Weighty Issues

A few weeks ago, I got out of the far end of a few very busy weeks and noticed that Foxie, now 20, had lost a pretty substantial amount of weight since I last looked at her very hard. She had ribs showing, and had lost fat pads along both sides of her spine - a Henneke scale 3 or 4, compared to her usual 5. 

Of course, what I did was immediately start to make changes, but weight gain, especially for an elderly thoroughbred, is not a swift thing. She's getting extra grain, and now, extra hay; moving her to a paddock would give her less potential to eat hay than she has now, and night turn out is less of an optimal idea simply because she would shiver the weight back off come winter. 

The issue, I am pretty sure, is in the fact that she's not getting enough hay. She went from easy access slow feed hay (albeit, of sometimes dubious quality) to being kept off the round bale by other horses. Depending on who was doing chores, she'd get 3-4 flakes - or sometimes two. And she was getting a grain with the following stats:

Protein - 14%

Fat - 10%

Fiber - 18%

She's now getting 2 flakes at night (last night we bumped this up to 3-4, as much as she can/will eat) and Assurance Performance Blend, which has the following:

Protein - 12%

Fat - 7%

Fiber - 10%

Clearly, we've changed two things pretty drastically, though I didn't really realize it until she dropped the weight. So we need to add some fat back into her diet, and some fiber. For now, I'm hoping 1-2 extra flakes of hay will help in the fiber department. Fox has been getting extra grain (the old stuff, with higher fiber) which she will now get (at least until I run out) in addition to extra hay in the evening. The feed will give her some extra fat and fiber (and protein, but whatever, the extra just pees out anyways). Once we move her to a full scoop of the Assurance 2x a day, which is my eventual plan, she will be getting more calories than she was at the old barn. I hesitate to pile more grain on her, when I'd prefer to do hay, but a girl has got to do what a girl's gotta do - at least until I can move my horses to my own property. Until then, lets take a look at what I can do to top-dress the hay and grain situation I do have:

Grain:

I could always go back to adding grain to add calories. Ultium has done great things in the past, and as a top dress, wouldn't be as annoyingly expensive as it was as a main feed. My options here would be:

More Assurance Performance Blend - 12 / 7, approximately 1700 calories/lb. I can double the amount she gets currently with no problems and no extra money spent.

Ultium Competition blend - 11.7 / 12.4, approximately 1900 calories/lb. I'd be bringing this in on my own, so I hesitate to do it unless the Assurance can't do the job.

Currently, Fox is getting the last of the Purina Equine Senior Active along with her 1/2 scoop 2x daily of the Assurance Performance blend. 

Supplements:

While Smartpak does offer "weight gain" supplements... I'm entirely suspicious of them. If you can't tell me the calories in the little well, I am not going to use it. There are other options out there:

Purina Amplify: 30% Fat, 14% protein. 2000 calories/lb

Nutrena Empower: 33% fat, 12% protein.

While Amplify will always be a product I'm hugely fond of, I again hesitate because of the extra cost. It will stay in my back pocket should we need it. 

Extra Forage:

Alfalfa Cubes and/or Pellets: These  products would be additional fiber. Since Fox can't get hay in the AM, and has 4 flakes (hopefully) PM, she may just be foraged out if I try to add extra to her diet. These would need to be soaked, too, which isn't something barn crew does. 

So, what do I do?

For now, we're going to up the PM forage, and wait for the extra grain to run out. Then, we will add more Assurance blend - 1 scoop AM and PM vs her previous 1/2 scoop to see where that gets us. After a few weeks of the extra grain, we'll see where she's at. If she's gaining, we'll wait and see. If she hasn't been gaining, I'll be looking into extra fat sources (rice bran, Amplify, etc). If she will eat it, I will be giving her extra forage in pellet form to add additional calories.

BB has been looking good, but I have noticed her girth goes up about 2 holes higher than it usually does. I plan to knock her up to 1 scoop AM and PM - or maybe just PM (?) and give her some alfalfa pellets after we ride. 

Ah, the joys of owning Thoroughbreds :)

Endless Searches: Grooming Bags

With the pending (correction, it's now mine!) happenstance ownership of a very nice looking tack locker, I've started to consider life outside of a Stanley trunk. Most people use them only to show... but I've been living out of my Stanley for the past 4 years. My barn had super sketchy tack buildings, but no tack room with lockers and nice things like I was used to... so I packed my stuff into my then show trunk, made sure I had a lock or two on it to protect it from thieving highschool girls and learned to live out of a box.

Look, it's my stuff in a (new!) box!

It got really tight, once I had two horses. Then I got a second trunk, and that made life easier. And now I don't need one, at all. Technically. What does this have to do with anything? Well, my grooming kit needs a new home. I used to stash it in a good old fashioned bucket. And that worked for quite some time. Other than the usual several times yearly routine of emptying it and dumping out the bottom layer of nasty, it worked out ok. Keeping the two horse's grooming tools separate at least in use is still a bit of a losing battle; I get lazy and use one horse's curry on both of them, and constantly steal the one mid-soft brush I have back and forth between the two trunks but most of the time, I behave. For a while I was rocking shower totes from the clearance post-college section of Target; I had a silicone one and my old canvas/plastic one from when I was actually in school. Those worked for a time, but eventually were overcome with hair and dusk and that random sticky something that I can never seem to figure out.

Already I can tell I have some organization issues to resolve... this is the biggest one!

My grooming tools are currently housed in the Stanley trunk trays - because I had two, I could keep them separate. Now that I'm hoping to consolidate most of my day-to-day stuff down to my (new to me) tack locker (and hang cross ties so I don't have to tie, and probably will keep one Stanley trunk in place with spare pads, boots, coolers, etc in it...) I'm starting to go shopping for a grooming tote.

My problem with grooming totes in general is that they're either a) floppy fabric versions of a college shower caddy or b) plastic blocky versions of a college shower caddy. And grooming bags and shower caddies have the same problems: moisture retention/mold, random sticky stuff and general Nasty.

Image shamelessly stolen from Stirrups and Sparkles because... perfect demonstration of my problem with grooming bags,

My wishlist is:

Easy to clean
Doesn't retain moisture
Keeps bottles and tins upright (preventing sticky stuff)
Easy to brush/dump out  - or even better - doesn't retain horse hair and brush dirt
Not too many pockets, but enough to keep things organized.


Of course, I want the fancy Noble Outfitters Equissential tote, because it's expensive and fancy and my barn owner has one and it looks ever so posh with all of her other fancy stuff. And it's looking better day by day.

Borrowed from Stirrups and Sparkles 

The only brush tote/bag/etc of any kind that can hold a candle to the logical storage, ease of cleanliness and general use of logic that appears to be behind the Noble Outfitters bag is JenJ's Amazon find - in big part because of the price. I've combed more shower caddies, tool bags and anything else I can think of...

Image stolen from JenJ's Review because I'm a terrible person

I wonder, is the Noble Outfitters really worth an extra 20$?

That Time I Did Stuf

Lets recap this week, because I'm bored at work, burned out from stress and saddle sore. It's a great combo, let me tell you.

I didn't make it to the barn Friday, but rode both horses on Saturday morning. I'm trying to remember what I did with Bailey; I know I did flat with Fox and popped her over the cavaletti up in the jump arena, but no idea what the red horse did. Whoops. 

Tuesday, I sat on Foxie and we did a bit of jumping since the jumps were set at Fox size. She seemed happy to be jumping, but morally opposed to giving to the bridle, and stiffer through her back than usual... the crack in her front hoof is also getting worse (...yaaaay) so I just kind of let her be. After dinking around and taking some photos of western barn friend J, I convinced her to walk over to the XC to video B and I while we played around. We discovered water in the water complex (like 4 whole inches of it, maybe) and finally got some media of the picnic table. Bailey was happy and pretty forward (while simultaneously feeling like she was going in slow motion). Our brakes weren't the most accurate, but I'm starting to think she just wants to be back in her regular snaffle some more. I may stick the waterford on her jump bridle just for kicks, or look into a slow twist loose ring... but maybe I just need to learn to lighten my horse's front end.

I also started a business (officially, it's been brewing for a while) on Tuesday, acquired my first clients and my first work, which I will do at Roebke's Run this weekend. Whoo! Second income FTW. 

By Thursday I had (still) been going non-stop, so while I waited for my fitness buddy to show up, I worked Fox in the upper small outdoor. Our farm is hosting the MN Highschool Rodeo this weekend (I picked a great weekend to be working) and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take her for a paddle in the XC water, so we stuck to the arena. The toe crack seemed tender, but I also realized post ride that she was out of previcox, so that could definitely account for the general sense of discomfort. She also looked AWFUL weight wise, so I'll be watching her carefully to make sure we don't need to up her feed. I also want to get at least Bailey going on the hay hoop train... she had more hay than usual last night (Thursday) but it was strung all over her stall like it was a party. Um, no. 

Bailey got to do some long trots last night, which was a piece of great planning because it was 85+ degrees yesterday and both horses were sweaty (B was DRENCHED) coming out of their stalls. She actually dried once we were out doing work, which was crazy. We did a few circuits with plenty of walk breaks - it was kind of nice to be out with J's horse because she makes B feel less slow. We'll see how her energy levels are on Monday - maybe she's fitter than I think (or we didn't actually push her. or both). 

Video of the XC from this week coming up next!

I'm All Starts and No Finishes

I keep starting posts and not finishing them.

I haven't gotten to ride much this week (barn time tonight - YES!) and with the dog going off to hunt training, I'm hesitantly excited to do lots of riding in between worrying that he may die from lack of cuddles.

Cuddles are necessary when you're this cute.

Post stick jumping thoughts, I've had a fantastic, low demand, low fence jump school when I was intensely short on time and a dressage school, because, well, I got a new girth and wanted to use it. I'm petty, sue me. Both rides were in a snaffle, and both rides were without gloves; I'm starting to wonder if it's one or the other (or both?) that are contributing to the well behaved beast. We've done some canter poles (ok, they were raised cavaletti that she kept jumping in the dressage saddle) and the jump school maybe had a fence that was 2'3. It was all very low key and I have been nothing but happy with the red horse. 

Foxie has done more serious jumping lately than Bailey has.

And no, you didn't just misread. The retired horse with the blown suspensory did some jumping for me on Memorial Day... and she was great. It started with a lot of tack walking in the dressage saddle. Then we discovered a downed fence, and in the process of putting it back up... we might have gone and schooled in the XC field first. And yes, I jumped in Bailey length stirrups in a dressage saddle and a pelham, because we're swagtastic like that. It started with walking up the baby banks. Then trotting them. We tried the ditch, and besides a big dramatic stop-and-jump-the-littler-one-next-to-it move, she was happy to leap over them from the trot and roll over them at the canter. We tried the next size up of bank, and she was enthusiastic. Pointed her at one of the little 1' cavaletti jump things? Happy cantering mare jumped.

Happy jumping bean has always been happy jumping

It was interesting; she didn't swap her lead coming in like she used to, and she was very happy and pretty relaxed (albeit quite forward) for the whole affair. I seriously missed jumping that horse, and she's so different from Bailey. There's so much more horse out in front of you, and while I LOVE Bailey, there's something about the 11 year relationship between Foxie and I that makes things work just that much better together. She still didn't want to be held anywhere near the base, but she jumped happily and confidently, and I was really focusing on that because I do worry, sometimes, that her work ethic and need to please get in the way of her telling me that something hurts.

We jumped the middle one, for reference. 

She got a good bath, lots of pepper mints, and many pats for her efforts. Once she was cooled out and settled, I pulled  Bailey's mane (I can't believe she stood so well for that, either) and felt like riding her after such an annoying process would just be cruel. I'm looking forward to getting on the Bmonster again tonight. Not sure what's on the docket depending on footing, temperature and whether its raining, but I'm content. I'm not competing this year; maybe a schooling show or two, but that's it. I'm happy to just have my girls, and to be having fun. I'm thrilled to have XC to play on in the mean time, too!