Farrier Visit

We finally had the farrier out last night. I have been struggling to juggle all the activities so the horses were long overdue for their trims. First was Tommy. He behaved like the typical Shetland pony that he is. He was only a little naughty. It took a bit of coaxing to let me catch him.  Of course, we are dealing with mud bogs in some parts of his pen so I had to do some rethinking to get him out of the pen without getting him too muddy. Thank goodness I had messed with a different gate a month ago. Skippy was none too pleased with me. Skippy finally settled down at the very end and stopped whinnying. It’s not like he didn’t have Rabbit and Mayhem in his sight at all times but he was alone in his pen (probably one of only a handful of times).

Next was Ivan. He was severely overdue. Very disappointing on my part.  But we’ve had problems getting him to stand long enough for the farrier to work on him. Last year we had J come out and trim him. I guess we should have had J come back out because Ivan was a handful for the farrier. He actually started showing his Thoroughbred side. He never shows it, except apparently when the farrier is there. Even for me, he’ll toss his hoof once or twice and then stand patiently. But for the farrier, we both had to reprimand him. Very disappointed in Ivan for his behavior (and for me in letting him get away with it and not working with him more). I had hoped that the trim would fix his lameness. Unfortunately, without the farrier getting a really good look, he couldn’t tell if it was a hoof issue or a leg issue. I’m hoping that Ivan simply stepped in a hole but I’m going to keep an eye on him and if he doesn’t get better, will haul him to the vet. Maybe with some tranquilizer, he’ll settle down and we can hide that Thoroughbred behavior a little longer.

Then it was Dude’s turn. He’s off on his front as well and I made sure to tell the farrier that Dude’s hips sometimes bother him. I think the lameness in the front is an indication of what’s going on in the back or vice versa. Dude actually did really well. I think he was the best out of the three. We only did Dude’s fronts and decided to let the backs go because Dude seemed rather uncomfortable. I’m hoping with the trim, that Dude will feel better and that the issues in his hip and front leg will dissipate quickly.  But if he’s still lame and showing pain, I’ll have to haul him in to the vet.

So now I’m watching Ivan and Dude like a hawk to see if they improve over the next 48 hours or if I need to make a phone call to the vet to schedule an appointment (or two).  I’m really hoping that it was simply stepping in to a hole. They both came up lame right after putting them in the pasture. My biggest fear was that they had laminitis due to the grass. I’m very paranoid now that King has laminitis (and got it on my watch). So I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to the others. But I’m also wondering if, while they were goofing around out in the pasture, that they didn’t step in a hole that was hidden by the grass. So I’m going to wait a little bit longer and see. There’s no heat in either leg so that makes me think it’s not a “step in the hole” kind of injury but we’ll wait and see. I’ll have to make a decision by Saturday.

We still need to trim and shoe King. The farrier is scheduled to come back out on Saturday morning to put shoes on King. Unfortunately, I didn’t put shoes on King for the past couple of years and now his feet have gotten bigger and flatter. So I’m hoping that by putting shoes on, that I can maintain his feet a little bit better and we can get him back to the right shoe size.

These darn geldings are going to be the death of me.