Woodsmith Farm

Things have been busy at the house as of late.

Per the iPhone Blog, Darwin has a bit of a hitch in his get a long.  Not sure exactly what's happened but he seems to have strained something in his back left leg and it's making him pretty lame. 

I initally tried to give him a week or so to get over it as we knew it wasn't an abscess and nothing was obviously swollen but things were not improving, so I called Dr. Wendy Schofield of Hagyard Davidson McGee to take a look at him.  We did digital xrays of his stifle, hock and foot, and did a CBC with no obvious diagnosis in the field.  Wendy looked at the xrays back in the office on a bigger and better monitor and saw a possible question area on the ACL area of his stifle.

So, Wendy feeling that an ultrasound was in order, arranged an appointment with the Hagyard ultrasound pro Dr. Duncan Peters.  6 shaved spots later, we still don't have a reason for why he's favoring that leg, but we know nothing major seems to be torn, which is good.

The bad on all of this is that poor Darwin and Odessa have to stay in a stall for the next 4-6 weeks.  I am pretty sure this is not going to go very well and I can already tell after 3 days that they are frustrated and I have been at home entertaining them with grooming and lots of hay .  They are both still being concillitory but I am waiting for one or both to look me in the eye and say enough is enough - and who can blame them.

Hopefully D. will recover from this.  He's a really nice horse to work with. 

After seeing some really nice DHH and some not so nice, I had fears that my DHH would end up being a pitiful example of a DHH but I think he's going to be of substantial size and he measured about 13.1h at 4 months old.  His legs are correct and his movement is free and straight - when he's not limping. :-)

I also think that Odessa is going to come around.  Her tail and mane are starting to grow out and the bald spots are no longer there.  She is getting a lot of TLC and she seems to be more trusting of me.  I keep idiot testing her and she keeps on passing.  It will be interesting to see what kind of horse she really can be.

Bluff is very, very lame on her back right, but I think it's an abscess that hasn't popped yet.  Or at least I hope that's what's wrong with her.  She is tolerating me fussing around with her foot several times a day as I try to see if the abscess has let loose. She's a funny girl.  I can't help but find her interesting.