So much for saying I would be back blogging. These last 2 weeks I have been phenomenally busy and that has been the main reason.
Anyway, onto Quasar. I booked the vet, to ask him to look at her teeth to see if they could be filed - assuming she still had molars - and also to give her eyes a check and her a general check as well. If she has actually lost her teeth there won't be anything we can do about that. Anyway, the day the vet was supposed to come, a cow sent him flying and he broke his leg. He is being driven around by a friend of mine and is supposed to be coming with another vet to look at Quasar, because he knows she will out up a struggle and try to send him flying again. He hasn't been yet. I don't really want to book another vet because I like him. I don't really want to book an equine dentist because he/she won't be able to check other things. In the meantime I have taken lots of nutrition advice and am just about coping with feeding two ponies on separate diets but keeping them in the same field is the problem because Skylark just wants to eat Quasar's grass substitute meals all the time. I separated them for a few days but it was noisy. I might have t do it again because it doesn't feel nice fending Skylark off all the time and it must be turning feeding into something stressful.
I am looking on this as a management problem as much as a health problem.
My next project is to try and buy another field. I have 3 fields but none of them join up. Somebody else's land is in between. If I could have joined up fields I could open and close gates as appropriate throughout the day, to let them feed separately and enjoy companionship on and off. I rang the 'in between' farmer last night. He is neither willing nor unwilling to sell. 'What's the colour of your money?' he wants to know. So I am waiting for a call back from a valuer now.
It's just as well I have no plans to go away for Christmas because these separate feeding regimes are a lot of responsibility to give to someone else.
In the meantime Quasar is coping. Her belly is nice and round but her hunkers are a bit bony. I am coping too (I think!)
Bernard, because you asked: no. I won't be on my own at Christmas. I am staying here because of Quasar and have got myself a little job - I'm farm sitting. I will have Christmas lunch with a neighbour I have got friendly with - and her family. I can spend as much or as little of the day there as I like., she says.
Well I'm pleased to hear that you an Q are coping. Quasar sounds a bit like me at the moment - her belly is nice and round. In my case it's picking at all the Christmas goodies I keep buying. I don't know where my hunkers are? But if they're near mt knees, they certainly are boney.
ReplyDeleteIt was Helen by the way, who asked about Christmas, not I. ;-)
Quasar looks great in the pic. You'd never know she was so old. She's lucky she has you to take such good care of her in her old age. Your Christmas plan sound good. Nice that it is all so comfy and casual.
ReplyDeleteBernard: Hello there. Sorry, in my old age I get quite confused about who has said what to me.
ReplyDeleteAt primary school we read a poem which started 'Upon its hunkers sits the dug'. Hunkers I suppose are one's backside bones. Might it mean haunches? Not sure where the haunches are, but anyway if the 'dug' sat on them it must be its bum bones. I don't think it meant settee or anything like that.
Helsie: Yes, she looks great in that pic, which was in a summer when she was about 28 and had functioning teeth. She is still absolutely full of beans though, almost dragging me down the road on the end of the rope when I moved her. That was so heartening and told me she is not a pony who is ready to take her leave of this world, as I feared a couple of weeks back. At least I sincerely hope not.