So now our National Champion Bratface Princess Punky Pants is starting to become a big girl. It was about this time that I realized that while the barn she was at took great care of her, I really wanted more control over how she was cared for.
So we went house hunting.
I posted on my facebook wall asking people if they knew any horse property for rent. We had a fairly small budget, so were likely not going to find anything, but I figured it was worth a shot.
Then I got a PM from a friend of a friend (we were facebook friends and she’d seen my post). She told me her tenant had just moved out, and they were trying to rent their place out but it was currently in the midst of renovations so it was a hard property to show/rent in that condition. SO we went and saw it. At night. With a thunder storm going on. Perfect house hunting conditions right? She was right, the home was mid-reno and it was basically a shell. It was hard to see what it would look like when it was done, but we have vision and we trusted their taste.
Plus, the home was on an 11 acre lot, with a 12 stall barn w/wash rack and tack room, plenty of trailer parking and a 4 car detached garage/shop for all of G’s tools/cars/stuff/Christmas decorations. We would share the barn/acreage with the landlord but have the house/shop/yard to ourselves. Seemed like a great deal, so we agreed despite the fact that the place wouldn’t be ready for move in until after our current lease was up. We made arrangements to stay with my parents for 2 weeks and were allowed to move stuff into the shop at the new house in the meantime.
So we were finally going to live on horse property! It was so nice to be able to go check on and snuggle my horse whenever I wanted to. She had a nice warm stall (which she did not appreciate because she HATES being stalled), buddies (goats and two other Arabian horses) as well as pasture to keep her belly full and brain occupied.
I loved having her at home finally, where I could monitor what she was eating, choose what hay I wanted, keep her stall and paddock picked and dry, and generally just spoil her.
Unfortunately it was unusually wet and warm the winter of 2014 when we moved in, and about a month after moving in she got scratches.
If you've never waited for a horse to dry in 30* weather, you do not know boredom or impatience like I. Yes, she's wearing a towel on her head.
Now, if you are a horse person and you’ve never dealt with scratches—lucky you. I had been fortunate enough not to have come across this nightmare previously, despite having lived in WA since the beginning of my horse “career” and having had horses who lived in much muddier situations. I always thought that it was only something horses whose owners were neglectful got. I scoffed at people who told me what a pain it was, mentally thinking “Well clearly you don’t take good enough care of your horse.” Yeah, not so. Or, "clearly your property is gross." Also, not so.
I fed Halo the best of the best feed, she got groomed daily, brushed her legs, wore a (multiple) nice clean blankets, had a dry, clean stall (I am OCD about stall cleaning), and her boots/bell boots washed every time I used them. The property itself was beautiful and the owners of the place are wonderful, diligent and neat people. But sadly, she is grey (and I found out the hard way, lighter colored horses are more susceptible to it), and enjoys standing in mud puddles grazing. So she started to get scratches, and because I wasn’t expecting it, and because I brushed her with a brush every day and picked up her hooves to pick them out by the actual hoof, not her leg, I didn’t feel the scabs starting to form until they were quite extensive.
Unfortunately for me, my horse hates enclosed spaces, water and any sort of picking at scabs, which of course makes trying to treat scratches an absolute nightmare. If you’ve never seen scratches and want an idea of what it’s like, picture thousands of little scabs all over the horses legs, sort of like rain rot on the legs. They itch, and sting, and pulling them off and treating them with shampoo, and medication and keeping the horse dry are the only way to treat them. The thing that will drive you the most nuts is that when you pick a scab off that opens up a sore which can let more bacteria in and start the infection process all over again.
So I got the vet involved, started with betadine shampoo with warm water, then rinsed with cold water, and then dried REALLY well and applied silvadene which is actually a human grade burn cream and is a super-healing salve. It does a good job drying out the scabs and allowing them to close out and fall off without opening up new sores so as to keep the bacteria out. I first had to keep her in all day/night for several days which was a total nightmare. She kicked her stall, and reared and chest bumped the door. We had to close the top of both her interior and exterior door which REALLY pissed her off.
Halo really appreciated her hand walks, and I enjoyed them as well. They taught me to be brave and trust that she was going to be a good girl. Plus it was quiet and calming.
Eventually though she was able to go back outside, but I still had to clean and treat every night. And one point the silvadene stopped working, so I switched to castile soap at night, drying really well and putting on fungasol gel from Absorbine. I started putting that on the lower parts of her legs every morning, and was able to start spot treating her, instead of having to slather it on all over.
Eventually it dried up and I was finally able to relax after I fed her at night, and what a relief that was. I would never wish scratches on my worst enemy! This year she has been at a different facility all winter so have not yet had to deal with it, but hoping that the (really nice!) gravel paddocks that the awesome barn owners added over summer, the pasture management, combined with me knowing off the bat not to let it get out of control will help it from happening again.
What really sucks is scratches is not a thing you can just rid the property of and can be at no fault to the property owner. It lives in the soil, and if your horse is susceptible it will happen no matter what.
At this point I'm really enjoying working with this little punky. She is finally growing up and it is SO. FUN.
