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Category: Horse Health

Posts that discuss healthcare issues for horses.

Rest In Peace Cash

Rest In Peace Cash

Cash
Cash wearing Valentine’s halter.

I’ve almost written this post a few times but it hurt too much. On Monday, November 27, 2017, Mikki and I walked up to the old barn to see how much hay was left. I had to go on a business trip and wanted to put out a new bale if it looked like the horses would run out before I got back because it’s much easier for two people to put out hay without letting horses out of gates as you’re driving the tractor through. As I approached the bale I noticed Cash was laying nearby. It’s not unusual for horses to lay down occasionally. But after a few steps, it became clear he wasn’t moving. We broke into a run and our worst fear was quickly realized. Cash was completely still, not breathing, and cold. Cash was dead.

This was a total shock to us. Cash hadn’t shown any signs of being ill. There were no changes in his behavior, diet or activity. When we found him, there wasn’t a mark on him and it didn’t appear that he had struggled or thrashed or anything like that; it seemed like he just laid down and passed away, with the exception of a very small amount of blood around his mouth and nose.

To say we were horrified was an understatement. Mikki pretty much lost it for a few minutes, and immediately called her best friend, who is also a horse owner and veterinary tech, Shari. They grieved together and discussed possible reasons for Cash’s sudden death, but Mikki was really in no condition to talk about those details, and the unfortunate reality of the situation was that time was not on our side. I had that business trip that couldn’t be rescheduled and had to leave within the hour; it wasn’t terribly warm, being late November, but the temperature was still much too warm to preserve anything. The cold hard fact was that we had a 1,000-pound body that had to be dealt with, and soon. Our tractor, while pretty capable above-ground, was not the right equipment for digging a hole the size and depth we needed. Since Shari had buried her beloved donkey, Doc, five or six years ago, Mikki asked her if they still had the ability to do that, but unfortunately, they had sold their backhoe. She suggested we call the man who takes care of the graves for our church cemetery (Shari’s husband oversees the care of the cemetery) and promised to find his number and call back. In the meantime, we ran through the other possibilities; first was the friend who had taken care of the last horse burial we knew about, but that was years ago so our hopes weren’t high. We were right about that, he had changed jobs and no longer had access to a backhoe. Minutes later Shari called back with the number of the, well, gravedigger, and we called him. He was down with pneumonia. Then Mikki remembered that, ironically, the man from whom we had bought Cash had recently started a land services business. She called him and he was available. He agreed to come out within 3 hours and not only dig the hole but take care of the moving of the body as well. Mikki’s father lives right next to our pasture so our next stop was to tell him the news. He agreed to meet with the backhoe guys so Mikki wouldn’t have to deal with any of it, other than the payment. Which leads us to the final difficulty of this situation, but let’s stop and summarize here.

There is a very dark side to having horses. If you are like us – and I have to assume that you are, if you are reading this vaguely informative but decidedly sappy blog, you love your horses like pets. Therefore, this next part is going to distress you, and I apologize, but believe me when I say this part is meant to be informative rather than sappy. The cold, hard truth is that if you have a horse (or horses – we’re going to go with the plural here) and do not sell them or give them away, you will lose them someday. Unless they have a long-term disease that you know about and treat them for it for a while, their deaths will be sudden and unexpected. You will be shocked and grieving but, unlike with the family dog (which most people can bury easily in someone’s backyard or pay a nominal fee to have cremated), in the midst of that shock and grief, you will have to deal with a half-ton body. We were fortunate that our community doesn’t explicitly forbid animal burials but many do. This is not something you want to find out at the last minute. We advised in the above-referenced previous post to be prepared for that day. We did not follow our own advice. Too much time passed and we became lax and complacent. Our horses were young then and are not terribly older now (Cash was just 14). So on a cloudy, cool November day with a business trip an hour away, we found ourselves having to find someone to bury our beloved horse, pretty much immediately, and coming up with the money to do so. We are lucky to live in a rural farming community and knew the guy who did it for us, so it wasn’t as expensive as it could have been, but it was still a big, unexpected dent in our budget. Right before Christmas, too.

So again we advise you: have a plan in place for the inevitable. Update it as circumstances change. Be ready. It will make a very, very difficult time just a tiny bit less so.

The last thing is that you’re probably wondering what happened to Cash. We too wonder that. Mikki discussed it with Shari and did a little bit of research (this is still very painful to think about very much, so deep research was out of the question). The most likely cause, given the scant evidence, is intestinal torsion, or volvulus, or as it’s commonly known, “gut twist” (colic is sometimes a symptom of this). Several horse owners we know personally have lost horses suddenly this way; a horse was literally fine one day and gone the next morning (isn’t that scary, that it’s that common?).  Another possibility is a ruptured aorta; the small amount of blood we saw could have been evidence of that. That also is horrifyingly common, but usually happens after intense physical activity, but he could have been frolicking in the pasture right before. The only way to know for sure would have been to have an autopsy done, but those are extremely costly.

Now our last piece of advice, which we are following religiously now: take care of your horses as well as you possibly can, watch over them carefully, and love them like this is the last day you will have them – every single day. We are so grateful for the time we had our Cash. To end on a more positive note, here’s a link to the post where we introduced him. He was quite the horse.  – June 23, 2008 post –

Horses and Fireworks

Horses and Fireworks

FireworksThe U.S. is days away from celebrating Independence Day or as we commonly call it, the Fourth of July. For many, that means a day off, barbecuing, and fireworks after dark. Horses, on the other hand, don’t seem to enjoy the day as much humans. We live in Tennessee where fireworks, even big, bright, loud scary ones, are legal outside of city limits. And since we’re not in city limits, fireworks go off all around our property on the 4th of July. Years ago Mikki, the Kid and I were huge fireworks fans and up until owning horses enjoyed shooting off our own here at the house. But now that we have horses and a few dogs that are terrified of loud booms, we’ve nixed our home fireworks display. One year we left the television playing loudly and headed out to see a large town fireworks display. When we got home, one of our dogs was in shock. Unbeknownst to us, our next door neighbors set off a huge fireworks display, courtesy of visiting family for the holiday. We’re told it went on for a long time and I can imagine it seemed to our pets inside and our horses in the the pasture that something was attacking all around.

The Parellis teach the importance of thinking like a horse in order to understand how they’ll react to us and different scenarios and that advice makes perfect sense to me. As prey animals, they’re constantly on the lookout for something that could attack them and besides something running towards you, nothing says “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!” quite like loud bangs and bright flashes of light overhead.

Needless to say, we no longer shoot any kind of fireworks at our place. Our neighbors, the ones with the large fireworks display, have since moved. And we now stay home and comfort our dogs while keeping an eye on our horses.

How do you deal with fireworks around your horses?

Using an iPhone for remote medical diagnosis

Using an iPhone for remote medical diagnosis

Technology is amazing. Chances are you’re reading this on a mobile phone or tablet but even more amazing than that is how you can use those devices to give you an advantage in addressing medical issues for your animals. Last year Valentine had a potentially serious corneal ulcer in his right eye. Eye injuries like this usually start out as just a scratch – it was probably dumb luck, like a piece of hay poking his eye at just the right angle as he dove his head into a big round bale. It’s amazing that kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. Although we see our horses pretty regularly, by the time we noticed him squinting, it had probably already been a few days since he scratched the eye and an infection had set in. Valentine was a trooper as we put on some triple antibiotic eye ointment. It seemed better after a couple of days so we stopped treatment and figured it had healed. This turned out to be a mistake. A friend noticed him squinting again and sure enough, the irritation was back. At this point, we knew it might be more than a minor scratch so the next step was seeking a professional opinion. That’s where the iPhone comes in.

As patient as Valentine was with us putting ointment in his eye, he didn’t much care to hold still for 10 seconds while we tried to take a picture of his eye. He didn’t know what we were up to as we kept moving this hand-sized block around in front of his face so I can’t blame him for being nervous about it. That’s when I remembered that my new (at the time) iPhone 6 had a slow-motion video capture feature that could be useful. At 240 fps (frames per second), using slow-motion mode did a pretty good job of letting us take several seconds of video, slowing them down on the phone and capturing a screenshot in the millisecond when his eye was open and his head wasn’t moving around. We could then text that screenshot to our horse vet who was able to give a preliminary diagnosis. All we needed to know was whether or not it was serious and if she should come out to our barn right away.

In this case, it turned out to be serious enough to warrant a visit. The photo below, also taken from an iPhone 6, is a still shot we were able to get after the doc applied Fluorescein to his eye. (Fluorescein is a stain that gets sucked into scratches and the like to make them more visible.) It looks a little gross in the photo but in it you can easily see the ulcer (which at this point was pretty visible, stain or no).

Valentine’s treatment lasted about six weeks and it wasn’t simple. For the first week or so we had to treat his eye every four hours, which meant we set an alarm and got up a few times in the night. It was like having a newborn – except you had to get up, get dressed and walk outside in the cold. He was kept in the barn to facilitate this but also because some of the treatment required that his eyes were dilated with atropine so we had to protect him from bright light. Poor Valentine had to endure serum (made from his own blood), OptiMend and antibiotic ointment, all applied directly to his eye. He did seem to enjoy the horse treats we gave him as a reward. After the intensive treatment period, we were able to (thankfully) go down to every twelve hours. I think he ran from the barn when the six weeks was up. We walked him periodically for exercise but who wants to live in a barn for six weeks? I would have done a happy dance on the way out.

The lesson here is to check your horses often, don’t let eye injuries go, and get creative with early diagnosis by using your phone as a medical communication device.

Valentine's Eye - Corneal Ulcer
Strange coloring is from Fluorescein used as a tracer agent.
Mule Pedicure

Mule Pedicure

Thursday was horse shoeing time. Our horses are familiar with this routine and mostly stand patiently while our farrier trims their hooves and fits them with shiny new shoes. When you have a good farrier, the horses don’t seem to mind much.

We jokingly suggested that Jazzy the mule should have hers trimmed, too, and laughed it off because as sweet as she is, she’s not one for being manhandled. Surprisingly, our farrier agreed to do it, predicting she wouldn’t be much trouble. Turns out he was right. He established leadership and haltered her and proceeded to trim her little hooves without her offering much objection at all. It’s probably a good thing I’m not a betting man, because I would have lost money on that one. Her feet look great!

Mule hoof trimming

35 days of horse repair

35 days of horse repair

Early last month, Mikki posted about Romeo’s leg injury. It was a surprise that we discovered a little later than we should have. Infections are much harder to treat than fresh wounds. In fact, we ended up treating that infected wound for 35 days. Of course, it was smack in the middle of winter, mild though it was.

Camo Horse Wrap
Stylish camo horse wrap

Romeo learned to dread coming to the barn about as much as we did but the bandages had to be changed twice a day at times and the wound cleaned and treated and then re-wrapped to keep the dirt out (we used blue camo horse wrap, like the one in the picture). The antibiotic pills weren’t pleasant, even when we crushed them into something yummy like molasses or apple mush or a sweet oatmeal cake. It didn’t take long for him to be on to us. But considering the pain and unpleasantness of it all, he took it well. We usually cross tied him in the barn. He mostly stood quietly. Having two of us work on him was key. One of us talked to him and rubbed his neck, delivering a needed distraction. He never kicked or bit, though he did try to walk away at times.

Today, Romeo is still not very interesting in coming to the barn, despite the treatment being over. But he walks and runs well and the wound has healed nicely.

Moral of the story? Check your horses every day! Any kind of stiffness or limping needs immediate attention. And if your horse has any kind of open wound injury, expect to treat it several times a day and don’t skimp on cleaning, even though they hate that part. Also, seek medical attention immediately if you have any concerns. Develop a relationship with your horse vet because these things almost always seem to happen late at night on a Friday or Saturday when it’s hard to reach a vet until Monday. We have our vets cell phone number just in case.

Camo horse wrap picture from The Haughty Horse.

Favorite Nap Spot

Favorite Nap Spot

Our horses don’t lay down very often but when they do it’s usually right where you see Moonshine in this picture. It’s a spot on top of the biggest hill, on the side of the hill that dries the quickest. It’s a little hard to see from this picture but she’s on the edge of the hill. I’ve seen her and our other horses get up from this spot. What makes it unique is that they can roll to one side and then roll hard back toward the downslope and get up easily, thanks to gravity. This is a favorite rolling spot for Romeo, presumably for the same reason. Horses are pretty smart.

Moonshine laying down
Moonshine resting on a hill. Isn’t she beautiful?

Do you see your horse(s) rolling or napping on a hilly spot that makes it easier to get up?

Horses Like Honey-Nut Cheerios

Horses Like Honey-Nut Cheerios

You’re probably wondering why we’re feeding a horse Honey-Nut Cheerios.  Well, it’s to mask the taste of the bute.  And why are we giving someone bute?  Well, let me just tell you.

Monday night, we got home from Chattanooga late, as often happens when we go to the “big city.”  And guess what?  It was snowing.  It was supposed to be well below freezing that night, and not get above freezing the next day.  You know what that means, right?  That’s right, a sick or injured horse.  Since we have four, plus a mule, someone would surely oblige us.  Sure enough, when we let the horses in, Romeo was limping.  It was dark, late, and he was covered in mud.  But, he was just as enthusiastic about his food as ever, so we decided it might as well wait till morning.  Shame on us, I know, but there truly wasn’t a darn thing we could have done.

Tuesday morning, we let everyone else out and got him out into the sunshine where we could see.  Poor thing was still limping, occasionally holding up that leg, and the muscle in his flank was twitching – he was definitely hurting and we needed to find out why.  I did mention he was covered in mud?  No problem, we could hose it off.  Did I mention it dipped below freezing and wouldn’t get above freezing until sometime on Wednesday?  So no hose.  Luckily, we have a de-icer in their water trough, so we filled a bucket and I started dumping water on his right rear leg.  It wasn’t long before we uncovered the problem – a hole in his leg, just below the hock.  At this point we decided that both Romeo and I would be happier if the water we were using to clean him off was more than just above freezing, so Bill went to the house to fill the bucket with warm water.  I got out the Dawn and cleaned off all the mud I could.  There was a fairly deep hole about the size of a quarter.  (I would post a picture, but sadly, my co-author is a tad squeamish.)  It was oozing pus and smelled kinda bad.  (I do hope Bill isn’t reading this.)

At this point, I would recommend horse owners to call the vet.  A wound like that requires a very good cleaning and antibiotics ASAP, not to mention pain meds.  So keep that vet on speed dial.  I am very fortunate to have spent the last three years working for a vet, so while I am far from qualified to diagnose and treat serious injuries, I felt that I could probably handle this one.  I took pictures (the ones you won’t be seeing) and headed over to the office.  I described his symptoms and showed around the pictures, and the consensus among professional staff was a burst abscess.  He probably got stuck with something several days beforehand, and it got infected.  Because of the mud plastering his leg, we didn’t know anything about it until he started limping and by that time, the infected, closed wound had burst.  Poor Romeo!

His treatment plan:

Antibiotics.  Ten days’ worth.  We got a powder that we can mix into his feed.  No problem, he likes it fine.

Clean and Wrap.  We (well, I) scrubbed the wound with surgical scrub, applied drawing salve to the wound and wrapped it well with cotton and vetwrap. We’ll leave that on for three days total, then start using Wonder Dust plus wrap until it’s good and closed up.  No problem, he is so tough!  He dances a little bit but mostly lets me do whatever.  As you can see, pictures of the wrapped leg are okay.

Tetanus shot.  No problem – again, he is one tough horse. (Bill couldn’t watch though.)

ButeBute.  I got tablets to crush and mix into his feed like the antibiotic.  The first day, no problem.  I didn’t have any oats, so I used – you guessed it – Honey-Nut Cheerios.  I added a bunch of molasses and some chunks of apple, and it smelled pretty darn good.  I put a little Strategy in for good measure, and he ate it up!  Yay!  The next morning, same thing (he was supposed to get it twice a day for two days, then once a day for three).  After that, he was onto me.  He picks at it but never really finishes it off.  Luckily, he’s feeling much better, so if he doesn’t get it all down, that’s okay.  He’s still getting all the antibiotic, and that’s the important one.

Stall rest.  Boy, does he hate that.  He just can’t be out sloshing around in that gross mud, though.  Sorry!  I think we’ll put him out tomorrow (Friday).  It’s been dry for a few days and tomorrow is supposed to be warm and sunny.  And the hose is working again, so we will be able to clean it well. Oh, and it looks A LOT better now.

Romeo On Stall Rest
Romeo on stall rest with handsome purple wrap.

So that’s what’s going on at our barn.  Lessons learned: Horses always get hurt at the least convenient times.  Mud sucks.  Cold weather sucks.  And horses like Honey-Nut Cheerios – at least before you put yucky medicine in them.

Stall door protection concept – improved

Stall door protection concept – improved

Stall Door Metal Guard
Angled aluminum attached to a stall door protects it from wood-chewing horses

Four years ago we had a problem with Moonshine cribbing. Her bad habit was destroying the wood on her stall doors so I got an idea to cover the wood. This worked initially (see part 2) but eventually a tear developed in the thin aluminum and I worried about her cutting her tongue or face on the sharp metal. Other than that, the concept worked. To improve on the aluminum design, I needed something that would cover the affected area and hold up to a horse frequently licking it and occasionally biting it. While scanning the fabrication aisle at Home Depot, I came across a section of thicker, angled aluminum wide enough to cover the inside top of the stall door. I removed the old, thin aluminum section, clamped the new angled piece in place and drilled holes every foot. I then screwed the new section in place and made sure all edges were smooth. I’m a little behind on posting about this but the benefit of that is that I now know if this solution works. I’m happy to report that after a year of Moonshine licking and biting that stall door the new section is still in place, there are no sharp pieces or tears and Moonshine hasn’t suffered any injury. Total investment was about $8 and a half-hour of time. Now that winter has returned and the horses are spending more time in the barn, I plan on adding this protection bar on the other stall door (each outside stall has two doors) and even though our other horses aren’t big wood chewers, I’d like the whole barn to match. The horses that occupied the barn before we moved here wore the stall door tops down so I’ll need to replace those but hopefully this will be the last time.

If you let it go, horses who chew wood can do a lot of damage. Here are a few pictures I took at a historic barn at the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina showing extensive damage to a stall door top and on the walls.

Biltmore Estate horse stall door damage
Biltmore Estate horse stall damage

Do you have a wood chewer/cribber? What works for you?

Part 1 – Protecting Wooden Stall Doors
Part 2 – Stall door protection concept – 6 months later
Part 3 – Stall door protection concept – improved (this post)

Introducing a new horse to an established herd

Introducing a new horse to an established herd

Okay, so Jazzy is a mule and not a horse but the process and experience was the same when we introduced Cash and Romeo. Well, almost the same. Jazzy only weighs about 500 pounds, half the weight of most of our horses. We knew she was more vulnerable to the bullying that comes with herd introduction. Her body couldn’t take as many kicks and she wouldn’t be able to outrun any of our horses. And she didn’t yet know the pasture.

Jazzy the mule looking at her new horse family
Jazzy looks to the barn as Moonshine is turned out.

This is the approach we took:

  1. Barn Intro – First we put her in the barn. The horses knew immediately that another equine had just arrived and were waiting by the barn to see what was going on. Jazzy lived with horses so this wasn’t new for her. Through the barn gate everyone met (wish I snapped a picture of this). We kept Jazzy in the barn for a few days so the horses got used to her being there. Normally we would have put a new equine in a round pen in the pasture so everyone could sniff and run around in circles in the early days but we’re using the round pen sections as a temporary fence.
  2. Pasture Intro – Time to switch. We wanted Jazzy to explore her new home beyond the barn. She’d need to know the boundaries, where the natural food supply was and where she could go to get away. We also have a run-in barn for inclement weather. So the horses went into the main barn and the mule went into the pasture. We were surprised that she didn’t leave the barn area. Over the next few weeks we discovered she’s a follower and has no interest in being alone. To this day I don’t think she’s seen all of the pasture.
  3. First Horse (Valentine) – After a few days of keeping them apart, it was time to let them mingle. We started by letting out the lowest ranking horse, which is Valentine. He’s docile, not caring much about his position in the herd. He’s never started a fight. Valentine immediately went to Jazzy to smell her. Although at first she was nervous, it wasn’t long before they were eating near each other.
  4. Second Horse (Romeo) – A few hours later, it was Romeo’s turn. We thought he was our next least aggressive horse but this turned out to not be true. Romeo, an Appaloosa, is our smallest horse. It wasn’t many years ago when he was the new guy and the other horses ran him hard around the pasture. I felt sorry for him at the time but he ended up second in command. I guess he wanted to make sure Jazzy knew this because he immediately bullied her. Horses are smart. He toned it down when we were around but the minute we were out of sight he let her have it. It took Jazzy a little time to figure out she should not run into corners. Eventually Romeo settled down to eat from the hay ring but he wasn’t letting Jazzy near it.
  5. Third Horse (Cash) – A few hours went by and it was time to turn out Cash. I worry about him around other horses. He’s insecure in his position in the herd (second from the bottom) and I was afraid of what that would mean for Jazzy. Cash surprised me and mostly ignored Jazzy.
  6. Last Horse (Moonshine) – When I saw Cash wasn’t going to be trouble, I turned out Moonshine as well. I left her for last because she’s the herd boss and demands the utmost in obedience from her subjects. But she too gave Jazzy little more than a sniff and headed for the hay.
 
Lessons learned

It seems clear now that Romeo is the herd enforcer. He’s the right hand man for the queen, handling her dirty work. Over the next few days, the horses all ran Jazzy around the pasture briefly and it started with her running from Romeo. With horses, when one runs, they all want to run. But Jazzy’s submissive nature allowed her to integrate quicker. Within three days of sharing a pasture together, Jazzy was grazing near her new herd. They won’t allow her to eat with them when all four are at the hay ring but if one or two are there, she’s allowed to join in. She did have to endure some kicking and biting. In fact, during those first few days, she ended up with several bite marks on her back, one of which needed wound dressing. But things are good now.

Lastly, having two round bale hay feeders (or hay rings) makes a big difference when you have more than two equines or if some of them don’t get a long. We added the second one as an experiment last year. We’re able to keep round bales in two locations, far enough apart that no one horse can dominate both food sources. This has worked out very well at our place and the cost was minimal.

The case of the missing horse hide

The case of the missing horse hide

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

When you become a horse owner, you quickly learn that one of the hats you’ll be wearing is that of a detective. How did my horse get out of his stall? Where is my horse’s fly mask? How did my horse end up in the next stall over with another horse? And sometimes, where did that gash come from? All of our horses at one point or another came back to the barn with some kind of wound that left us wondering how it happened. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why it’s a good idea to see them at least once a day, at feeding time or bringing them into the barn for the night. Even so, this morning while heading to Romeo’s stall to let him out of the barn for the day, I gasped enough to make him jump. The poor thing is missing a pretty big piece of skin on his forehead and also under his chin. First thing is first – treating the wound. It wasn’t bleeding much but it was dirty, probably from rolling or maybe just from dust. So we gently placed a halter on him and brought him out to the center aisle of the barn where we have cross ties. If you don’t have these in your barn, I strongly suggest adding them. Crossties are simple two long ties (straps or rope) with quick-release latches that meet the horse in the middle in a way that keeps the horse from being able to move from side to side or even back to front very much. More about that in another post. So we cross-tied Romeo and Mikki cleaned the wound with some antibacterial scrub. Romeo was a trooper, though he clearly didn’t care for it much. It probably stung. Then she dressed it with ichthammol, a thick antiseptic salve that does a good job of treating and protecting light wounds from getting dirty and infected. You really need to have a small tub of it around at all times. A few “good boy” treats and off he went to find new trouble.

Romeo's forehead injury
It looks worse here than it does in person. It’s not a deep wound.

So next up comes the detective work. As responsible horse owners, we must try to figure out what caused this problem. I realize horses seem to spend their lives trying to find new ways to kill themselves; they’re mischievous, it’s true. But we have to keep trying to avert disasters of all sizes. So we run down a list of suspects:

  • Something in his stall. Nails, gate bungs, etc.
  • Barbed wire fence. We still have some that needs replacing.
  • Pine trees. A large one has fallen in the pasture and needs removing.
  • Horse fight. Not likely, given the length and shape.
  • Old barn or fence. Sometimes used as a scratching post.

So we start in the barn. Romeo’s stall has a large gate so we checked for sharp bungs or edges and found none. I remembered taking photos of Romeo the day before and discovered this very same wound on him then, though for some reason it didn’t stand out then. So it may not have happened in his stall which leaves 7 acres or so of partially wooded property to review.

I’ll make a long story short by saying that we haven’t yet found out what caused the wound but some quick checking didn’t reveal any standouts. My guess is that he really wanted a piece of grass that was hard to get to and scraped his head on some old barbed wire (which we really have to replace with something more horse-friendly) or around a fallen pine tree that came down in a recent storm. But the fact remains that the case is still open and our detective skills, better with time and experience, are called upon often to solve horse mysteries like this.

What kind of mysteries do you have to solve that require your horse detective hat?