More September news

Busy, busy, busy! Lots of things happen every single day on the farm.

Yesterday, Mac and Levis headed off to Jenn. L.'s place. Mac is staying there for the winter so he can hang out with other thoroughbreds and enjoy "fat camp". He'll gain weight on Jenn's grain and extruded feed ration plan and have a stall and blankets and all the extras. Jenn's mom may ride Mac, too, if she feels comfortable on a 16 hh horse. Mac is very quiet and very good for everyone.

Levis will be back at Dreamscape Acres on Thursday after he has his feet looked at. He may just need his shoes pulled for the winter - but we'll let Jenn's farrier give his expert opinion on Levis' lameness.

We have a new horse on the farm: Roxy - a 2004 registered APHA mare - is here for the winter for training and to get a few miles on her. Her registered name is Strike Me Magnificent and she's a (very rare) blue roan and white overo Paint. Roxy belongs to Jenn L. She's lightly started under saddle, but needs some more work. She's for sale for $3000. Once we have some photos and a video or two, we'll post her for sale on Equistation.

Elmer picked Gypsy up today. The vet didn't make it out yesterday, so she didn't get her pregnancy check. It was great to see Elmer and he made a big fuss over Gypsy and gave us all the news about Queenie. Queenie is happy and healthy and ridden about three times a week on the trails on Elmer's 200 acre property. Although mom is sad that Gypsy was adopted, she's glad Gypsy has a good home.

The vet came today and checked Nikki. She's not pregnant. Darn! Oh well, we'll try again next spring.

Autumn got the once-over from the vet and he gave her a shot to relax her tendons a bit so that she can put her tiny hooves flat on the ground. He said that tight tendons are pretty normal for foals and that it is unlikely to affect her in the future. Abby J. is in love with her and may buy her before she's registered.

Mom will take more photos of Autumn on the weekend. She gets to go outside with Dreamer every day while the weather is nice. She delights in cantering around the paddock and leaping and bucking to burn off some energy while she's out. Dreamer gets a bit worried when Autumn gets too far away, so she's getting her exercise, too!

While Jeff (our vet from Dundas Veterinary Clinic) was at the farm, he took a look at Maggie's eye. Maggie has uveitis, as does Scrappy. Uveitis is sort of like glaucoma in humans - sometimes early medical intervention can stop the damage, but other times, the disease progresses very quickly and there's little you can do to stop it. Uveitis can be triggered by an injury, bacterial infection or allergies. No one knows what triggered Maggie's uveitis.

Unfortunately, it looks as though Maggie will lose her eye as the disease has progressed too far for drugs to help. Removing her eye sounds harsh, but she can't see out of it at all, and if the pressure continues to build, it could rupture and cause excrutiating pain. She's got some drops to help for now, but she'll have to have surgery soon.

Scrappy's uveitis means that she's blind and needs occasional steriod treatments, but it hasn't slowed her down much.

Horses with uveitis are often extremely light sensitive, so both Maggie and Scrappy wear their fly masks all year round - they can have them off at night and when it's raining or overcast. Bright light can make the iris go into spasm - and as you can imagine, that hurts. Their flymasks act sort of like sunglasses and cut down on the amount of light that gets to their eyes.

Natasha came out on Monday to see Autumn and she'll be back tonight to ride Dash. We like Natasha and enjoy her visits! She's doing really well in school this year - she knows that if she lets her homework slip, she won't be able to come out to visit as often.