Coco's still lame...it sucks. I know it's going to take a few days for him to feel better, but he's not the same horse when he's hurting. He got lots of lovin' on today, though, and an extra special feed treat (to disguise his bute).

We both rode Seven again today. Mike had her doing halt to canter transitions with just a kiss. It was really epic to see. I cooled her out by riding around the farm for about 20 minutes and wasn't thinking and kissed to her as we started up a hill. She blasted up it full speed. Good girl. She was just doing what I told her to <3!

We have to make a trip to the feed store tomorrow so I can pack more supplements. They're not open on Wednesday and they're the only feed store within 45 minutes so I just packed what I could. I'm going to bump her rice bran up to two scoops for a week or two and see if I can't get those ribs covered up. We're working her so much more consistently now that it's kinda tough to get her to gain like I want. Don't get me wrong, the muscle gain is much better than fat, but I don't like ribby horses.

I think I err on the side of caution when dealing with my own horses. Like, I'm wary of over-feeding because of founder, but I really have no idea how much food it takes to push a horse over the edge. I'm pretty sure I'm well within safe parameters considering the amount of Alfa-Mo we were recommended to feed Seven every day. A whole bucket?! Holy crap! Ok, though...she's the vet and it seems to be working.

Sometimes I find myself judging other people's horses, thinking "Man, that horse is thin with a crappy topline, they should do xxx to put some weight on them", when my own damned horses have weight issues and shitty toplines, too. I never give advice, if I can help it though, you know? Like, if someone asks me about a product I've used I'll gladly give them my opinion, but I could never tell anyone how to feed or condition a horse. Because I don't freakin' know!

Using my own horses as an example, we had a very good vet tell us that we should take Seven completely off alfalfa and put her on straight bermuda hay with only a small amount of feed (like one scoop) with her supplements. We did exactly what we were told and for a while she looked great. She dropped her excess weight and was looking pretty good. The problem was she didn't maintain on that diet and kept losing weight until she was at the point where I was embarrassed that I owned her.

I totally don't try to self-medicate though. Next time we had a (different) vet out I made sure to have a list of questions about what I needed to do get her weight back up. I'm following those directions coupled with some advice from an experienced horse person at the barn and I'm getting results. The best part of this situation is, now I have someone on the inside who can keep an eye on her (the person at the barn is also the person who feeds my horse every day) who knows what and how much food she's getting.

That got long winded! Anyway, hopefully I'll have some pics tomorrow. Yay, horses!