatic changes and weather issues. Last week, one began bleeding. Substantially. This is a good thing; what it means is that the infection locked up in her hoof is being cleansed and washed out, and it also means that her circulation is suddenly greatly improved, something essential for horses like her. 

But it requires close management, and we've been at it off and on ever since. Today, we turned our attention to her rear hooves: Wings trimmed them substantially and reshaped them as needed; then we treated them for thrush. From there, on to the forehooves again, which will need more work tomorrow. It's hard enough to do three hours' worth of work on a horse with both of us helping — it's murder on aging hands, knees, and backs, and he bore the brunt of it. But it's harder yet when you have an industrial-strength migraine, like I have since awakening this morning — you perforce spend a lot of your time bent deeply forward, and that's about the worst possible stance in the throes of this kind of headache.

So, yeah, we're both wiped out, and tomorrow, we'll have to be back at it. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, all of this is in addition to all of our usual chores and tasks, including care and feeding and muck duty. Wings even got in some studio time today, before a major mechanical failure bolloxed up his work schedule.

So any of y'all with spiritual traditions, both animals could use whatever you got, but especially Cree. The coming weeks and months are going to be her worst period of the year, and strong hearts notwithstanding, we all need all the help for her that we can get.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.