Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ellie – 04/30/09

It’s Ellie’s four week anniversary today and I’m happy to say that her spooky evil twin went on vacation, hopefully for good. Within a few days of my last post she started calming back down and enjoying human interaction again. Glenn still can’t get near her unless I’m with her, but he doesn’t get to spend as much time with her as I do.

She’s been out with the main herd for almost two weeks, but spends most of her day pacing the fence and calling to me to open the gate and let her out into the yard. Yes, she’s a bit spoiled. The rest of the horses can’t figure out what her problem is as they continue to graze on the spring grass coming up in the pasture.

She’s down to three feedings a day now:

6AM – 2 quarts beet pulp, 1 quart 12% sweet feed, 2 cups rice bran, electrolytes, 1/2 cup flax seed

2PM - 1 quart beet pulp, 1/2 quart 12% sweet feed

8pm – 2 quarts beet pulp, 1 quart 12% sweet feed, and 2 cups rice bran.

You can still see her ribs and hip bones, but at least now when she lays down her stomach sticks up higher than those hips! Her hair is coming back in where rain rot had made her bald and the open sores that she had in numerous places have healed up and are growing over with hair. She’s still overly sensitive about being touched in the girth area and jumps away whenever I try to brush her there.

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Her vulva infection has cleared up and she’s starting to play with the other horses more often, trotting and cantering around the pasture whenever the mood hits her. She’s got a lovely free flowing trot and a lope that looks wonderfully smooth. In another two weeks I’ll start ground work with her to increase muscle mass and get her back to where she should be.

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3 comments:

Lena said...

She looks A LOT better! Sheesh - just look at difference between the pictures in your last post about her! I can't see her face very well, but she seems to have lost a little of that "scared and haunted" look she had in the pictures before. That's a very good thing!

wvfarmgirl said...

Good! I'm glad to hear someone thinks she looks better. I was trying to compare pictures to the last post, but I'm just impatient and I want a big fat happy pony NOW!

Sylvia said...

I think she looks much improved!! I can't wait to see what her true coat color will be. Glad to hear she's become friendly again.