Unhappy Camper

Today I could only be at the barn for an hour, but Skye made it pretty interesting. She has now been confined to the stall or allowed in the round pen (usually for about 2 hours a day) for 4 days, and she is about ready to blast off into the atmosphere. When I got there, no one else was there and I called to her as I came walking up. She answered back big time. Big impatient whinny. I said hello to her then turned to unlock the tack room, and she continued grumbling.

I got her out and put her in the round pen, and though she was polite in being led in there, she wheeled away from me when I took her halter off and walked around a couple of times pretty quickly. Not dangerously so, but enough to let me know she had some energy to burn. Which was fine. I filled the hay bag in the pen and filled it, then went to check her stall to see if it needed cleaning.

Unhappy camper.  Still pretty though!

There was no poop in there, which is good, but there was no hay or even an empty hay bag in there either, which is bad. I had specifically asked for her to have hay and water all the time. Anyway, I don't think she was hungry, as she ignored the hay bag in the pen, but I think it did contribute to her boredom.

When I drove in I had noticed that her pasture was empty, and sure enough Skye's herd had been moved to what I call the "shady" pasture because it has so many nice trees. It also happens to face the round pen. I thought this would be a good thing so Skye and her buddies could all see each other. Not so much! Skye spotted them immediately, and called out, but they essentially ignored her. It hurt my feelings. I didn't initially see Reebok, so I went to make sure he hadn't repeated yesterday's performance and leapt out. He came over to me for some love. I had assumed he would follow me to the gate so Skye could see him, but no luck.  She stood craning her neck to see her buddies through the trees, and I felt so bad for her. Here they were in this nice rested pasture (with actual green stuff to munch), and she was stuck in a little pen with some hay and an increasingly bad attitude.

So sad.

When I got her out to unwrap her leg, paint it with DMSO and re-wrap it, she was a handful. She actually tried to push me around with her head, so I had to walk her around and back her up. She calmed down and straightened out pretty quickly, but then her attitude deteriorated again once in the cross ties. By that time, a couple who owns a sweet horse out there had arrived, and I had one of them hold her head while re-wrapped. She was pretty good about it, but visibly unhappy. I felt bad enough for her that I left a message for the vet asking about the possibility to letting her back in her pasture. The lump is smaller, but I think the shrinkage has stalled. Anyway, she didn't get back to me before 5 so I won't hear back until Monday. There should be a lot of activity around the barn over the weekend so maybe that will help.

In other news, I looked in on Mistletoe and lo and behold, two pieces of solid poop. Yay! I praised her for her production and she looked rather pleased with herself. I'm so glad to see that little woolly worm feeling better.

The Divine Miss M posing with her poop.
She is not actually possessed, it's just that my
correction of the reflection wouldn't show up.
Trust me, she's cute.