NO ANIMAL SHOULD HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS.....!!!

This is what Sephia had to go thru today because the the lack of basic foot care for probably all her life.  Tyler seems to think, because both feet on her right side grow out to the side, that her problems started "in vitro", because of the way she was carried.  In these situations usually 2 or 3 weeks of casts or braces fixes the problem with little newborns.  Unfortunately that did not happen for her.  

The x-rays showed some areas of concern, but nothing dramatic, so she got a happy shot, actually she got 3 total.  It took awhile to get her feet hacked off, at one time 2 farriers were each working on a foot to speed up the process.

The decision was made to work on her in the trailer so she wouldn't have to get out and get in.  It cuts down on working area, but in the long run, I don't know if we could have got her back in the trailer afterwards.  Her feet were so different after trimming, one of them with an elongated shoe, that she couldn't hardly stand up, let alone do anything taking experience to accomplish.

We had to wait for her to get over the effects of the sedatives which took quite sometime.  When we started out, it was clear that the trip was going to be traumatic for us all.   I rode in the trailer with her, and John drove at about 20 mph with instructions to not use the brakes if at all possible.  For some reason even using them as lightly as possible made her really scramble to keep her balance.  She was covered with sweat and it was dripping on the floor, she was so stressed, poor girl.  I don't know which of us was happiest to get home.  

I know she is going to be sore, besides changing her feet, she also spent a lot of time, flipping and flopping around in the trailer.  Although it is 6 foot wide, there was usually a wall or gate in her way when she was trying to get up.  

BUT WHAT A DIFFERENCE................!!!!

SO FAR, SO GOOD........!!!

The girls are getting along just fine.  They are alert, curious, and although we don't feed apples, like they are use to, they seem to think carrots, animal crackers and Tums are a good substitute.  We try to make sure Sephia doesn't have to walk too far to get her treats.  They aren't real thrilled to have us walk towards them, but they have no problem walking to us.  

 

As you can see Sephia is in pretty good shape, not too fat.  Thank goodness extra weight on those feet would really be uncomfortable for her. 

 

Kia is another story.  As you can see she needs to lose a lot of weight.  John is feeding them 12 pounds of hay a day, 8 pounds of alfalfa and 4 pounds of Bermuda.  They really don't "hoover" it up, although I have noticed Kia spends a lot more time eating than Sephia does. 

They are not finishing the 12 pounds of hay, so we will start dropping them back to 10 pounds which should be enough for them.  They will have to be fed separately I'm afraid.  When they no longer have access to more hay than they can eat, I would imagine Kia will be in charge of who eats what, and she'll be eating most of it.  Got to get our corral panels back before we can do any separating. 
 

I think Kia is part beaver, this is her handiwork.  She isn't really eating the wood, you can see the splinters laying on the ground.  But at the rate she is going the shelter isn't going to be standing pretty soon.......!!!   LOL 

It wouldn't be so bad, but this morning Quilla was helping her from his side.  Geesh!  She doesn't need to be teaching him her bad habits.  I didn't really notice much wood in their shed, so I'm not sure where she developed this irritating behavior. 

This is Boaz's knee this morning.  I'm still using the new balm and powder and it is getting better.  Got my fingers crossed for healing.  Not sure what the white spot is, it was actually there before I started with the balm and is a little larger, doesn't seem to match the rest of the tissue around it. 

IT'S NOT PRETTY.....!!!

But we're already getting our ducks lined up to try to help her.  On the way home from picking them up we stopped by Tyler's house.  He's real lucky, we drive by his house every time we go someplace...!! LOL  

The plan of attack is to get her back in the trailer this Friday.  Should be "interesting", she had never been out of the pen she was born in 11 years ago, and with these feet loading was difficult.  It actually went much better than we expected, but once she was in the trailer, she couldn't hardly stand up on the mats, because of walking on slick hoof material, rather than sole and frog.

John drove very slow all the way home and I'm sure she was having to fight to stand, but she never lost her balance.  

Friday we will haul her into Dr. Nancy, this is when a mobile vet would REALLY be nice to have.  SIGH!  Tyler will be there, and she'll take x-rays so he has an idea of what he's dealing with.  Then he'll get out the sawz-all and start removing as much of the extra growth as he can. With horses they usually gnaw the excess off a little at a time, over time.  With donkeys they usually just take it all off at once, which really freaks out horse people.  But in the long run the quicker you get it off, hopefully the less internal damage. 

She moves around, is alert and if we can give her some quality of life, that's what we'll do.  

I was so interested in getting pictures of these feet I didn't get a picture of the older over weight jenny.  Just take my word for it, she's fat, lots of large pones and a pretty good size bubble butt.  Hopefully we can get some of the weight off her.  The owner had 3 bales of alfalfa, and we brought it home to transition them from alfalfa to bermuda hay over the next few weeks.  She's fat enough she probably has fatty liver disease, and if we tried to stop feeding alfalfa all at once, chances are she would develop hyperlipidemia which can be fatal.    You haven't lived until a vet comes out with a tube of blood, reaches down into it with a paper clip and draws out a glob of yellow fat, as big around as the tube and over an inch long.   Looked like a big fat grub worm...........UGH!

The older jenny was named Jenny and the one with the feet was Betty.  We've already had a Jenny and have a good friend named Betty, so we're going to give them different names.  I went thru a lot of different names, so far the front runner is, Kia for the older jenny and Sephia for the younger one.  My race car is a Kia Sephia.......!!! John just shook his head.  It's not final, so if anyone has some good names for these girls, let me know.  

Speaking of the race car, the next 2 weeks are going to be murder.  This time of year in sunny Arizona is when our track has a big race program for Late Models and Modifieds that usually run in Canada, and the east.  Needless to say their weather isn't conducive to racing now.  That's all fine and dandy, but they've decided to add some of the local classes to the program, so the "big" boys have time to work on their cars between races.  We are suppose to run 6 programs in 9 days....!!!  I think they are trying to kill off all the old people out there.....!!!  They are paying extra and also we will get back our entry fee if we make the main event, so now John is going to take the Toyota and race it too............  At least that's what he says now, we'll see if that sounds like fun, after the first couple of races, he might change his mind.  LOL 

I've found someone to take care of Mother, which is a load off my mind.  Anna lives on the next road north of us, so the 2am drive home won't be as big a problem as driving back to Benson would be.  I was afraid Mother would get feisty about having someone stay with her, but she seems to be fine with it........  Whew...!!!