Desert Horses

Welcome to my horse blog, Desert Horses. We live in the desert southwest, near Palm Springs, CA, but board our horses up in our local mountains where it is cooler in the summer. I have 4 horses, all rescues. Here is the ranch up the mountains where the horses stay.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

SAND!!! and Quad update







Quad isn't out of the woods yet (sigh...) Poor baby! He has now passed out a LOT of sand and his poop is normal, but he is still stretching and looking at his tummy. I took him for a LONG walk yesterday, gave him some soupy bran mash, and he perked up. We will go up to the ranch to see him this afternoon, after school.

In the meantime, I took a couple of photos of the horses and the sand that we deal with up there. It is WORSE down here in the desert. Look, Cali and Sunni have a hay feeder. AND...WHERE do they eat their hay? Yup. On the sand! They throw it on the sand and eat it every day (twice a day)! Go figure. Hubby is going out today to look for more rubber mats (he's off for the next two days and has time to do this).

Sunni was saddled and RIDDEN by my cousin yesterday and I'll post those pics later this week! Just too worried about Quad right now.

5 comments:

Molly said...

Very troubling about Quad. He is too sweet to have to suffer. I hope it all gets better today.
Sunni under saddle! I can't wait.

Anonymous said...

I don't know much about sand colic as we don't see much of it here. What is the treatment to remove the sand from the horse's system and then to keep more sand from getting in?

Mikey said...

I hope Quad gets better soon! That's so very scary!!!

Ok, had to laugh. My word verification is UNSANDI. How weird is that????

Nuzzling Muzzles said...

I've been thinking about what can be done to prevent horses from dragging their feed out onto the ground and eating it there. I think the trick is to have a feeder on the ground, like a sheep feeder, with a grate over the top of it only big enough for the horse's nose to get between the bars. That way when they pull the hay out, it falls straight back down into the feeder instead of on the ground like it would with a standing or wall feeder, and they can't pull the entire flake out to throw on the ground. I think that's what Sydney was describing that someone invented. Obviously, it's not mass marketed yet. I hope Quad can clean out his system and feel better soon.

Cactus Jack Splash said...

Sunni you rock!!! That is wonderful to read about her progress.
I commend you on the wonderful care that you are giving Quad...
This is so scary, I so feel for you. Hang in there all of you.
Jingles from all of us here