countrygirl
Junior BB Member
Little Miss Kahlua!
Posts: 71
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Post by countrygirl on Dec 15, 2009 1:30:27 GMT -5
I think he will be a great looking horse once he gets fattened up and cleaned up a bit! I have always loved paints!
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Post by janibee52 on Dec 15, 2009 16:11:52 GMT -5
Have you guys tried "Cool Calories 100" to supplement their diet? It helps me keep weight on my horses, especially when they are working a lot...and one is just a skinny guy, but this supplement really built him up prettily. Its just vegetable fats- you add up to 3 small scoops per day-- its miraculous! I wonder if that would help this guy "buff up?"
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Post by janibee52 on Dec 15, 2009 16:14:47 GMT -5
What a pretty boy! Such a sweet face! Will he be available for adoption one day?
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Post by schwung on Dec 15, 2009 16:16:35 GMT -5
I do use Cool Calories and will eventually have him on it. He's still on a slow refeeding diet of just hay, but by the weekend I will be able slowly start introducing other concentrates and supplements to help him gain weight faster. When they are this far gone, you have to be VERY careful not to shock their system.
Baxter was wormed on Saturday with a 1/2 dose of Ivermectin and had the runs pretty bad for a couple of days. Poor guy. But his attitude is great, he's full of energy and all he wants to do is eat!
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Post by schwung on Dec 15, 2009 16:17:03 GMT -5
And yes, he'll be available for adoption but probably not for 2-3 months.
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Post by schwung on Dec 19, 2009 22:14:58 GMT -5
Baxter had been doing so well, too well...I guess. I should know that with a horse in this bad of shape there are going to be ups and downs, and today we had our first down - a mild gas colic. I just started him on a small amount of beet pulp last night and he's just getting a couple of cups twice a day but it might have been enough of a change to bring it on. He was pooping but still very uncomfortable, laying down and looking at his side. The worst is he is so weak that he was having a hard time getting himself back up and a couple of times he was too weak to get himself up, which brought back memories of what we went through with Whisper last year at this time. But fortunately he perked right up with some Banamine, electrolytes and some probiotics and seems ok now, although he'll need to be checked on and no food for a while. Poor guy!
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shekaberry
SAFE Volunteer
SAFE Volunteer Coordinator
Posts: 1,521
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Post by shekaberry on Dec 20, 2009 23:37:48 GMT -5
How is Baxter doing? I've been thinking about him all day.
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Post by schwung on Dec 21, 2009 0:51:00 GMT -5
He's doing much better, although I forgot when I put him back in his stall yesterday that he is a master escape artist and to put a lock on his door...so this morning I found him outside his stall calmlyl munching on the new hay supply in the shed....bad boy! That is the third time he has done that. He knows how to lift the latch on the stall doors and slide it! He was a bit subdued today, not quite as ferocious about mealtimes but other than that pooping and acting like normal. I worked on his rain rot quite a bit today too...he is so itchy!
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Post by mymercedes on Dec 21, 2009 1:15:08 GMT -5
Sounds like he'll be full of personality!
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Post by schwung on Jan 2, 2010 1:32:37 GMT -5
I'm not sure about his ownership status..there is a 14 day hold during which the owner must post a bond or else ownership reverts to the county - I haven't heard anything on whether or not this has happened but I will check. I highly doubt we can get papers, even if they exist, but we can certainly try.
Baxter is doing really well and he was excellent for being patient while myself and three volunteers worked on him today. He got his hind end cleaned up a bit since he had the runs after his deworming and he got his tail cleaned, brushed and braided and his mane brushed and braided also. I worked on his rain rot quite a bit and a lot of the scabs are starting to come off now. I weight taped him again today and he has gained about 45 lbs so far - up two notches on the tape, so he has finally started to put the weight on. He should be, for as much as he is eating! He pretty much eats nonstop now - he prefers just hay but he will slowly finish his beet pulp/senior/rice bran mush when the hay is gone. He's going to be a nice boy!
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Post by schwung on Jan 16, 2010 22:34:25 GMT -5
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shekaberry
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SAFE Volunteer Coordinator
Posts: 1,521
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Post by shekaberry on Jan 16, 2010 23:05:58 GMT -5
It is so rewarding to see horses come back from starvation and abuse and watch them bloom. I never saw Baxter move faster thn a walk and to see him trotting and cantering today kinda brought tears to the eyes. He is so bright and energetic despite his still-emaciated body. Come spring, he will be amazing!
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Post by schwung on Jan 27, 2010 0:49:17 GMT -5
Not sure if you guys have checked out the updated photos on Facebook (unfortunately, I can't embed Facebook photos like I can the Photobucket photos and its a pain to upload them to two different places so please go there to see them), but Baxter is not gaining as much weight as we would hope to see by now (7 1/2 weeks post-rescue). He's eating fairly well - pretty much all the hay he can eat until he wastes it - but he wastes a lot of his grain dumping it on the ground and refusing to eat it. I tried cutting out the beet pulp as I thought he didn't like that, but he's still wasting it so now we are cutting out the oil as well to try and figure out what he doesn't like.
I finally became concerned when I again weight-taped him this weekend and depending on how I looked at it he had either stayed the same or even went down a notch. You can see that he is fuller through the belly/flank area but there is little to no improvement over his topline and you can still see a big gap between his butt cheeks. So I had the vet out and told her my concerns, and she agreed with the fact that his lack of more obvious weight gain was concerning. His respiration was also quite fast and his lungs sounded labored a bit, although he didn't have any fluid in his lungs, no nasal discharge or any other signs of anything viral - no fever. And one good piece of news was the heart murmur was not evident. We took a blood draw on him and hopefully we should hear something back tomorrow. I am in the middle of doing a Panacur Power Pack on him - he's already been wormed twice and his worm load was not excessive to begin with based on the fecal, but this should clear out any remaining parasites.
The other thing I am discovering about Baxter is that it is obvious he was in fact gelded not that long ago because he is very studdy towards my other horses - squealing and getting all worked up by the mares - and more shocking to me is his behavior towards my gelding Slam when he is in the paddock next to him with Vanna and Tara. He will rush the fence and charge him at him with teeth bared. Slam is used to being the dominant horse in every situation but he is usually a benevolent leader and he doesn't know what to make of this, but he is feeling the need to defend his mares so he's been fighting back a bit over the fence so Baxter is probably going to have to be put in a more isolated area until he gets his hormones in check and settles down a bit. So there is no lack of energy despite the lack of condition!
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Buena
SAFE Volunteer
No horse will ever teach you as much as your first horse.
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Post by Buena on Jan 27, 2010 2:36:20 GMT -5
Right mouse click on the photo in FB and copy the image path and then paste it into the img tags.
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shekaberry
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SAFE Volunteer Coordinator
Posts: 1,521
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Post by shekaberry on Jan 27, 2010 14:10:36 GMT -5
Maybe he is plateau-ing? Happens to people in weight loss/gain, you hit a weight and stay there for a while regardless of what you do. I was surprised too at his lack of topline when I took his blanket off.
Too bad you have so many mares there, it'll be hard to isolate Baxter with the few geldings!
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