Lame Horse Blues

May 19, 2009

Damn, the big fella, Jim, has been lame. He came up limping last week and I first diagnosed it as a chip in his hoof. But while trimming and cleaning up his hoof, I encountered the awful and unmistakable smell of “thrush.” That, my friends, is an all-too-common bacterial infection in the hooves that thrives in the kind of wet and damp conditions we had last week. And it stinks, too. It comes off the hoof in a thick, black, tar-like substance, mostly in around his “frog.”

The good news is that it’s easily treatable: diluted-bleach solution applied daily for about a week. I’m on about day is and he’s finally getting better – barely a limp. But it sucked to see him limping about the pasture. Not the way this working horse is supposed to look. Keep your fingers crossed that this problem is solved – because we’ve got work to do.

What’s wrong with this picture?

I’m on a tractor, pulling a horse-drawn disc while the horses are lounging.

Here’s the other view:

Nice day, though.

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog 

Comments

One Response to “Lame Horse Blues”

  1. Peter Buknatski on May 19th, 2009 3:35 pm

    “And after I plowed the North Forty and sent Lassie into town to fetch Doc Weaver, all of a sudden this goddamn cloud of locusts spun down, all stirred up, I guess, by the big twister coming in behind them.”

    Watch out for the brakes on that tractor, Michael–your posts are beginning to remind me of the end part of The Unbearable Lightness Of Being.

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