Lonely Boy

January 28, 2024

Howdy folks,

Well, we had one blister of a week!  We finally had to trailer one of our wild horses to take him to the vet and it was quite the undertaking.  As I've mentioned before, we've been having trouble with our one horse and his hooves had gotten really long.  Originally, I thought that he might have fallen on the ice, because I noticed him hobbling around after the first ice storm of the winter back in December.  Whether or not that was actually the case, what was the case was that his hooves were growing out really long and he was beginning to founder.  Foundering, or laminitis, is an issue with some horses, not completely unlike diabetes in humans, and by that I mean that nutrition and diet can have very significant effects on the body and circulation to the extremities.  With a horse like that, you just can't give it any sweet feed or alfalfa.  Now, on the sweet feed end of things, I can assure you that these horses don't get a speck of grain.  However, even before I started taking care of these horses, alfalfa was a part of their diet and still remains so to this day.  With the other nine horses there's not any such issues, or, to put it another way, we've never gone over their particular threshold with them or crossed that imaginary line that was more than their bodies could handle.  I think this guy, Hidalgo is his name(also known as Bubba-Bubba), has been suffering from this condition ever since he was born and it's just who he is.  Since I've been here, I've seen his hooves get really long and shaggy...very wide, with steep edges on the front hooves and only narrow extensions on the back ones.  This has happened multiple times and each time, eventually, his hooves start breaking off and reverting back to their original size(they're not shod and there's never anything keeping their hooves from chipping).  Normally, these guys walk around grazing all day long and they keep their own hooves trimmed just right because of it.  As Hidalgo got worse a few weeks ago, he could be seen really starting to lean backwards, shifting all of his weight that way, and more and more I'd catch him lying down and resting.  The boss got some neighbors to come over and check him out and they, all being ranchers, simply let her know that he should be shot.  Period.  Easy fix.  I completely resisted this and reminded the boss that these weren't work horses or race horses or show horses and that she put them out to pasture the day they came here.  That's a final end game for some lucky horses after a life of toil, but it is the situation for all of our brats...i.e.,. nothing needed to change, Hidalgo would be fine and I'd nurse him back to health.

So, after the visits by the neighbors passed and, other than cutting out the alfalfa from his diet, we had not done anything else other than to corral him and keep him separated so that he didn't make the condition worse, the boss wanted me to take him to the vet in Santa Fe.  Now, these horses are not broken, trained and have never been haltered, so this was a rather tall order.  Still, I felt I'd at least see what I could do, so I hitched up the horse trailer to the ranch truck and backed it in the next morning to load him up.  Immediately, all of the horses started freaking out and stampeding when I pulled in and then backed up to the corral.  They were trailered from the wild horse rescue just above Albuquerque sometime before we got here in 2020, although I don't know the exact date, but never again have they been on or near a trailer.  Boy, did they freak out!  Snorting!  Kicking!  Snorting some more!  Once I got it backed in and turned the truck off, I just sat there for a good 15 minutes so that they could all calm down.  I had been telling Hidalgo what was coming, but by the look on his face he was still pretty worried about it.  Everyone else came up and started sniffing the trailer and licking the pickup truck all over, making quite a mess of the windows.  First I put some hay in the trailer and he slowly came over and sniffed it, but had no interest in stepping up and into it.  So, I waited a while longer and kept talking to him, but to no avail.  Then, I started breaking the corral down, panel by panel, and made the available space for him half of what it was.  Then a quarter.  This is when he started getting unruly.  He escaped at least once, but he was so tired and sore that I was able to get him back in the corral again.  Finally, with him leaning into the trailer to nibble on hay, I took a single section of the corral and picked it up in the air, placed it against him and literally shoved him with all of my might onto the trailer.  Then, already exhausted, we headed into Santa Fe.

Now, here are some pictures to accompany the story of our little adventure.  First, an artistic rendering of Hidalgo, newly sequestered and standing in the corral.  Then, three pictures from the week before the Great Horse Trailering: first, trying to get a tank of water into the corral with tons of help; then, getting Hidalgo used to the corral with extra hay and some company; and, lastly, Hidalgo hanging out with his mama, Annie.  Next, the saddest horse in the world, stuck in the corral while everyone else is out exploring and having fun.  Then, three more shots of Bubba-Bubba: two hoof close-ups and then a shot of his hay belly from standing around for the last month or two(I will say, it's trickier than it looks to pick up a wild horse's hoof with one hand while trying to snap a photo of it with the other).  Next, two shots of the rig that I had to drive that day: first, the truck & trailer, then the feed compartment(complete with some halters that I was hoping I'd be able to just magically slip over his head somehow at some point).  And, finally, six shots of the whole process(with audience), from the time that I just backed in to right before I gave him his big shove.

That's all for this time...now, don't go and get yourself kicked by a wild horse!