I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s so sudden. Claude was fine that morning, too.
Wait. She just had a pretty crazy heat cycle so can’t be pregnant unless there’s something else that could mimic heat?
Some pregnant mares show signs of being in heat until they foal out.
Honey is looking much better. The 3 top photos show dapples. Very pretty.
Ooh yikes. I thought it stopped totally.
Thank you!
So sorry about your dog, a loss like that is tough.
Glad that you are giving us an update, she looks very relaxed in her new home!
I think she already loves it. She is meeting friends through the fence and should be moving to the huge grass pasture with her herd in a week or 2. Tbd on that.
It honestly made me tear up. I feel like I did right by her.
In order to most effectively feed her, you really need to weigh her grain and hay flakes. The Kcal are based on pounds, not volume. Once you figure out what her ideal weight should be and how much feed she will need to get to that weight over several months, and what it will take to maintain her ideal weight when you reach the goal, things may fall into line more smoothly.
Yep. As someone who was once pumping 30,000kcal into a horse at a low end boarding barn (not speaking to OP’s situation, just mine), a simple kitchen scale was a GODSEND. I didn’t even account for hay calories, just the cubes and grain he was fed. This was because I couldn’t guesstimate well due to the barn being… flakey with hay (pun intended). It worked, eventually, because I had no clue we were VASTLY under feeding some of the grains. Cheap stuff is lightweight for the volume.
Anyways, a kitchen scale can let you weigh out the average “scoop” weight of your feeds and use those to calculate as her needs change. I have a chart on my phone with all my collected data and refer to it often. Also, FeedXL!
Agree, and you only need to weigh it once, mark your scoop to identify what volume equals what weight of which feed, and go!
Its really not as involved as it may seem.
It definitely can be eye opening.
Yes - this. My little red plastic Folgers scoop provides 1.1 pounds of Triple Crown Senior Gold. I just say it’s one pound and everyone gets a “bonus” with every scoop.
I’ll give it a shot!
Don’t tell anyone, cough cough, but you can also put your scoop amount into a plastic baggie and quickly drop it on the scale at your local grocery store. Most have them in the produce department.
I am really sorry. Our dog passed of the same.
Thank you for the update. I am really, really sorry about the loss of your beloved dog. It just makes everything that much harder doesn’t it? Hang in there.
That is great news that her hoof rads were decent and nothing a good farrier can’t fix in a few cycles. Its so helpful to have that baseline to give your farrier something to work off of.
Do you know what kind of hay she is getting? Timothy,orchard, bermuda, alfalfa, teff? Availability & quality depends so much on region, so ‘hay’ can vary quite a bit.
I’ll try to find out the hay type!
Thank you
It’s crazy how sudden it is, right? I’m so sorry for your loss.
So glad to see you come back, especially with all the other stresses in your life. Honey looks like she’s filling out well,came let us hope it’s not because she’s pregnant!
Your description of how the new barn does things is encouraging. People may have jumped to conclusions about “pasture board” which so often means a bunch of horses out in a field with one size fits all care.
Thanks so much for the update. So sorry about your dog. Hope the move goes well. Looks like Honey’s move was pretty darn good.
In these pictures, she looks like she has a big body, bigger than it looked in the original pictures (to me at least; and by big body I mean skeletally not just with weight). So I imagine putting weight on will take longer than most think.
I think you’re doing a great job, please update when you can.
Thank you!
Very glad you are still with us, hang in there. Since much advice was no or only light riding for some time? You are right on target- it was meant to be.
Transitional heats when mares go from estrus to anestrus over the winter can be wicked as the hormones are all over the place. Usually in Sep and Oct as the days shorten up. When the cycle ramps up again as the daylight hours increase, Marchish, you get the transitional hormone swings again until they level out. If course in estrus, they are ovulating and you might get that…slutty…behavior until it shouts down in the fall. Nature does not want midwinter babies for horses.
All mares are different as are we humans so theres no etched in stone absolutes. We girls know better.