Archy poops--a lot. When he first came his excuse was: new to stalls, new to rings, victim of that caged in, 'bread'n butter, bread 'n butter' feeling after a few months on the distant plains. Four months later it has become his signature mark. Archie fails to look even mildly embarrassed when he leaves a pile (or piles) as we circumnavigate the ring in trot, or walk down a country lane.
He has developed a favorite under -saddle dumping spot on the lawn in front of the neighbor's swimming pool. He has thoughtfully taken substantial amounts of high quality fertilizer directly to farmers' fields we ride through, and his stall requires constant attention. In the morning, it is a disgrace.
Every day's ride means a retracing of our steps as I scoop and skip each of Archie's artful leavings from the ring, the lawn and the barn. Of late he has taken to raising his tail suggestively when he is being tacked up in the barn aisle. I run for the skip bucket and he lowers his tail. I go back to the business of attending to his visage, the tail goes back up and--splat. What is the meaning of all this equine defecation? Apparently it means one of two things.
- This is just Archie's (annoying) way
- He has issues
As I am completely responsible for his well being and desire nothing more than his being well, the matter needs looking into. Archie has been temporarily immunized against rain rot, flu, and a host of other expensive potential illnesses, including rabies, an equine encephalitis, and ingrown toenails. Here's how many immunizations I have had this year: none.
Step number 1--Count the Worms. We wormed him when he first arrived (five days of a really foul tasting paste--don't ask me how I know that-- that gets squirted on Archie's tongue) and
wormed him again three weeks ago (he was a 2 out of 3 on the worm-to horse infestation scale). The nice people at the vet's office had a hearty guffaw when I brought an entire bag for examination, rather than a wee spoonful. Archie, I told them, is a very generous horse. He has not gained enough weight, the prevalence of mushy green, smelly poop increases, and three dogs (including ours) allegedly get ill from eating it. I feel the pain of people who have to clean up after dogs with intestinal complaints, but really, I can hardly be held responsible for the strange (and rather revolting) diet of dogs.
Step number 2--look to holistic support. Horses are vegans and can't eat yogurt (we all know yogurt is good for everything) so I serve Archie an expensive daily portion of keep- in -a -cool,-dark- place probiotics with his beetroot, which he slurps up. Archie is enormously in favor of big portions of everything, and manages a convincingly mournful look that has me and the army of little girls at Heather's bringing him armloads of hay which is almost immediately turned into--poop. The pasture he is in during the day, now requires daily cleaning.
Step number 3--back to the vets with a small baggyful (dumb the first time, fool the second) and it comes back 1 on the poop scale of 1-3 which apparently means we are aiming for 0. Given Archie's suspected Failure to Thrive (a condition he seems hardly aware of as long as the meals are delivered on time), the vet prescribes Daily Wormer called C2X (sounds like a skateboard) which is available at Farmers' Supply for $58. He will re-evaluate him in a month's time. I look at the Before and After ads for C2X--Archie looks like Before (the rain rot spots don't help). I look forward to After, which, in the pictures, shows super shiny ponies with plump quarters and sleek coats, blue rosettes on their bridles, and happy riders with nice hair. I pledge to send Archie's now and then pix in to our friends at Pfizer if their miracle cure comes through.
I have no idea what Step 4 is, should we still be looking green in a month's time, other than having his Tarot cards read. I cruised the shelves at Farmer's Supply, nearly bought an antidote for sandeaters (I saw Archie try to eat a toxic MAPLE leaf ) and lugged home a huge pasture block of super mineral salt block which might take care of any selenium, copper, magnesium, iodine, molasses,phosphrous, calcium. cobalt, zinc,manganese, potassium, magnesium, iron, flouine, sulphur, or sodium mineral deficiencies he might have.
I had a lick, not bad.
Comments