So much to do: so little time to do it! Sorry if you have been anxiously awaiting our daily post, sometimes there really are too few hours in the day. On the other hand I'm sure you got by quite adequately without us. Been a long week of catching up after our day trip last Saturday. Always a bitter sweet experience, sending our rescues off to, hopefully, their forever home. Our adoption contracts stipulate that should anything unforeseen occur, then the horse comes back to us. Life is full of those "surprises", and bad things happen to good people. Our adoption process tends to be slow, but choosing a horse takes time and we like to be sure that it is a good fit for both horse and adopter. These last adoptions we feel are good ones and, as can be seen, Flicka is making great strides in her new home. This was a four-year old, "unbroke" horse that had never had a saddle on her back.
Rudy, our blind Appaloosa has given us some worries recently. At 40, he is a Cushing's horse with all the usual aging handicaps, which include going off his feed for no apparent reason. Then, somehow, he managed to get dinged in both front ankles, and for a while even looked neurological with a weak back end. Our vet, Dr Kathy White, DVM, looked him over and we also took some blood samples, and apart from a slight anemia it looks like a combination of small things coming together.
Rudy on the right, with his good friend Mingo (now adopted)
Rudy, our blind Appaloosa has given us some worries recently. At 40, he is a Cushing's horse with all the usual aging handicaps, which include going off his feed for no apparent reason. Then, somehow, he managed to get dinged in both front ankles, and for a while even looked neurological with a weak back end. Our vet, Dr Kathy White, DVM, looked him over and we also took some blood samples, and apart from a slight anemia it looks like a combination of small things coming together. It highlights for me that even with horses we know well, it is important to keep looking at them as individuals with all their special needs and complaints. We decided that his weakness in turning his back end, was unfamiliarity with the new area he was in - not being fully aware of where all the boundaries were, so important to a blind horse. All the other symptoms were just an unfortunate coming together of some pretty minor problems that, individually, would have made little impact. A few days in a stall have helped and he is now eating well again and standing solidly.
Rudy on the right, with his good friend Mingo (now adopted)While Jorg is searching for "Mr Right" (for the cows I hasten to add) I have been honing my milking skills. "Nobody said it would be easy" - how I hate those words. Well, as my last milking episode implied Bessie and I had settled for an uneasy alliance, I don't squeeze too hard, and she doesn't kick my lights out. However, an incident occurred that actually bonded us at a time when I was thinking she was getting extremely "bullish".
Cows, apparently, can get pretty amorous when in heat and do all sorts of things with other cows which, if tried on their human keepers could result in fractures or worse. Walking Bessie to the parlor, which entails convincing her that the grass along the way is not the most succulent in the world, means tugging on the lead rope and this usually does the trick. This particular night instead of just grudgingly giving up her juicy mouthful Bessie went into rodeo mode. Back arched, all of 6 inches into the air with all four feet, and then straight for the parlor. Spooky, and a good job I'm no shrinking violet and quickish on my feet. This was after she had gone 3 rounds with Rosebud, and scattered the calves to the four winds.
Of course that night the pulsator chose to not work. Now this block of metal has a myriad of small holes which either suck or blow, according to where the slides are, and cause the pulsating motion in the inflations that mimics the fingers. According to the book, these can get blocked and need to be cleaned out. Needless to say this is not the moment to meddle with mechanical engineering with an anxious cow ready to be milked. What to do? Hand milk of course, duh! Now, I do the stripping of course so I can actually get a stream of milk, but empty a quarter, on Bessie in heat, you kidding?! Meanwhile Bessie had been peering around at the claw, on the gate next to her, and at me with bits of pulsator strewn around as much as to say "hey, what's up, shouldn't you be putting this thing on me so I can plant a foot on your head?" Well, the upshot was, Bessie and I bonded over manual milking, she certainly seems to prefer it to the mechanical sort, but has in fact been a gem from then on with hardly a raised foot.
Perhaps milking is finally becoming my "quiet" time, and the click of the pulsator a relaxing metronome. Oh, the problem with the pulsator? Leather washers on the sliders. They dry out and so become loose and let the air through. A quick spray of WD40 and all was well!
Cows, apparently, can get pretty amorous when in heat and do all sorts of things with other cows which, if tried on their human keepers could result in fractures or worse. Walking Bessie to the parlor, which entails convincing her that the grass along the way is not the most succulent in the world, means tugging on the lead rope and this usually does the trick. This particular night instead of just grudgingly giving up her juicy mouthful Bessie went into rodeo mode. Back arched, all of 6 inches into the air with all four feet, and then straight for the parlor. Spooky, and a good job I'm no shrinking violet and quickish on my feet. This was after she had gone 3 rounds with Rosebud, and scattered the calves to the four winds.
Of course that night the pulsator chose to not work. Now this block of metal has a myriad of small holes which either suck or blow, according to where the slides are, and cause the pulsating motion in the inflations that mimics the fingers. According to the book, these can get blocked and need to be cleaned out. Needless to say this is not the moment to meddle with mechanical engineering with an anxious cow ready to be milked. What to do? Hand milk of course, duh! Now, I do the stripping of course so I can actually get a stream of milk, but empty a quarter, on Bessie in heat, you kidding?! Meanwhile Bessie had been peering around at the claw, on the gate next to her, and at me with bits of pulsator strewn around as much as to say "hey, what's up, shouldn't you be putting this thing on me so I can plant a foot on your head?" Well, the upshot was, Bessie and I bonded over manual milking, she certainly seems to prefer it to the mechanical sort, but has in fact been a gem from then on with hardly a raised foot.
Perhaps milking is finally becoming my "quiet" time, and the click of the pulsator a relaxing metronome. Oh, the problem with the pulsator? Leather washers on the sliders. They dry out and so become loose and let the air through. A quick spray of WD40 and all was well!
4 comments:
Blind horses do really well in enclosures with few obstacles and a safe buddy or two to keep them company. We have had very, very few problems with our blind guys, aside from the occasional thump or bump. The difficulty in evaluating them stems from the way they deal with their blindness. With sighted horses that aren't feeling well, you can usually tell a lot by the way they move and stand. Truly blind horses carry themselves differently and don't always show things the same way. The initial "weakness" we saw with Rudy is at least partially attributable to his trying to keep his balance while pivoting (try this with your eyes closed). He wasn't as weak as he was unsure of himself and not able to read US to see what we wanted him to do next. But he is also somewhat anemic as a complication of his Cushing's, and that could also have caused a little unsteadiness. So we are treating what we know about and watching the rest. So far, so good.
Tom, do you actually have a manual for your surge? We bought ours from a man who had never actually used it on a cow. It also did not come with a manual!
We started out hand milking our girls, and Mayfield was perfect when we hand milked her but she took a very long time to adjust to the machine. This is our second year milking her and she does fine now. It just takes some of them longer than others!
I sure do enjoy reading the blogs that you and Jorg post! I am a faithful reader!
Tammy, thank you for your kind words, it is just nice to share our everyday experiences, and keep a sort of record of them. It did come with a manual, and generally the instructions are good. The point about the washers was at the end of the troubleshooting piece under reassembly, and not quite as prominent as the cleaning of the holes. Our milker is a combination of surge tank from one maker, and claw from another.Bessie is getting better all the time, and it just amazes me how clumsey I was at first, and yet managed to get anything from her at all!
Jorg, thanks for the clarification. I forget that our readers may not be familiar with some of the horse stuff we cover.
Post a Comment