Sunday, April 22, 2007

Lutine's first polo mint

My auntie came over from the UK and brought a packet of Polo mints with her so we thought we would see if Lutine liked them:

Long reining begins





















We've now been long reining around the field for, I think, the last week or so. At first, we were both equally knackered by the time we'd done a few circuits (it's a 10 acre/4 hectare field with plenty of slopes). Now it's just me that's knackered and Lutine's fine! She seems to be really well in herself and is coming on brilliantly. I think I may have to start riding her around the field soon instead of long lining because I can't keep up with her! She's getting fit far quicker than I am. I guess it's a bit tougher for me at the moment because we're growing our hay crop in this field and so the grass is really, really long - it's great exercise because it's like walking through water! I think that it's also good for her psychologically because it's helping her to become more confident and independent, encouraging her to stride out ahead of me without needing me right up at her shoulder. Yesterday evening, we long reined all the way back up the lane at the side of our field, back through the garden gate and stopped in front of the house.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Video of Lutine's Sire

Found this on the website for the Haras Nationaux (National Studs). It's a page with a video of Veloce de Favi, Lutine's sire. Just click on 'Veloce de Favi' to see it.

http://www.haras-nationaux.fr/portail/particuliers/consulter-nos-offres/etalons-nationaux/les-etalons-en-video/index.html

Changes in Body Condition

I like looking at the wonderful changes in Lutine's body condition. Will also get some new photos this weekend that show her as she is today. If you click on any of the photos, you will get a larger image where you can see her condition more clearly

At the start - you could see all her spine, every rib, her scapula is clearly defined and you can see her sternum (breastbone) protruding. When I put my arm over her back, I could feel the internal heat escaping through her fine skin. She had no body fat to keep herself insulated at all. I rugged her with my other horse's 5ft 9" rug to keep her warm. Lutine should have taken around a 6ft 3" rug but she was so thin, the right size rug would have buried her:



















After one month, she was starting to put on some weight but her hind end was very skinny indeed and was totally lacking musculature:


















By March 2006, she was looking less skeletal:


















This is Lutine in May 2006 with her new summer coat through. She's looking a lot better, but still has a skinny rump:

















This is her in September 2006, her weight was fine but she was missing condition and muscle tone. I'd started her on the Top Spec balancer plus carried on with the 500ml of oil per day as per the EPSM diet recommendations a couple of weeks prior to this, so we still needed a bit of time before the diet changes started to show through:







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And now, here she is today, munching at the grass in our garden. I'm now having to keep a careful eye on her putting on too much weight! Currently, she has ad lib hay, Top Spec Comprehensive Balancer, a small amount of alfalfa chop and Top Spec 10:10 joint supplement. She's also doing a minimum of half an hour long reining almost every day of the week and she is permanently turned out (no stabling):










Some riding photos from last autumn




Do excuse my very unfashionable joddies and the ropiness of it all - we're not looking too bad for having a little pootle in the field seeing as it was about the first time time she'd been ridden for more than 5 minutes in 3 years.

Frog Development

Just wanted to show some photos of the changes Lutine's frogs have gone through since we got her:

Here's the start point:







You can see the the hoof is so squeezed together through contraction that there is a crack all the way up through the heel bulbs, well above the hair line.














Second photo showing near side frog at the outset. Doesn't look tooooo bad - you would think you can see the bottom of the central sulcus from here. errrrr no - it started to open up and suddenly I found I could put my index finger down the crack up to the first knuckle!











This is the offside fore after a few weeks (March 2006) you can see that the heels bulbs are moving apart though they're still pretty contracted.










Heel bulbs have moved even further apart in this photo.
















Now for the nearside fore: As you can see, the crack is starting to open up.





It's that deep, you get an echo from it!































Fast forwarding to August 2006:



Off fore, much better shape - but it's a bit wimpy. Doesn't look particularly calloused or tough - sure enough, they fell apart in the wet weather over winter.

But I will expect them to improve year on year, especially as she gets back into regular exercise rather than just turn out in the field.

Healing Chronic Illness

We've had lots of 'interesting' experiences over the winter with Lutine's health. It started in the Autumn. Lutine went lame again after staying out on the green grass for too long in the autumn and, just as in May, this lameness became an abscess which took a couple of weeks to resolve. This time the vet came out and drained the abscess, leaving a hole in her sole which in itself was a bit of a problem. But gradually that went away and then the next thing was that she started with lymphangitis again. I think it was in one front leg and one hind leg on the same time - called the vet and she was given 3 days of antibiotics and Bute, which seemed to do the trick and the lymphangitis went away. Then we had two successive flare ups the two following months. In the meantime, Lutine also developed Uveitis, a chronic eye inflammation and was therefore on medication for that too. I could see the awful results in her feet. Within weeks of the Bute, antiobiotics and other anti inflammatories, she had a red founder line on all four feet, ridges in the hoof walls and bruised soles. This was the first time she'd had this sign come back since I had her so it kind of indicates to me that a l0t of her previous medical treatment was contributing to her overall chronic problems.

I decided in January that I would buy a Photonic Therapy kit for the horses. www.photonictherapy.com.au This is basically a form of acupuncture that uses light to stimulate the points rather than needles, so I could use it to support the healing of any problems (humans and other animals too) . In January, Lutine started again with swollen pasterns and I knew that the lymphangitis was starting again. I REALLY didn't want to give her more Bute and antibiotics - they were causing problems with her feet and the darned problem was just coming back time after time. So I started using the Photonic torch on her every 12 hours and within three days the problem had gone away again. I then started her on Lymph Blend from Global Herbs (www.globalherbs.co.uk) to see if we could ward this thing off for the future. The lymphangitis tried to surface again another couple of times over the coming three months but each time, by increasing Lutine's Lymph Blend dosage and by giving her photonic therapy, the swelling went away. The second time it happened, it went away within 12 hours.

The next thing that happened was that, just as it seemed her eyes were healing from the uveitis, she decided to rub them on the hay bale and give herself corneal ulcers. This resulted in several weeks of antiobiotic eye drops and finally, I used some chinese herbs to get rid of the final bit of corneal oedema that was left over.

Since the end of Winter, Lutine's not had more attacks of lymphangitis but then, in the last few weeks, some mud fever erupted on her hind legs. Now, when she started with the lymphangitis, I checked her thoroughly for problems like mud fever or for cuts or scratches that could be triggering the problem and I couldn't find any. So we are now dealing with the scabs from the mud fever - it's quite mild and is healing nicely just with daily application of Sudocrem.

Finally, as the weather came better and the ground dried up, we started doing some more work, first on the lunge line and now long lining. After about a week, Lutine went through a muscle crisis of some sort - at first I thought she'd 'tied up' (exertional rhabdomyolisis) but the vet took a blood test and the results came back normal for the muscle enzyme indicators for tying up. The vet also ran a full blood panel, which came back as normal. Anyway, since then we changed over to long lining rather than lunging so she's now working on straight lines rather than circles, which is less strain on her muscles and joints to start with. I also keep supporting her with the photonic therapy and she's just doing wonderfully now. I will post updated photos and videos soon.

It's interesting though because I read an article about healing for chronic problems and apparently, these healing crises are quite common. The article (which I can't now find again but when I do, I'll post a link) said that the progress usually goes from the inside out (e.g. bone problems followed by muscle problems followed by skin problems) and from the top to bottom (e.g. a shoulder problem followed by a hoof problem). Certainly, my experience with Lutine has followed this for the most part.

At the moment, she'd doing brilliantly, looking absolutely glorious and I can't wait to get some photos and vidoes of her up.