i have lesson notes to update on & pics and vid. realise that i have no posted the pics and vid from my last lesson either... i am a bad blogger.
couple of things.
1. FUCK. am seriously fucking broke. like !@#!@# broke. least i am getting a paycheck tho, thank god. paid no utilities bills this pay because of the vet situation....
got home early from work yesterday to find stan all scratched up. $167 vet bill later... cat has a buckethead, been injected with painkillers & anti biotics and also have a course of tablets for him. HOWEVER, vet advised a $600 operation to suture the wound from the inside out (it's this little awkward spot right between his eyes, basically on bone), but after paying $1600 for taz last weekend... i just don't have the money, or even the emergency money, so we are seeing what happens. fingers x'd it won't form a cystoma (or something like that). vet said that in 25 years of er,,, vetting, he'd never seen a cut the way stan had one.
and i know 99.9% of you will think i am a bad pet_owner for letting my cat outdoors & thus allowing him to get into this situation (aka, a fight with our neighbour's cat, Poshka... FUCKING poshka) and you're welcome to think whatever you want. i know the indoor/outdoor thing seems to cause a LOT of conflict between people, and i'm a member of
stupidpetowners and have been for years & have seen the rants from people about their friends/cuzns/whatevs
BUT i don't need any comments on THAT, thankyouverymuch.
2. after seeing THAT vet i then raced off to taz's paddock to see my vet, martin & get a follow up drench. Taz went to Belvoir, which is this big fancy clinic up on the hill. my usual vet doesn't have a clinic.
anyways, i am thinking i prob should have brought taz home & just got martin to do call outs & it prob would have been cheaper... but anyways, enough of that.
felt so much better with martin tho, nothing against anoushka, who was wonderful... but it's nice having ur own vet that you know. one thing he did which anoushka didn't, was put the stethoscope to his tummy & listen for sand. then he plugged it into my ears so i could hear it. then he investigated the paddock & said that although it looks green, it's pretty much a crap pasture & i need to get all the horses in that paddock onto hay, asap. i knew in my heart this was true, because there's quite a lot of guilford grass & not so much kykuyu anymore. ironically, the pasture at the end of summer was probably better than now because the paddock was over grazed with up to 7 horses on it during the autumn (and growing) months.
anyways. taz is full of sand & martin reckons he will colic again.
SO. he got a paraffin & other goodies drench & i've started him on the 1 cup, 2 cups, 3 cups for 5 days Psyllium Husk thing. i just mixed it into his dinner last night & he managed to avoid it all. when i got there this morning, it had rained a bit, causing the leftover psyllium in taz's dinner bucket to slime up. gross!
kept him locked up overnight so i could monitor what he passed. oil came out, & shifted a lot of sand in ONE poo, but not so much in subsequent poos, tho i can't be 100% sure unless i do the water/poo test.
went to my feedstore today & bought up molasses, psyllium, hay & sweetbulk. Sweetbulk is a pretty crap feed, basically 70% sugar (molasses) to make it palatable, BUT it is made from Oat husks, which are great at sand removal. i used to feed it to beej when i first got him, but it made him a loopy lala (although... in retrospect, i doubt it made that much difference!).
anyways, mixed up 2 cups psyllium with some molasses & sweetbulk & taz basically inhaled it. was also a gorgeous day out, so left his rug off & also stripped leone's two as well.
so hopefully, we'll get the sand moving & keep this bitch of a thing at bay.
3. AWESOME lesson on my pony. absolutely wicked. i'll do a whole post of it's own for that one.