Farewell Nick

Last fall I started working for my neighbor, Roberta, by helping out with her two Appaloosa horses, Nick and Tacoda. Roberta has an idyllic home for a horse, with acres of open green pasture, a ring and paddock areas and a three-stall barn nestled in the woods. Even though the horses aren’t ridden, they are babied.

Roberta’s concerns have centered around Nick, a vintage horse of 33 years. Horses live an average of 24 years so Nick’s advanced age is the equivalent of a 93-year-old man. Nick has multiple health issues, but even with his bum leg, could manage a canter and buck off 12-year-old Takoda’s efforts to herd him if necessary.

Lately, however, it had become apparent that Nick’s body was giving out on him. He became sick again and Roberta decided it was time to let him go rather than wait for an emergency. A backhoe operator was hired to dig a grave in the pasture where Nick would rest and the vet was called in. With an animal as large as a horse, euthanasia requires logistical planning. As morbid as it sounds, it is much easier to walk a horse to his grave to put him down than to have to drag his body later.

I decided my job on Nick’s final night was to keep his barn buddy, Takoda, busy. I groomed and walked him, trying to keep his attention diverted from Nick being led away. Once the deed was done, Takoda seemed okay as long as he was eating, whinnying from time to time to call Nick. Roberta spoke to the vet about how to deal with Takoda’s need for companionship. Horses are herd animals and consequently, need to have some sort of herd companion. The vet said in extreme cases where two horses had bonded very closely, she’d had to sedate the healthy horse so the sick one could be lead away to be put down. She said Takoda would need someone, a goat, even a chicken if Roberta didn’t want to add another horse. Fortunately Takoda’s love for Nick wasn’t a life-long friendship. Ironically, Takoda had been brought in four years ago as a companion for Nick when his other buddy, Mirage, had to be euthanized. Roberta knew she’d have to put out feelers in the horse community for a new friend for Takoda.

Takoda and Nick

The next morning when Roberta turned Takoda out of his stall, he whinnied frantically and raced to Nick’s gravesite where he remained for quite a while. When I came for my normal visit in the afternoon, Takoda was in another part of the pasture , but he called to me. It was if he was saying, “You’re here as usual, so where is Nick as usual?” The next couple of days, we witnessed Takoda’s grief and anxiety. He continued to call out for Nick, visiting his grave or just looking depressed. It was heartbreaking to watch.

Nick passed away on a Wednesday night. By Friday, Roberta had found a horse in need. Her name was Shamrock “Shammy”, so named because she was born around St. Patrick’s day. Shammy was in a situation where the owner’s family had been trying to convince her to give up her neglected horses. Homes had been found for the other horses, but Shammy needed major TLC. Shammy also happens to be Takoda’s half sister as they share the same sire. I tried to convey the happy news with Takoda on Friday night; that his sister was coming and everything would be better, but he didn’t understand. Poor Takoda, a horse I normally describe as being like a big, goofy Dalmation, hung his head and looked away.

Shammy arrived Saturday morning and an entourage of horse women led her up the hill to her new home. Even though they couldn’t see each other yet, the two horses started calling in anticipation. The woods echoed with loud whinnies.

Shammy and Takoda were put in adjoining paddocks so they can touch without him trying to play too roughly until his sister builds up her strength. Shammy is a predominantly white paint mare with one blue eye, very underweight, her hooves badly needed trimming, her legs covered in swamp mud; she had reportedly been living in a small space covered in rock piles and wetlands. Within the first week of her arrival, Shammy had seen the ferrier, had her teeth done and received her physical from the vet. She eats constantly, as if she’s not sure when she’ll be fed again.

We miss old Nick, but having Shammy there has breathed new life into the barn. The mare probably feels like she’s the one who has gone to heaven. Her brother from another mother, Takoda, is just happy to have someone to horse around with again.

Takoda meets Shammy

Sometimes It Takes a Village

Living in a rural community like Ledyard may not seem exciting to some, but it isn’t devoid of adventure. We have chickens on our 3-plus acres and our neighbors, Walter and Roberta, have horses (and a lot more land). On a recent Sunday morning, Walter came to ask for our assistance; they had a horse down and needed help trying to get her back on her feet.

Roberta has a 3-stall barn which stables her two horses and another belonging to her friend Linda. Roberta found the horse down at 7 am when she normally feeds. It was Linda’s mare, Eve, who couldn’t get up. I grew up around horses, but the ones I had were young. Eve is 22-years-old and arthritic. Eve knows her limitations and consequently never sleeps lying down. When I walked in the barn and saw Eve lying flat out in her stall, my heart sank. There was blood high on the wall where Eve had hit her head when she fell. Periodically Eve would raise her head and thrash her front legs in an attempt to rise, but her hind legs never budged. The limbs were stuck in place, unable to bend as needed so the mare could get them underneath her body for support. Not sure how long Eve had been like this, we theorized that the right hind leg she lay on was probably numb from her weight. She needed to stand.

The vet arrived and gave her a shot to help with inflammation, pain, etc. He said if we could turn her over to her other side and massage the feeling back in Eve’s right hind leg, she had a good chance of getting herself up. Wide, flat straps were slid under Eve’s body on either end by Laura and Matt, Linda’s daughter and son-in-law. We tried to turn her with her legs facing the larger end of the stall. However, handling and maneuvering a 1000-pound animal with thrashing hooves in an enclosed space is dangerous. Linda had already been kicked by a flailing hoof before we got there.

Fortunately, the stalls were designed with removable partitions. By this time a few extra people had arrived and in short order two walls were taken out to give us more room. It took a couple of hours to widen the stall, the vet to visit and the horse pulled around to ensure that we had room to flip her over safely. We finally had the room to turn Eve over by wrapping lounge lines around her legs and pulling. Eve’s hind legs were massaged and moved for her to restore circulation, but didn’t work. Eve struggled to rise and gave a valiant effort to stay up, but then she fell back down on her bad side again, cutting her other eye and banging her head in the fall. All we could do was stand back and watch as getting in close was too dangerous. I was relieved Eve had been fitted with a horse helmet intended for protection while trailering.

For the short time we had the mare on her left side, the forcefulness of her initial fall was apparent in the swollen and bloody eye and the large scrapes on her right front leg. Antibiotic ointment was put in her damaged eye and we tried to keep a clean towel under whichever eye was ground-side.

After Eve’s major attempt to get on her feet failed, she seemed to give up. She was tired. Her tongue hung out of her partially opened mouth. Eve would take water from a turkey baster, but did little from that point on to help herself. Meanwhile, Laura didn’t give up trying to find someone in the horse community who had a horse sling. She figured that if we could support Eve from the barn beams in a sling, her legs could gain the strength to move and hold her again. Laura called everyone. My step-daughter, Erin, who works as an EMT for Ledyard Ambulance heard of Eve’s plight and asked for assistance from the Ledyard Fire Department. Next thing we knew, there were 30 people in the barn with the firefighters and police. Apparently, the fire department has been called on before to help farmers with their cows that get in similar predicaments. Labeling this mission as “Air Bag Training”, the firefighters tried to get Eve in more of sitting position by inserting air bags under her back to raise it.

In the end, this failed also. The firefighters left and the vet returned after visiting other patients to give Eve another shot. He offered little hope. I asked him how long we should give Eve. “Until dark,” he replied. It had already been about four hours. I tried to offer support to Eve’s owner Linda and got Eve’s history.

Eve was an accomplished dressage horse who was being retired from the show circuit when Linda bought her 12 years ago. Linda herself was retired and wanted a pleasure horse to ride occasionally. Even with Eve’s arthritis, she enjoyed getting out and being ridden. After a few hours of the torture of maneuvering Eve, her struggles, and the hopeless look on her face, Linda started talking about euthanasia. The rest of us had already concluded that it looked like the only humane outcome. More than once, I felt like I could break down and cry at the helplessness of the situation.

The main motivator who really kept pushing and continued calling around was Laura. The rest of us followed Laura’s suggestions. Linda looked just as beat as Eve, her face flushed and sweaty. It was a 90-degree day and although there are industrial sized fans blowing in the barn, it was sweltering. Walter kept all the helpers who came and went well supplied with bottled water. Eve received cold sponge baths to keep her temperature down in addition to the syringe-fed water.

Then we heard that a woman who was an expert in horse rescue was on the way. The fire department had called Ledyard Animal Control who called Tanya Wescovich from Stonington Animal Control. I was skeptical. What would a horse rescue person be able to do that we hadn’t already tried? Tanya came in, a formidable, loud, take-charge person who insisted that we were going to get Eve up. Her own 27-year-old gelding had “been stuck” a few times and she’d always gotten him back up. Tanya had also received extensive training in how to safely maneuver large animals out of tight places. Tanya proclaimed that we need to get Eve’s hind legs working again with massage and movement. We’ve done that.

Tanya had two helpers with her who apparently had experience with downed horses also. She instructed Linda to yell at Eve to get up, for Laura to hit her rump with a crop and for her friend to pull Eve’s head across her body instead of straight ahead. She warned us that it would look mean, but the point was to force the animal to do what she didn’t want to do.

The yelling, the crop, the pulling…I walked out of the barn. I couldn’t watch anymore. They were just going to wear out poor Eve more and the end result was going to be the same. I almost walked down the hill to our house, but I came back. It didn’t work. I noticed that Roberta, the barn owner, had left also. When Eve was allowed to put her weary head back down, she did so gratefully. She had had it.

Tanya declared the horse needed to be moved out of the barn so that the downhill slope of the paddock could help her get her legs under her. Tanya expertly directed the pullers of body straps to safely manipulate Eve’s legs and head through the stall door. It was like moving a large table through a narrow door; first the legs, go to one side, then the other legs. Three to four people would pull on a strap around Eve’s body on command, moving her a couple of feet, then stop and allow the horse to rest. Someone else would remain with Eve’s head to keep the towel under her eye for protection from sliding on the dirt. I noticed after she was outside that Eve’s gums were white. Her expression remained listless, her hind legs stiff and motionless.

The cold wet towels were constantly rotated on Eve’s body, her head wiped down, her legs manipulated until they moved more freely. Finally, Tanya said it was time to make her stand. “What if, after all this, it doesn’t work?” I asked the guy next to me. All the yelling, pulling on Eve’s halter to make her rise…it didn’t work. Eve fell again. I looked over at Linda. She was wiped and I felt sure she would burst into tears at any moment and tell everyone to stop torturing her horse. Enough was enough.

But it wasn’t enough. Walter has a small tractor with a front-end loader attachment. He drove it into the paddock area. At Tanya’s direction, towels were placed under the web straps around Eve’s body to pad right behind her front legs and in front of her hind legs. The straps were secured to the bucket and Walter slowly raised Eve’s body for her. At one point, the horse’s weight was too much and the arms of the loader started to come down, but people rushed in for additional support and held up the tractor’s arms. Eve’s hind legs remained listless as she stood there supported by the tractor. They were pushed into position under her body and the straps were unhooked. More cheers. Eve started to sit down and I saw another failure coming, but the horse was pulled forward, her rump was slapped repeatedly, and Eve started walking!

Eve had given up like most of the rest of us, but Tanya the miracle worker knew her stuff. In the end, the community came out to help a horse; Animal Control Officers on their day off, a police officer who had a farm and cared, the fire department, neighbors, friends, children drug by their parents who worked for Ledyard Ambulance. Walter declared this event had restored his faith in humanity. Roberta said she’d follow Tanya into battle. After a long, hot 8-hour ordeal that we were sure was going to end in a dead horse instead had the patient being lead around the paddock.

I went to visit Eve a couple of days later. Linda had spent that first night after the fall in the barn with her mare. Eve is sleeping (standing up) in the larger lean-to area attached to the side of the barn for now as there is a natural fear of putting her back in the smaller confines of a stall for a while. Her legs seem to be back to normal and her eye and abrasions are healing nicely. The only negative side effect is the nerve damage Eve has to the right side of her mouth which makes it difficult for her to eat anything but mash. The vet is hopeful that the nerves will heal over time.

Eve had come so close to being euthanized that trouble eating seems minor. In the end there was a community that cared enough to band together to save the life of a horse. Sometimes it does take a village.

Birthing Creatures Great and Small

I've now had the opportunity to witness the miracle of birth in at least four different species; humans, cats, chickens and now horses.  Of course, most of my experience has been midwifing for my Maine Coons.  I've delivered over sixty litters of kittens since I started breeding Maine Coons almost nine years ago.  Doing so has given me the confidence to feel as though I could successfully assist with the birth of just about any domesticated land mammal (no whales or dolphins though). 

Boom Boom with her litter of seven in 2006

When a cat is in labor, her entire body is affected by the contractions.  She may push for an hour or more until the first kitten begins to present itself, usually looking like a white grape because the amniotic sac often protrudes initially.  The queen may be silent or she may scream when the going gets tough, not too unlike us humans.  I've often wished I could offer my cats an epidural to relieve the pain, remembering how much I enjoyed the benefits of the drug with the birth of my first child (after four days of dysfunctional labor, I was ready for major drugs).

With a hen, she sits in the nesting box for anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours to deliver her egg.  My hens' eggs aren't fertile, but the hens still go through labor to lay an egg three to seven times weekly, depending upon the season and the individual hen.  Right before the egg comes out, the hen will often stand up to push.  The egg drops out, slightly damp.  The hen may remain on the nest for a while, but often she jumps off and announces her achievement with a very raucous squawking for several minutes before running out to join the rest of the flock.  No cord to sever, no baby to clean up and make sure is breathing; chickens have it easy except for the fact that they deliver their "babies" almost daily.

I volunteer a couple of days a week at a horse rescue farm, Beech Brook Farm, in Mystic, Connecticut.  One of the rescued mares, Mia, arrived scrawny and with rain rot, a fungal infection of the skin.  Within a few weeks of being well fed, it became apparent that Mia was with foal.  Not knowing when she was bred or by whom (what if the sire was a donkey?), the farm has been on foal watch for the past month.  The foal predictor test which uses the mother's milk, indicated that the foal was due last week.  Unlike cats which have a very narrow window for premature or late delivery around their 65 days of gestation, horses can deliver a few weeks on either side of their average gestation of 340 days.  The owner, Deborah, set up a foal cam in the designated birthing shelter in an effort to be prepared.  She even camped outside overnight with Mia on the weekends.

Last Friday, March 18, was my regular day to volunteer.  I had checked the farm's Facebook page that morning to see if there was a birth announcement, but Deborah had just posted that the foal predictor test had changed color so fast that morning that it was bound to happen that night.  The owner was going by what people who were more experienced at birthing foals had told her, that the babies are usually born at night.  Yeah, right.  That's what they say about cats too.  Babies come when the mother's body is ready to deliver.  Anytime, day or night, full moon or half moon, good weather or bad. 

I knew as soon as I saw Mia that she was going to have her baby that day.  Normally very quiet and reserved, Mia was restless, milk was dripping from her udder.  She lay down, she got back up.  Nancy, the other woman who volunteers with me, said Mia had been behaving that way the day before also, but without the dripping milk.  Not concerned, Nancy left to clean up the upper paddocks and stalls.  I cleaned one stall and kept watch on Mia.  Mia laid back down in her muddy paddock, ignoring her shelter with all the nice clean straw bedding.  I walked across the pasture to take a look at her back end and sure enough, that foal was on its way.  Deborah was at work and couldn't leave, the vet on call was in surgery.  We were on our own for this.  Luckily, it was uncharacteristically warm and sunny for March in Connecticut and about sixty degrees. 

Like I said, I was pretty confident about midwifing, but foals have these long legs and necks which can cause problems if they are presented incorrectly.  They are supposed to arrive in diving position; front feet first, head laying on top of the legs.  I had read all the James Herriott books and horse books years ago about how to reach in and turn babies around if necessary, but I hoped I wouldn't have to do anything like that.  Mia stretched out her front legs, half-sitting up at times to push.  She grunted a little, but otherwise Mia was very stoic.  Fortunately, the birth was textbook perfect.  The foal emerged feet and head first.  We had been instructed not to interfere at all, but I went ahead and broke the amniotic sac which contained the foal like a thin, translucent latex balloon so she could breathe and quickly wiped out her nostrils with a towel.  Mia's delivery went rapidly.  Although I'm sure she was in labor when I arrived at 9:45 am, she started really pushing at 10:30 and the foal was born at 10:45. 

Born on the muddy ground, Mia's foal with her amniotic sac still on her back, hind legs not out yet

Unlike cats, horses can't reach around to watch what's happening back there, nor can they easily clean up their new baby without standing up.  Mia didn't seem to want to stand while she felt something still hanging out of her so the baby stayed with her hind legs still submerged inside her mother for several minutes, wet and trying to maneuver her front legs under her body.  Mia actually looked pleasantly surprised when she sat up enough to look behind her and saw a pretty little Mini-Mia.  She nickered her excitement and tried to reach her baby from her lying down position.  If this were a kitten, the mother cat would be feverishly cleaning it and herself, severing the cord, probably eating the placenta (unless I take it away first) and preparing for the next kitten to arrive while the recently born searches for the milk bar.  Like all the hooved animals, foals have to be independently mobile quickly in order to keep up with the herd.  Born with her eyes open, Mia's foal was standing within 30 minutes.  The umbilical cord broke on its own and the amniotic sac remained hanging out of the mare until the placenta was delivered an hour later.  The foal fell a few times, but somehow managed to get her incredibly long legs under her and working.   In contrast, kittens are more needy at first, don't open their eyes and ears for about a week, standing and running at around 4 weeks.

Standing for the first time

With cats, the placenta follows the kitten within several minutes.  With horses, it can take one or two hours.  The vet arrived about an hour later to check out the new foal and shortly after, Mia lay back down to deliver the placenta.  Of course, it's all in proportion and I later picked up the placenta mass with a pitchfork, its job of nourishing life in the womb over.  Mia seemed relieved that she didn't have to worry about what to do with it.  Eating a placenta must be really gross for a vegetarian, but in the wild, that's what the mothers often do to keep from attracting predators. 

The vet gave mother and foal a shot of penicillin and did a quick exam of both, declaring the foal strong and healthy.  He agreed with me that we had a girl and that sexing kittens is infinitely more difficult than foals or puppies.  I'm still floating with the excitement of being able to watch a foal come into the world, happy that it all worked so well. The foal's back comes up to my hip, to give you an idea of her size.  The farm is having a contest to name the baby and raise funds on their Facebook page if you'd like more information and to participate. 

Mother and Daughter

Waste Management Large and Small

One may think that since I spend a good portion of my cat-care time cleaning up after them, I would be pretty sick of scooping poop.  Excrement is a fact.  "Everybody Poops" is a bumper sticker seen on a plumber's truck.  Sung to the tune of Camp Town Ladies, "What's in the bottom of the chicken coop?  Doo Doo!  Doo doo!"  No only do I clean multiple litter boxes, every morning I scoop the chicken caca out of their nesting boxes so their eggs have a clean place to land during the day.  Jay has provided a bucket for dung disposal so he can easily transport the chicken waste to the garden for composting. 

I blogged on April, 29, 2009 about my adventures with waste management and kittens.  Lately, I've been challenging myself to take on even more crap.  I started working as a volunteer a couple of days at week at Beech Brook Farm Equine Rescue, a farm that fosters and rehabilitates horses who would otherwise end up in a Mexican slaughterhouse.  The farm has 10 rescue horses, 4 miniature donkeys, 1 mini-pony, 2 goats, a bunch of chickens and a barn cat named Shadow.  The cause is noble, the work is daunting.

Main Barn with Shadow the Cat as the Resident Greeter

The horse rescue is a non-profit organization that relies on volunteers and monetary contributions.  Most of the volunteers are middle-aged women like myself, looking for way to reconnect with their childhood love of horses.  I suspect the bulk of it is financed personally by the owner, Debra, and her husband.  She told me the other day that she spent $17,000 last year just on hay.  I was attracted to the farm as a way to be around horses again without having to pay for lessons.  As a young girl, I was fortunate enough to have a pony and graduated to a horse as I grew.  Ever since I sold my horse before going to college, I've struggled for a way to stay connected to horses.  Oddly enough, one of my favorite smells is that of a horse barn.  I love the aroma of the hay, horse sweat and manure.  Vegetarian caca doesn't carry nearly the same punch as that from a carnivore, so I don't find it offensive like I do cat and chicken dung.  Well, chickens aren't exactly carnivores, more omnivorous actually, but they leave behind a lot of little stinkers. 

Thus far, my job at the barn is to muck out the stalls and paddock areas of the three barn areas and work with the horses as time and weather allows.  The owners have "real jobs" so although they feed and water, they need help during the week.  Beech Brook doesn't have the best set up I've seen; the property is on a steep, wooded hill, with upper, main and lower barns and paddocks carved out in the trees.  Two of the areas are just three-sided shelters with paddocks. The only area I'd call a pasture is probably about an acre.  The owners' home is nested in the middle of the hill, between the upper and lower barns. 

Upper Walk-in Barn

While I use a plastic pooper scooper to transport kitty waste to the garbage can outside in a plastic bag, at the barn I use a multi-tined pitchfork to rake and shovel horse manure into a wheelbarrow which I then push up the hill to the manure pile.  I try to speed up as I reach the dumping pile to get enough momentum, flip the wheelbarrow up and hope that most of manure falls out.  Then I have to twist the wheelbarrow back and forth on its wheels to shake the rest out.  My asthma usually kicks in during the wheelbarrow part, especially with the cold weather.  When it's wet outside, my jeans get splattered with horse excrement.  When it's freezing, I have to kick the manure piles loose with my boot so I can get the rake under them.  Sometimes the piles are so frozen, I can't break them up without fear of breaking a toe.  Of course, there's always the horse supervision during the process which involves maneuvering through the snow with a wheelbarrow loaded to overflowing with crap, a pitchfork balanced on top and not allowing a pushy beast to escape for a romp through the woods. This is waste management at its best.

The Manure Pile

A Day at the Races

Last weekend, Jay and I visited friends Jo-Ann and her husband Chris in upstate New York.  The stated purpose behind our visit was to retrieve my cat Olivia, who has been there for the past several weeks to be bred.  Jo-Ann and Chris proposed that we spend Saturday in Saratoga, about an hour away from them.  Game to an adventure that involved horses, we agreed.  I had not been to a horse race in 25 years.

Jo-Ann put together a lovely spread involving cheeses, figs, Italian bread, mimosas, etc. and we got there around 7 am to sit in someone else's box seat.  This is allowed before the races start in the afternoon.  As we dined, a commentator told us about the horses passing by to warm up on the track, muddy from the previous day's downpour.  Later, Jay and I took a tour of the stable area behind the scenes while Chris and Jo-Ann secured seats in the grandstand so we could have shelter from the sun.  While waiting for post time, we walked into downtown Saratoga to window shop and get lunch. 

Morning Warm Up

By post time at 1 pm, it was a sweltering summer day, unusually hot for upstate New York.  The weather was around 95 degrees with a humidity that required the wiping of perspiration from one's face every five minutes.  We were sweating from places that shouldn't be sweating.  Jo-Ann and I sat in the two seats behind our husbands, me in my big hat I'd purchased in a Saratoga shop.  One thing I noticed once the crowds came in was that even in this era of casual dress, the women were dressed beautifully.  I now had the styling race-track hat, but I certainly wasn't wearing the designer dress and 5-inch heels.   

Jo-Ann and I

The men were off somewhere trying to locate the paper that told about each horse so Jo-Ann and I decided to place a bet blindly.  She bet on the horse in the green silks and I on Number 7, both to show.  Not very scientific, but we did win something like $2.80.  Jay and Chris had more of an idea of how to place bets, so we encouraged them to take on the task later.  It was all very fun, albeit hot, watching the horses, the people, the races and just enjoying each other's company.  It was especially fun when our chosen horses started winning money for us. 

Then a young couple climbed the stairs, settling in their seats directly behind us.  The man was non-descript, dressed practically for a hot day at the races.  The woman was very attractive, blond hair, tan slim body, wearing a sculptured black dress and bright red stillettos.  Her diamond jewelry was in the shape of two horseshoes hooked together, a matching necklace and earrings.  She appeared to ooze class and money.

Since the men had to turn around to talk to us, it was probably them who noticed it first. 

"Look at the woman seated behind you."

I turned casually, facing her knees at almost eye-level.  Except I didn't see her knees.  She was sitting with her knees spread wide apart, her red bejeweled panties staring right back at me.  Yes, I clearly saw the rhinestones on her panties.  Apparently she was so hot  she didn't care about the stir she was causing in the rows in front of her as she aired her pretty panties.  Even if she got up to walk around between races, Miss Red Panties always sat back down in the same not-so-lady-like position.

Now giggling like adolescents, Jo-Ann and I had plenty of comments:

"At least they match her shoes."

"At least she's wearing panties."

"Jay, put your eyes back in your head."

"That reminds me, I need to make an appointment to see my gynecologist."

Trying not to be too obvious, we got a picture......

Jo-Ann Seated in Front of Miss Red Panties