Things sure haven't slowed down. We are still busy, and now that fall is approaching all those 'get ready for winter' things are starting to creep up on us.
Very sadly, Soliel the warmblood mare foaled a beautiful paint colt but he passed away 3 days later. He had hypothyroidism. It was our first experience with that and hopefully the last. We worked so hard to save the little guy but to no avail. Thank you Susanne for helping through the whole ordeal. Also on a sad note, we lost Echo the Arab mare, we believe she was struck by lightning.
Our vet has been treating Monkey's and Joanie's old leg injuries with laser - one treatment every 2-3 days. It looks like we're having some real success in finally dealing with these injuries. The swelling is going down and the injuries themselves look a lot healthier and are closing up. On the downside, the cost is quite expensive due to the number of treatments required, but if it works it will certainly be worth it as they have both been dealing with these injuries for several years now.
Thank you for Calgary Polocrosse, they raised funds for us during their annual tournament and it was a huge success: almost $500 was raised through snack sales, a silent auction, and donations! Thank you to Sherral and Carment for manning a table for us at the tournament. They said it was a lot of fun. If you're looking for something exciting and athletic to do with your horse, consider polocrosse!
We've been very busy with visitors and adoptions this month. Popcorn, Dusky, Golddust, Sky, Fritz, Buddy, Mac, Pup, Rasmus, Sofie, Griffon, and Thor have all been adopted. Rasmus was just gelded last Friday and won't be leaving for a couple of weeks, Thor of course won't go to his new home until he is weaned, and Sofie won't be leaving until next spring. We took in 2 four month old foals last week, both beautiful buckskins. The colt is very cute and the poor little filly has some serious cuts to her chest/legs from going through a fence when she was weaned right before we picked her up. She's certainly getting used to being handled now as we've been having to clean her wounds and give her medicine twice a day. We also took in a 16 yr old mare with a crooked leg. I'm not sure how long her leg will remain stable, we have had horses with this sort of problem in the past (Navajo, Roz and Emma) and eventually the leg or joint does deteriorate past the point of being any good for the horse.
We took in a few more rabbits from the Canmore cull, these being the offspring of one of the rabbits that was caught and gave birth before being spayed. The babies had to grow up enough for themselves be fixed. One of our little black bantam hens raised one chick! Not sure how she ended up with just one, but it's grown enough that they're back with the regular flock. Speaking of babies, we're pretty sure Mackenzie and possibly Samia and Nina are pregnant - unfortunately looks like they'll be winter babies. Our condolences to Virginia Scott, she adopted Dollar from us 6 years ago and Dollar passed away suddenly the other day. Dollar was a nice older, Thoroughbred-type mare we bought at auction in 2005. I've fallen victim to the social media bug and a lot of what is going on is posted more regularly on our facebook page. Check us out on facebook if you haven't already done so! The latest big thing is that we were contacted by someone who's grandparents had to declare bankruptcy. They were raising quarterhorses and had a herd of at least fifteen mares with young foals at side and ten 2 year old colts. All their horses, including their personal riding horses, were seized as part of the bankruptcy and are going to auction today in Innisfail. This girl (lady?) was heartbroken as she feared (rightly so) that many of the horses could go for meat, and also that the young foals (3 months old) might be separated from their dams as they really are too young to be weaned. Through contacts and getting the word out, we've all been able to generate a LOT of interest in these horses so that it looks like there will be a lot of private buyers looking to save these horses at today's auction. On top of that, we've received some very generous donations towards saving some of them ourselves, so we will be at the auction tonight. Sadly horses from situations such as this are what populate a lot of the auctions and there isn't anyone to save them. Because we are a registered charity, and because horse slaughter is not illegal, we can't actually lobby against slaughter, but we don't condone it. It's not just the equine tragedy, it's the human tragedy that goes with it that also makes it all so sad.
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