The eyes have it.....

Yesterday we had a very interesting morning down at the Equine Eye Clinic, turns out Tari's eyes are not normal at all. Was talking to them at the vet's open day the other week and they said they had an eye specialist who'd be very interested in seeing a silver dapple as they often have eye problems linked to the gene that gives them the colour. I had read something about that online before so I was interested in finding out more too. So I took her along when G had his MOT (he's fine, the COPD is better than last year in fact) and  had to leave her there overnight as she's been sedated to be poked and prodded and photographed.....



Both of her retinas have not formed properly on one side, meaning basically that her vision is compromised at the front of her head, but her peripheral vision is unaffected. Was really interesting looking at the inside of her eyes. The vet is going to send me some of the pics he took. Basically this means she doesn't have a full field of vision but should be perfectly fine to ride as long as her head movement isn't restricted so she can turn her head to compensate and that's why she's always got her nose into everything so she can check stuff out with her whiskers. (He was very impressed with the size of the ones round her eyes and said he's always telling people they should never trim them.....) She was certainly very nosy about the nice shiny trailer in the yard when we arrived......

......which had been used to transport........a llama for a haircut. That was very interesting too!

Went back to fetch her this morning and she was her usual laid back self walking home, more interested in eating grass than worrying about stuff. So nothing really to worry about, Ali used to ride a one eyed horse in France and he managed fine, jumping and everything. Don't think we'll ever be breeding from her though.......

What's inside a horse?

Interesting morning at the open day today at the local equine vet hospital.....

Beautiful day so we walked over with Chox

When we got there, Éowyn was fascinated by the cut up horse's leg and hoof......

...the number of teeth they have....

...but most of all by the lady doing the fecal egg counts!! She asked many questions about" going through the motions" and was rewarded with a close up look at some poo.....

Those teeth are things of beauty really when you look at them close up (although reading this story maybe Ross Jacobs wouldn't agree with me...)

There was also a pair of beautiful Shires, and we got a demo of how to plait their mane (Éowyn approved of the sparkly bows)

The owners aren't far from here and do driving lessons and working with the horses (ploughing etc), they said to come and see them sometime so I think I will :-)

Kinna likes to keep us on our toes.....

Yesterday, Ali and Kinna parted company for the first time. Once again it was all about the grass.....Ali had gone ahead of us and asked her to canter back so she decided halfway along to stop for a snack. She did a few all four feet off the ground bounces, I caught the start of it on camera:

then the saddle which wasn't girthed up tightly started slipping down her neck so Ali didn't really have a chance.......

Kinns immediately started stuffing her face, totally not bothered by the saddle round her ears, so Ali had to take it all off and resaddle her. We continued our ride, we were going to the vet's to get their annual jabs done without having to pay the call out fee.

They were fine with this, the vet's is on a big roundabout on the main Bordeaux - Bergerac road but the horses are well used to heavy traffic. The locals are somewhat less used to seeing horses apparently, as a fair amount of slowing down and rubbernecking went on, good job there wasn't a pile up! Then the vet came out with the microchip reader, as we needed to get the girls' details verified before they can go on the list to do Club competitions (paperwork, as ever, has to be done if you want to do anything at all in this country). Kinna took one look at that and backed away eyes rolling and snorting. She doesn't like the vet, ever since she was microchipped as a baby, as they don't use a local anaesthetic here and it hurt. In the end I had to read her chip, and the vet had to sneak up on her with the jab whilst I distracted her with an apple......

Gandalf meanwhile had dozed off in the sun and Sky was trying to eat the shrubbery. Left them with Ali whilst I went to pay the (still overinflated) bill and the girls were trying to edge her towards the grass on the edge of the car park.....

But then we got back on to ride home, and Kinns was good as gold all the way back. Maybe she'd had enough fun for one day....  ;-)

Quite unbelievable trip to the vet....

Our rescue ponies, Ruby and Ebony, needed a trip to the vet yesterday, Ebony has an abscess in her foot, the vet came out on Monday to see it and gave us poultices to put on and said to bring her up to him for a check up in a few days. We took Ruby too as she's developed a lump on her neck and we wanted to get it checked out.

So the girls loaded fine and off we went. When we arrived they were a bit on edge, not knowing where they were. The vet started with Ruby, he got the clippers out to remove the hair from around the lump, she wasn't happy about them being anywhere near her. So he shouted at her, not a good start, then decided she'd need sedating. He gave her enough sedative to make her seriously wobbly, then insisted we drag her across to the ultrasound machine to check out the lump which is also an abscess.

Then he turned his attention to Ebony's foot and has basically butchered it looking for this abscess:

When I asked if this was really necessary, he was quite rude! This is the same vet we took Gandalf to about his lump and there were no problems at all and he was very charming and handled him competently. Yesterday it was like he was a different person...... By the time he'd finished with Ebony's foot, Ruby was able to walk more normally but was still obviously under the effects of the sedative. We were a bit concerned about loading her, and were taking it slowly, understandably she was hesitant about going up the ramp in her wobbly state. Next thing we know, the vet has reappeared and after making some condescending comment about English trailers being no good and we should have bought a Fautras, proceeded to fetch a broom and start waving it about behind her. As if this wasn't bad enough he hit her with it, we really couldn't believe our eyes!!

So that is the last time we'll be using that vet, some much for trusting so called professionals........!!

His name is Laurent Duhard, he is in 24700 Ménesplet, avoid him like the plague!

A strange lump!!

Gandalf has had a lump on his back for a while. It doesn't seem to bother him much but as it wasn't going away we took him up to the vet's to get it checked out. They did an ultrasound, he wasn't too keen on the machine but didn't make too much fuss and didn't seem bothered about the clippers to shave him either......

The lump looked a lot bigger without his hair on it....

Anyway, the good news is that it's not a melanoma or an abscess, just probably an infected insect bite so he's been given a cortisone injection and hopefully it will go down.......

Poor Kinna........

Well the DDSV vet and my vet both came this morning to take blood from the girls. Sky as usual was no trouble at all, she didn't even flinch. I had taken the precaution of getting Kinna another sedative from the vet so I gave her that half an hour before they arrived - she reared as soon as she felt the needle but I'm getting good at doing it in one quick move......

She appeared totally zonked when we went in, but again as soon as she felt the needle she put up a helluva fight, in the end I had the twitch on her and the DDSV guy was holding her leg up and we'd backed her into a corner so my vet could get her 4 tubes of blood.

She's still out of it now, she looks so sad:

Kinna's turn for the vet

The vet came today to have a look at my new girl. She microchipped her (she didn't like that much!) and vaccinated and wormed her, then we had to do the "signalement" for the Haras Nationaux (French National Stud) where her markings are recorded. The vet put her base coat colour down as grey, which it isn't because her skin is pink, her white bits are caused by the Appaloosa Leopard complex gene acting on her BAY base coat colour, but when I explained that it fell on deaf ears.........ah well, never mind. So that's another 40€ screwed out of me by the Haras, because it's apparently a legal requirement that all horses are registered with them - sounds like a great way to make a load of cash to me!

I weighed her for the wormer, she's only 194 kilos! And she's about 12.2 high.........

As ever she was good as gold, after that Ali & her friend Holly groomed both the girls and let then graze on the lawn for a bit. I think Mademoiselle Skyfaxa is a bit jealous of the new arrival!!

The vet came

This being France, a UK equine passport just won't do so the vet came to do a "signalement" so Skyfaxa can be registered with the National Stud. They have to note down idintifying marks and whorls of hair on the horse, this is normally fairly straightforward but not with an Appaloosa!! The poor vet spent ages drawing her muzzle, can't help thinking it would have been easier to just take a photo!!

She even had to draw the stripes on her hooves......