Panic Mode

Last night we were attacked my mosquitoes. I decided I’d better get some skirt work done and avoided the mosquitoes until it was time for chores. I thought it would be a quick night. As always, I was wrong.

Mike was filling water tanks, and I was getting the ponies ready for bed. We both saw Dick rolling in the mud. We are always worried that when a horse goes down that it might be colic. Mike had watched Dick go down earlier but didn’t think it was colic. We stood and watched to make sure it wasn’t colic. Nope, just mosquitoes.

As we were finishing up chores, we heard a huge commotion. I knew something was wrong. I heard the corral panels banging against the red shed. I actually figured it was Dick rubbing his head or butt on the panels. Nope. For whatever reason, Dick went down right next to the panels and had gotten his feet stuck in between the rungs.

So the major question of the night was, how do you get draft hooves unstuck from a corral panel? Luckily Dick is a calm horse and didn’t panic (and neither did I). I kept the mosquitoes off Dick while Mike went to get a nippers, hammer, and file. He came back with just a file in hopes that filing down his feet would do the trick (and because we’ve somehow lost all the other tools mentioned).

However Dick went down, we’ll never figure out; the same goes for his feet. We’ll never figure out exactly how he got his massive feet stuck.

Mike filed a little bit away on the one hoof and we both heaved and hawed to get Dick’s hoof unstuck. Next was the more difficult foot. Luckily Mike filed quickly and we were able to wiggle Dick’s foot free. I find it odd that he could get his feet stuck but I’ve also come to the realization that you can’t have anything nice with horses (apparently including corral panels).

Luckily Dick was no worse for wear. I gave him a dose of banaimine to make sure he wasn’t colicing (or colic-y after his ordeal). He did seem to not feel well so I wasn’t sure if he was a little colic-y or not but didn’t want to risk losing the old guy just yet.

For whatever reason, I don’t normally panic when it comes to the horses. Oh sure, I used to panic and pretty bad. But over the years and with as many horses as we have, I’ve learned to cool it just a little. For this instance, I figured we had a number of choices so there wasn’t a need to panic. My only concern was keeping Dick quiet so that he wouldn’t hurt himself.

I’m glad to report that this morning, Dick was hanging over the fence, not so patiently waiting to get back out to the pasture.

As I’ve said in the past, it’s never dull at Borderlands.