Jake Should be a Horse Vet

Today Jake and I let all the horses out into the pasture for about an hour. Did you know that when horses eat hay all winter you have to ease them into eating rich food like green grass because if they eat too much right away it softens their feet which makes them founder? Foundering is a disease called laminitis (I only remember that because it's pronounced lame-in-itis and it makes a horse lame) where the bone that goes into their hoof rotates and lowers separating the tissue that connects the coffin bone (I remember the name of that bone because coffins are for dead people and if a horse is super lame then they die... coffins... death... lame-ness... it works in my head.) to the hoof wall. Once a horse gets it it never goes away. It makes them lame. Depending on how fast you catch it and act on it they can still live a long and healthy life. So if you let them eat the grass for like an hour one day then for 90 minutes a few days later then two or 3 hours a few days later and so on until you can leave them in there for a few days then they are fine. Other things can cause it but as for grass foundering, it won't be an issue. That's my understanding of it.

So we let them out and while we were chasing them into the pasture from their corals we noticed that Sierra and Tana were limping super bad. We looked at Tana first and found a huge sore on her leg. It was bad, like it had been ignored and had started to decay. It had dry blood and black around the edges. Jake grabbed the wound coat spray which is an antibacterial and disinfectant and bug resistant coating to protect the wound and keep it clean. She didn't like it very much, I learned why Jake thought that Lia would hate us spray painting her feet. She freaked out every time and ran away but it will make it better, hopefully. It looked like it had been there for a while.

 Then we went over to Sierra, who is the one that only Jake can walk up to, if you remember. She was kind of limping on all four feet. We think she is starting to founder from being obese. You can't tell in the pictures but she's a fat horse for how short she is. A few years ago, while Jake was on a mission, she tore a ligament on the front of her front leg. She has been fine but now is limping badly on that leg again. It was sad, all of her legs were sore.

And then poor Lightning, he has a broken tail bone and Jake and I saw him pooping and it was SOOOOO sad because he can't even lift his tail.

Here are the horses running around in the pasture. I could sit and watch them all day long, I'm not kidding.

Shade and Lia really are buddies, they hung out the whole time.

We used the four wheeler to get the horses put back.

 
This bird was singing really pretty and I like that he just posed there on that post for Ellie (my camera).

 I think Jake should be a vet because he always makes sure these horses are staying healthy.