Sunday, June 22, 2008

Picture Fest'

OK, we had a bit of a play around in the field with my husband taking photos. Enjoy!




























Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Disappearing Shivers Symptoms

How very interesting..... since starting on the homeopathic remedies, Lutine's Shivers symptoms have almost completely stopped. Normally, I would see her hike up her left hind leg and then stomp it down at least twice, if not three times, a day. She would also snatch up the leg and it would quiver when I asked her to pick up that foot. But I think that, in the last two weeks, I've only seen her do the leg hike thing once and there seems to be almost no 'cramping' reaction now when asked to pick up her back leg. She's not yet perfectly comfortable bringing up that back leg but it's 200% better than it was. Also, I seem to catch her stood up square behind a lot more than previously, whereas she always used to be resting one hind leg or another beforehand.

The only other thing that has changed in that time is that I reduced her food from 500ml of oil per day over two feeds to 300ml per day and I took out a little scoop of the Fibre Plus nuts. I dod that because she was looking far too 'well conditioned' than was good for her! I am going to email Dr Valentine to see if reducing calories in this way might alleviate Shivers symptoms.

BTW, I also rode her the other day and we were doing rein back to trot/rein back to walk transitions with no problems in the backing either.

Friday, June 06, 2008

New Homeopathy Prescription

Chris Day, a UK Holistic Vet, has reviewed Lutine's case and has prescribed her some homeopathy so we've just started that today and will see how it goes. I do find homeopathy interesting. It's one of life's illusive phenomenon, for a start, and my scientific head doesn't quite get it... but that doesn't mean I have to discount it either. Primarily, I don't discount it because I've had some quite astonishing 'well, would you look at that!?!' moments with homeopathy, where acute symptoms just totally disappear within 3 doses when they're issues that generally take several days to sort. The other major aspects for me are that homeopathy is very safe so where you get a remedy wrong, you're highly unlikely to provoke dangerous side effects or cause an overdose and also, it's very cost effective. The major cost is for the intial consultation, which is no more than a regular vet consultation anyway, and then the remedies cost very little.

Lutine's new prescription is phosphorous 30c once a day and rhus tox 30c once a day. What I found interesting was that the list of conditions and features of the remedy fit the picture so comprehensively but more than that, there were things that suddenly made me think 'oh my goodness! Yes! that's true about her too!' i.e. things that I hadn't mentioned because I'd forgotten and yet there they were, in the remedy picture too.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how she gets on.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Illustrious familiy members

Have been researching Lutine's thoroughbred ancestry, which I guess was always going to be gratifying as it's one of the most well reported and recorded breeds out there. Turns out her Great Great Grandpa on her mother's side was a great racehorse called Puissant Chef, who won 7 group 1 races in his career, including the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe and the Prix Royal Oak, both in 1960.

Can't find a photo of him for the moment but did find this archived report of the race:


Puissant Chef (15.10 new francs for 1) charged from behind a tight pack on the final turn in the Prix de l'Arc de Triompheat Paris and galloped home three lengths ahead of Hautain to win 539,342 new francs ($114,000). With Maxime Garcia up, the 3-year-old ran the 2,400 meters (about 1� miles) in 2:43.9. The Aga Khan 's heavily favored Charlottesville finished sixth. Owner Henry Aubert immediately accepted an invitation for Puissant Chef to the Washington, D.C. International on November 11.
Other photos:
Indian Gold

St Simon


Lord Lyon (on left)
Herod

Eclipse

Darley Arabian


Godolphin Arabian














Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Magic Hoof Gunk

I've been using a great new home made hoof solution to keep on top of Lutine's issues with thrushy frogs and it seems to be working a treat. First of all, I gave her hooves a couple of blasts with White Lightning Hoof Gel but then the weather turned wet again meaning I couldn't use the Gel anymore. So since then I've been spraying her soles and frogs with my home made solution once a day when I pick out her feet and her frogs are now looking better than I've ever seen them.

The recipe is 1 parts cider vinegar to 2 parts tap water and then a big glug each of Hypericum tincture and Calendula tincture. Enough to put quite a colour into the ACV solution. I have the solution in an old coat shine spray pump and give the hooves a good scrub and spray with this at least once a day. The other day I went to pick out her feet after missing a few days and she had some thrush creeping back in there. One pick out and spray and the next day it was totally gone.

The effect on her frogs has been great. Not only has the thrush gone away but the frogs are growing back at a rate of knots and the central sulci on all four feet are much broader and shallower. Also, finally her bars are starting to straighten out and quit overlaying the sole, which we've always battled with previously. I will post photos of the new frogs and bars when I get the chance.

BTW, we're on heavy clay ground here. I say this for info as I'm quite convinced that the bugs depend on the soil type and therefore different solutions seem to kill the bugs better in different geographical areas.

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