Finally, a photo of Puissant Chef!

Just did a little search on Google again for Puissant Chef and found this wonderful image and story on the LIFE magazine website. It won't let me copy the photo though, so you'll have to follow the link:

http://www.life.com/image/3431277

Mud-Ex seems to have worked

When I dicovered the little patch of mud fever on Lutine's leg a few months ago, I got some Mud-Ex herbal mix off Global Herbs to start mixing into her feed. Our horrendous weather has continued - it's definitely the wettest winter for a long, long time as even our farming neighbours are commenting and shaking their heads. So Lutine's paddock is wet, wet, wet. She has the large barn to come under and I've given the horses the biggest deep straw bed I can muster under there so they do have a place that's dry and warm to go, but still they have to go into the mud every day. This meant that trying to tackle the mud fever from the inside was even more important.

Well, the Mud-Ex seems to have worked because she no longer has any mud fever! I suppose it could also be down to the intervention of my acupuncture vet. At the beginning of December, Lutine's leg became swollen owing to the mud fever (Swelly Nelly strikes again) and so my vet treated Lutine with acupuncture for her swollen leg and for the underlying issue that was related to the mud fever. And now it's all gone and hasn't come back...

The Mud-Ex powder stinks so I mix it into her feed and then sprinkle a good dose of Top Spec Dr Green supplement on it. This supplement is to 'tempt fussy feeders' - Lutine's not really fussy but even I'd balk at eating this stinky herb stuff! Plus, it has plenty of B vits and probiotics to help her immune system along.

Whatever the reason for the mud fever clearing up, I'm thankful and grateful to see the back of it!

Almost feels like home

It's been raining almost continuously for 3 weeks now. The girls are off the big field and in their winter paddock, which now looks like a swamp near to the barn. Luckily, they have a hard path from the barn to the water buckets to walk on, plus the barn in which to hang out so they're not constantly stood in mud. However, their legs have been getting muddy every day and, of course, that means Lutine now has a little patch of mud fever on one fetlock. There's no swelling or lameness so it's really just the beginnings of a patch. I washed off the mud today and found this patch so the legs were dried off and copious quantities of Sudocrem were applied to all her legs up to and including the fetlock, above the 'mud line', as it were. I'm not going for the hibiscrubbing/picking routine because I know that it makes things worse in her case. Seems to irritate the skin even more. I've put enough Sudocrem on and I know within a few days the scab will fall off.

Have also just started using, about a week ago, a new product against thrush. Usually Lutine's frogs fall to pieces in the winter as she's always been prone to thrush. However, I used NAF's sole and frog spray for a week or two until this new product arrived, Sole Paint from Red Horse products in the UK. It's completely fab stuff. I got it because it persists better than a lot of other products and has had really good reviews in the UK, which can be extremely bog-like even in summer. Sure enough, I washed off her feet today, ready to apply a second coat of Sole Paint and there's not a scrap of thrush in sight, despite the horrendous weather. Her feet haven't had the chance to dry off properly for more than a week at least so to not have any frog problems is brilliant. The current frogs are tatty from previous thrush attacks and I was painting the product right into various flaps and crevices but there was no tell-tale black stuff in any of the crevices. I think I used it initially for 2 days in a row about Tuesday and Wednesday of last week and have just renewed it a week later. Brilliant! All my horses are going to have this stuff painted on their feet one a week now, as a preventative - though Lutine is the only one I have that has persistent thrush. We are going to have an exceptionally wet winter this year, I can feel it in my bones (and our local farmer friend agrees with me!).

Boing Boing Bounce Bounce

Small improvements...

Lutine was seen by a qualified equine veterinary acupuncturist three weeks ago and her eyes have improved steadily, though slowly, since. Today, even in fairly low light, she found her bucket of food more easily than before. Also, her eyes are less over-sensitive to light and seem to be much less painful. The vet is back again at the end of next week to do another acupuncture session and I am hopeful that we may well get back to riding her sometime before the Spring.

Otherwise she is very well in herself and happily romps around the field with the rest of the herd.

A New Challenge

I'm afraid that the uveitis has claimed much of Lutine's sight over the summer since the last lot of photos were taken and so I haven't ridden her since. However, I'm hopeful that she can recover some of what was lost; I have another horse with the same condition who has recovered some of her lost sight recently. At the moment Lutine's eyes are clouded inside by the inflammatory debris from the recent acute phase of uveitis but I know from experience that it's possible to clear this debris to an extent. The retina can also be damaged but again, I've experience now of using various things to kick start the retinal cells again. So for the moment I am keeping my fingers crossed and working hard to stabilise her eyes and to recover whatever sight is possible.

Picture Fest'

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

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.