Wednesday, January 06, 2010

trim notes for december and a few other equine notes

Our December trims happened the Monday after Christmas, and in all the reverie I didn't get around to posting them.

Rafer Johnson got the gold star for best hooves this time. I love the gold star - it challenges me to focus on the good things and it also gets me inspired to look at any issues from a different perspective - i.e. how can I support the rest of the herd so they too can get gold stars?

Our main issue this time around was probably due to all the rain and resulting mud we've had. Several herd members had eroded frog tissue, so after B. left we went on the oil of oregano treatment plan for 4 days, and then took a break from the oil just in time for the arctic blast to hit. Hooves are definitely dry right now - and clean, because the mud is frozen hard! Perhaps one benefit of this frigid weather is that it will allow the hooves some time w/o the daily mud packing.

Overall, the trim notes were good. Keil Bay, who is often the one struggling to build up good frog tissue, has very prominent frogs in all but one hoof right now, and I have to wonder if that's part of why he is moving so well. B. asked me if he had been seen by the chiropractor - and he hasn't - but when you see him walk, he looks like every muscle and joint is working perfectly. He is an amazing example of a 20-year old horse.

On other fronts, Salina got her kinesiology test results. We use Patsy Bullard of Healthy Bodies. She's in Texas, and you swab a cotton ball over the gums to gather saliva, put it in a ziploc bag, and send it with the horse's name, age, job, and anything you want to say about diet and issues, plus a check for $35.

Patsy is almost always running about 6 weeks behind because she is so good at what she does she has many satisfied customers! But when she gets to your sample, she does the testing and then calls you on the phone and reviews her findings, gives her recommendations, and then you can either order the supplements (if any are recommended) from her, or you can buy them yourself elsewhere.

I always buy directly from Patsy, b/c she knows the sources of all her herbs and supps, and she sends them neatly packaged and labeled with precise instructions, which makes it really easy to administer. She includes a sheet with everything she said on the phone written up for your files.

The great thing about Patsy is that she will talk with you at length, answering questions, connecting dots (and often there are many to connect b/c she is so good at finding underlying issues that suddenly pull a mysterious symptom picture into clarity) and discussing the treatment plan.

I've used her with all the geldings with absolutely wonderful results.

I admit I was nervous about hearing Salina's results. But Patsy said everything looked really good except for two things. I immediately thought KNEES, but Patsy said the structure is good. It was liver function and digestive enzymes!

Patsy found that Salina is having an issue with liver toxins, which can result in sore, stiff muscles, and general malaise. The digestive enzyme deficiency can exacerbate this b/c the lack of enzymes makes the digestive system work harder to get the nutrients from the food.

We talked at length about the possibility that the yearly abscess and this more recent abscess are the body's way of getting the toxins out that the liver is not able to process.

Two days later, Salina's herbs arrived. She's now into week 3 of milk thistle and digestive enzymes, and when she finishes the milk thistle she will go onto a liver-building mixture of herbs for 3 more weeks (a total of 7 weeks).

By the second day we were beginning to see some very positive changes. She has not lost her appetite throughout the ordeal with the abscess but suddenly she was moving much more easily and quickly, was nickering loudly for meals, and on several days has resumed her habit of standing right outside the feed room door, as if to hurry me up even more.

At one point she got so frisky she started running from my husband when he gave her the syringed herbs! We have been so happy to see this shift back to her regular self.

She hates the digestive enzymes - they are quite bitter and even getting a whiff of the powder will make your nose go into contortions - so we opted not to mess with her meals (she needs those calories and the nutrients) and what is working is mixing her herbs with some raspberry jam, along with a tiny bit of warm water. It syringes easily and she will accept it w/o a battle.

Meanwhile, I decided it was finally time to send Patsy MY cotton ball, so I am eagerly awaiting her call to let me know what's going on with ME.

Keil Bay's new Rambo Micklem Multi-bridle finally arrived yesterday. It is gorgeous - one of the new black ones - and I can't wait to try it out in the bitless mild configuration. He was not fond of the Dr. Cook bitless - I think the pressure on the opposite side of his face was confusing to him. The Micklem functions as a traditional side-pull, and I think the comfort of the bridle design (which is done to relieve pressure on several parts of the horse's head that are known to be sensitive) will work better for us.

I'm not sure we'll try it out until we get a break in this cold spell - but will report when we do.

For now we have horses in blankets, water trough ice patrol, and heaps of ice chunks growing daily by each water trough. The pony has made me laugh for the past few days - he seems fascinated by the ice and marches over the piles again and again, looking at times like he's wearing high heels because of the huge hunks under his feet.

We'll all be glad when we get back to our more usual winter weather here.

8 comments:

Michelle said...

Argh! I know I'm miserable and it's not NEARLY that cold here! Yuck! I hope you guys warm up there soon. Pretty soon the pony will be lost under all those ice chips!
Thanks for the kinesiology report. I've been toying with the idea of getting Grady done, as I'm just not real happy with his condition. Now I just need to decide if I want to use the woman you used or the one that is local. I've used her myself and been happy, but I don't know anyone that's used her for pets (but she says she does them too).
Can you detail a bit more on your oil of oregano regime? Tiny has had an ongoing problem with her feet and although they're better now, they're not great. She has the same thing as Keil Bay, weak frog growth. There have been many thrush issues, although not for a while now, but I just don't like the way her feet look. If you could tell me how and how often you treat, I'd love to try it and report back! Thanks Billie.

billie said...

If you want to read more about Patsy's work, there is a thread on the Ultimate Dressage forum that you can search by using the words Mingo hair analysis. It is now 28 pages long, and is, imo, a huge testament to Patsy's accuracy and excellent skills with this kind of testing.

Re: the oil of oregano, I buy mine from Puritans Pride vitamin company online. They often have good prices and that's where I get my vit. E gelcaps so it's easy to add on the oil of oregano.

This particular brand is in a small tincture-size bottle and is oil of oregano diluted into olive oil. It is a human-grade oral supplement, so could also be given to the horses orally if you wanted to treat them that way.

They seem to love the smell and want to lick the bottle. :)

I treated full strength for 2 days and then diluted into more olive oil for 2 more. They're having a break right now, which has gone on longer than I had planned, but since the cold has really dried everything up for now, I figured this is a good time to let the hooves "normalize."

I'll go back and do another 4-day course of treatment when our daytime temps go back up to the point that the ground actually thaws out!

The other thing I'd look at is diet. Keil's diet has been balanced now for about a year, and I am starting to see much healthier frog tissue. I think this is the first time I've seen 3 out of his 4 hooves have frogs that literally protrude, like the ones you see in all the healthy hoof photos you can find online! For him, this is a huge thing. He still has narrow frogs at the heel, but at least we're getting what's there healthier.

There's a mixture I haven't made up yet that combines oil of oregano, calendula, tea tree oil, and something else, that you can spray onto the hooves. I originally got the oil of oregano to make that mixture, but did more reading and decided that the oil of oregano alone would likely work. It's very potent.

When Patsy first did Keil Bay's kines. test she recommended olive leaf for yeast overgrowth, which we felt was probably contributing to his thrushiness. It helped tremendously.

Once I get my test back, I'm going to do Kyra the Corgi and the donkeys, and then I'll rotate back through the geldings.

You can do a recheck after completing the regime, and she puts those at the top of the pile if you do them w/in a certain time period of the treatment. It makes it easy to see if everything got addressed completely.

I would love to hear your report about any and all things you try with Tiny and Grady!

Grey Horse Matters said...

It seems you've got the perfect system in place for everyone's hooves and frogs. Congratulations on all your progress. You are one very committed horse owner and I applaud all you do for your horses.

Hope we all warm up soon and can get back to our normal activities.

billie said...

Thanks, Arlene - not perfect at all, but I try to stay on top of things. And, as always, I have to say: I get a lot of help from family members who carry out my 'plans.' :)

Diane said...

A friend of mine told me about Patsy. I have an 18yo gelding running 103 to 105 temp for 6 days and then between 101 and 103 for 2 weeks thereafter. Without getting into all the details - nothing seemed to help much and 4 vets scratching their heads. Very skeptical, I sent saliva to Patsy. Being in FL - no one thought of Lyme and the horse being the ox he is - puts aside pain like no other horse. Patsy came back with Lyme. 2 of the vets laughed and said it was time to put him down. We then sent his blood to U Conn to verify. Patsy was right. He has been on her herbs now for just over a week and has just made it over 36 hours without any fever reducers and is staying below 101. I can't thank Patsy enough!!!!!

billie said...

Diane, thank you for sharing yet another success story that has to do with Patsy Bullard. She is living proof that healing is an art and that what "science" knows isn't all there is.

Diane said...

Hi Billie, I was told about Patsy from a touch therapist who worked on my horse. I'm toying with sending a sample for my horse but more so for myself and my daughter. Do you know anyone who has submitted a sample on themselves and what their experience was like? I would love to hear what she says about you. Looking forward to your response.

Diane

billie said...

Hi, Diane, ME!

I have worked with Patsy for the past two years on my own health. Everything she found was accurate, and I have had excellent results with the protocol she put me on each time.

The most amazing thing was, for me, that nothing she gave me was difficult to take, i.e. upsetting to my stomach. I am fairly sensitive to things, and expected to have some issues with that, but I didn't.

It's about the time I usually send my sample in, so thanks for the reminder... :) I would not hesitate to try her for yourself.

The two primary issues last year for me were tailbone out (quickly verified and corrected by my chiropractor) and systemic yeast overgrowth, which took about a month to "treat" with two weeks off all sugars/carbs/alcohol and several staggered herbs.

She does have about a 6-week backlog going almost all the time now. She will do a rush for an extra fee. Please let me know if you try this and whether or not it works for you.