Still going strong

Debbie has visited Paddy again today and all is still going well. He was given his first "proper" food (ie not via drip) today so that's an important step forward for him if all goes well. It's fantastic that so many of you are thinking about him and fingers crossed for more good news.'

Paddy update - and photo if you aren't squeamish(!)

Firstly, thanks to everyone who sent such kind messages either here or on Facebook wishing Paddy (and Debbie) well - so far all your positive thoughts have had a great effect and he has come through the first 24 hours as well as anyone could have expected, and he is pretty cheerful considering his ordeal.

We went to see him this morning and he was calling for food, though unfortunately he isn't allowed anything other than via a drip for another 24 hours - sorry Paddy(!).

Look away now if you are squeamish, because this is the offending tumour, which had wrapped itself round part of his small intestine...The vets at Mullacott did a great job with the surgery, and we owe a debt of gratitude as well to our own vets at Market Veterinary Centre in South Molton who made the prompt decision to refer Paddy for surgery in good time, while he still had the best possible chance of a good outcome.

Please keep wishing him well, as I know you will, because there is a long way to go before he makes a full recovery... Thanks everyone!

Friday Knight(ley)

Mr Knightley, who flew in from Dubai, has now been here exactly 2 weeks.  I had been worried that he would find the change from desert climate to Exmoor a real challenge, but in fact he settled straight in and took both the weather and his very different lifestyle in his stride.

It was only when I got round to looking at his passport that I realised why - he was bred just the other side of the Channel in Normandy so he must have felt like he was back in the place where he grew up!

According to Edward, not just the climate but also the geology of Normandy is very similar to Devon, so apart from the fact that we aren't speaking the right language, its obviously very familiar to him.

In Dubai he had been turned out only on his own or with one other horse, so it took him a few days to get used to living in a herd again.  At first he was obsessed with Paddy, who was next door to him when he arrived, and tended to overreact when other horses were around, but he has now integrated well and he is much more relaxed as he has realised that the other horses are friends not foes.

With more movement and more comfortable feet he is also beginning to stand and move better - this photo was taken today and his latest footage is up:



ETA: An update on yesterday's broadband meltdown - our previous provider is still in meltdown as far as I am aware but I have (I think) found a new provider.  Wish us luck, we are hoping to be back online properly again by next week - which means I will no longer be blogging either from my neighbours kitchen or from South Molton library(!)...Just as well as I have stacks of photo and video updates backing up!

Urgent: Good vibes for Paddy, please

Quick unscheduled blog post to ask for the best possible vibes for Paddy, please. He has just had to undergo colic surgery and have an internal tumour removed. He is on his feet and cheerful, according to the equine hospital, but the next few days are critical.

I will post updates tomorrow when we know more but for now please keep him in your thoughts. Many thanks!

The unspoken assumption

Well, our internet woes continue – a different problem from last time (when it was simply that we temporarily disconnected it because of the work on our roof).

This time its transmission of the broadband signal which has gone down – so somewhere there is a problem with incoming broadband but only the internet company knows where that is…and the internet company has apparently imploded in a financial meltdown and is no longer answering its phones…

So, the blog may become a bit intermittent until we have a fallback position or the transmission starts up again…I can still receive email though so I’m not completely incommunicado at least!

Back to the world of hooves and horses, I had another interesting call with a vet – this time a vet who had been asked by an insurance company to (in his words!) “do a bit of digging” to find out what on earth goes on at Rockley and (presumably) whether the insurers should include rehabilitation here as a therapy which they cover under their policy.

We had a good conversation and he asked lots of searching and sensible questions (and I found out today told the insurers to approve the claim - yay!) but it was one of his comments which particularly got me thinking. 

He said something which I have heard said before by many farriers and vets – that one of the reasons that horses have apparently increasing lameness problems is that they are no longer given a break from shoes each year.

It’s a familiar complaint – that in the old days hunters had their shoes off for the summer and eventers and showing horses had their shoes off for the winter, but as a rule most horses had a few months turned away unshod.  Received wisdom is that this allowed them to maintain healthier feet than they can if they are shod 365 days a year, and I am sure that’s a correct supposition.

This is a commonly held view, and one which some of the best “old-fashioned” equine practitioners espouse.  But let’s just think about that for a second.  

They aren't saying that horses need time off work or a few weeks’ holiday; the specific requirement is for time out of shoes.

If the “gold standard” for hoofcare in a shod horse requires them to have several weeks a year out of shoes for improved hoof health, then the clear assumption is that shoes are a something from which horses need periodic relief. I must admit I've never thought about it quite like that before...

Useful things: Cable ties

This week's useful thing is the humble cable tie.  What's the use of that, you may ask?  All I can say is that cable ties have saved me more busted lead ropes and broken headcollars than I care to remember and more importantly have potentially stopped accidents and saved horses from injury.

Its very old-fashioned, but to have a breaking-point on a headcollar rather than on the tying end makes a big difference, particularly if you use those long, very strong lead ropes which are popular in natural horsemanship.  

We all know not to tie horses without a quick release and to something which will snap if they panic, but   if this is at the rope end, its perfectly possible for a horse to get loose with 6ft or 10ft of rope trailing between its legs.  

If you are very unlucky, as happened to a client of mine, the rope will wrap round a rail as the horse goes past at speed and then as the rope tightens the horse will get a nasty dose of whiplash and end up with quite a serious neck problem.   An even worse possibility of course is that the loose rope wraps round a leg and brings the horse down.  

I know those ropes don't break because someone illicitly "borrowed" a set of long reins from me once, without permission, and used them  - with a Land Rover - to pull some trees out of woodland.  They reckoned the breaking strain on the rope was several tons.  The same is true of course of nylon headcollars, which we all use, and rope halters, which have the added issue of being narrower so exerting more pressure if the horse gets caught suddenly by that. 

Cable ties, by contrast, cost a few pence but - if you buy heavy duty ones - have a reasonable breaking strain of about 25kg - more than enough to stop them snapping if a horse is just fidgeting. 

Horse of the week: Paddy

This week's horse of the week is Paddy, because although he has bdeen growing a great set of new hooves as fast as he can, he has hit a slight snag and needs some good vibes!

As you can see, when he first arrived he had a long hoof and in the top third you can just about see a horizontal split, to the right of the toe crack as you look at this picture.  At the time it didn't seem too significant - and talking to his owner it seems likely that it was the exit hole for an abscess he had a couple of months before he came to Rockley, which made him very lame.

Fast forward to the 19th September and the crack is lower in his hoof but a long way from the ground.  The problem arose when the split got low enough to start affecting his toe and his breakover. 

Today, as you can see, the abscess split is nearly grown out (and for good measure his toe crack is improving) but there is a weak, soft spot just at the point of breakover on his toe which is presumably the cavity where the abscess was.  

Paddy is doing his very best to grow a better hoof capsule but we will all be very glad when he has go another few mm of growth and has got rid of all that old rubbish!