Longtime readers of my blog know that I believe that the foundation of good care for one’s flock is to know them, and you do this by observation. It’s true of horses, too. Before the training, before the riding, you need to know each other.

I have two clients, a married couple, who each own a Lusitano gelding. One is a skilled rider, the other is a novice; both are realistic about their limited experience in horse care. They’re also extremely busy professionals. I was called in to find them a better boarding situation, and then to do a baseline observation of their horses’ behavior and body conditions. I keep tabs on the horses’ progress. When the owners travel, I do well horse checkups and pamper the horses with grooming sessions and walks.

This is what “G” (name initialized to protect his privacy) was like when we first met. He has a lovely intelligent eye.

 

“S” has a more wary and nervous temperament. He’s also an elderly horse, who has been used hard in his past. This photo captures what he was like when I first met him.

 

I put S on a tummy-settling supplement and a protein additive for his feed. I bathed him and stood quietly with him. I doctored some mysterious sores on the outsides of his legs.

 

The wounds weren’t a one-time occurrence. He continued to open up the scabs and get new ones. How was he injuring himself? I had to do some sleuthing, which, of course, involved quiet observation.

Half of the day, the horses are in dirt paddocks. The other half they are turned out into grassy fields. I walked through both areas. There was nothing dangerous in them. The area that S likes to dust bathe in is sand, and there aren’t any obvious rocks to rub him raw.

These sores appeared in mid-summer when the grass inside of the fence was eaten down so far that there was nothing left to nibble. But, on the outside was glorious, tall green growth. The fence line’s bottom rails of S’s enclosures were rather high in places. High enough for a determined horse to reach under.

G, in the lefthand paddock couldn’t reach the grass. You can see how high it is by his fence. But S has those high rails, and he’s willing to get down. He was doing the limbo, and in the process was rubbing himself raw. No matter that both horses have slow feed hay boxes, S wanted that grass!

 

I’m 99% sure that this is how S got those sores. I didn’t catch him in the act, although I did see him in a stretch that looked like a bow. Look at how far over the grass is eaten down. There’s no way that he can reach that by just stretching his neck. In pushing himself back up, he would have rubbed the outsides of his legs. The horse that alternates turnout in these paddocks also has sores in exactly the same places, though not quite as raw. S has very sensitive skin.

 

I talked to the farm manager about this. The fence line has been mowed. The sores are healing.

S and I have gotten to know each other. Look at his expression now.

 

If you need horse behavior sleuthing, email me. I’m also available to do well horse checks, and grooming sessions for bonding and health. (I’m based 30 miles west of Boston, MA) Contact me, too, if you’d like to learn how to handle and groom your horse so that she gives you that soft, welcoming eye. There’s nothing like having a gleaming, healthy horse give you that look.

The weather forecasters are predicting that this will be the hottest week of the year.

Even Twiggy, my White Leghorn, is panting.

 

(She’s also desperately in need of going into the molt and replacing those worn out feathers.)

Excessive heat causes stress in the flock. It can kill. Your hens will seek relief in the shade. Mine get low in soft, damp, cool soil. Shade helps, but it’s also essential that they drink. They won’t if their waterer is across the sweltering pen in the stifling coop. If the waterer is outside, but is in a metal dispenser set out in the sun, it can be near-boiling hot. They won’t drink that either.

I prefer the

 for their ease in filling, large capacity and sturdy construction. But, when the heat gets excessive, I pull out inexpensive plastic waterers. They’ll need a cleaning after a year in storage.

 

 

I fill them halfway with water, then put into the freezer for a day.

 

Then I take them out and top off with cool water. I set them on a raised platform (bricks work well – anything to keep them up off the dirt to keep the water clean.) I find a place in the shade for them.

 

You can see here how the hens choose the ice-cold water over what’s in the metal dispenser. That metal waterer, however, is far preferred to the one in the coop. It’s all relative.

Of course, at some point the ice will melt and the water will warm. That’s okay. At least you’ll be reassured that they’ve been hydrated.

I have more tips on how to care of your flock of hens in the heat in this FAQ.

Pip Update:

He’s fine! Once I let my veterinarian know that the toxins didn’t get him, she had a plan for encouraging him to eat with a yogurt drench, but it wasn’t necessary. By the next morning, Pip was eating with his usual gusto and walking about with a serene I’m no trouble at all smile on his face.

 

By the way, I forgot to mention one thing in the report of how I handled frothy bloat. Here’s a bit of advice: When your goat is vomiting and you think that he might be choking, do NOT put your fingers in his mouth to pull out the green masses. Goat teeth are sharp and jagged and the wound you’ll get from being serrated by them will not be pretty  I now have a scar on my index finger to illustrate what not to do.

There are some gardening tasks that I can’t do. When we built this house a dozen years ago, we planted a screen of bushes and tress to hide the view of the neighbor’s large yellow house and lawn. It was designed to look natural, but it still requires occasional pruning. I don’t go up ladders, but I know the best people who do. I’ve been using the crew at Rudy’s Tree for twenty years.

 

I asked them to give some of the branches to the goats.

I’ve got a huge stand of rhododendron in the front woodland. It’s a gorgeous plant that must be over seventy years old. The guys were trimming it, too. They know and love my animals, and decided to give them some rhodie branches because they know that deer like it, and thought it’d be a treat for the goats. It was my total fail that I didn’t tell them to not feed it. Rhododendron is toxic to goats. An hour or so after the crew left, I saw the rhodie branches in the goats’ enclosure. I tossed them into the woods. I wasn’t worried. The goats have walked by these plants numerous times and never nibbled at them. The guys had given the goats plants that are tasty and that they gorge on, like pine and birch. I didn’t think that the boys would bother with the rhododendron. That evening, Pip looked a bit off his hay, but I still wasn’t worried.

What I didn’t know that this plant doesn’t just cause stomach upset. It kills.

Steve opened up the barns the next morning at 7. He came and got me. Pip was vomiting. It was green. He was foaming at the mouth. I still didn’t know enough to be in a panic. He’s eaten things before that have upset his stomach. However, even bloat that doesn’t cause vomiting is serious, and I immediately drenched him with pepto-bismol, and then did an additional drench of epsom salts. This is done using an oral syringe. It’s messy, but effective.

I called my vet, Dr. Sarah, who has cared for these goats since they were two months old. What she said did send me into a panic. There’s nothing that I can do. The plant is toxic. If we’re lucky, he vomited out the worst of it, but it’s been in Pip’s system for 12 hours. His body has already digested and absorbed the toxin. You’ll know if he’s going to die by tomorrow.

It looked dire. Pip was lying down. He was not chewing his cud. His mouth was swollen. One ear dipped down, as if he was having a stroke. As always, though, the two brothers were together.

 

There was nothing that I could do about the toxin, but I could keep Pip as healthy as possible so that his body could fight back. For goats, that means keeping food in the belly and the rumen working. When the rumen shuts down, the goat dies. I hand-fed mint. He nibbled a leaf and stopped. I tried a peanut. He chewed and it fell out of his mouth. I thought that I was watching my goat die. I massaged his belly.

I put out hay and baking soda. Baking soda is very good for a goat’s digestive tract. They actually know to eat it when they have an upset. At first Pip was too miserable to touch either, but mid-morning I saw him lick some of the baking soda. It gave me a glimmer of hope.

As you can see in the photo, Pip’s eyes are half-shut in pain. Caper remains by his side.

 

Using Caper as a lure, I got Pip up. I let them eat things that they’re never allowed to eat, like the raspberries. Pip could not resist.

 

After a rest, I lured him back out to the strawberries. Even a goat with pink pepto-bismol in his beard, and pain in his gut, will eat strawberry plants. Caper could not believe his good fortune.

 

In between the eating, Pip would lay down in the sun and look miserable. I rubbed his belly some more.

 

Finally, in the late afternoon, I saw Pip chewing his cud. That was a sign that the digestive tract was working. Pip even head butted his brother out of the way when I handed over a peanut.

I avoided googling frothy bloat (which is what this is called) all day. I trust Dr. Sarah, and I didn’t want to see all sorts of “remedies” to subject Pip to. If he was going to live, it was going to be because of sheer luck that he didn’t ingest enough toxin to kill him. But now that he was looking on the mend, there were things to do to hasten his recovery. I did an internet search and set off for the pharmacy.

The tree guys were still on the property. They were as worried as I was. While I was gone, they massaged Pip’s belly and encouraged him to walk around. (I found this out later, and have no doubt that the TLC from Pip’s friends was an essential component of why Pip pulled through.)

I created a magic goat elixir. Activated charcoal and

 (to detoxify the system), mineral oil (to whish out anything bad remaining in the nooks and crannies of the goat’s gut), dried ginger (to settle the stomach), pepto-bismol to soothe, and water to hydrate a goat who hadn’t had anything to drink all day. By now, Steve was home from work. He held Pip and I dosed with the oral syringe. It wasn’t difficult. Pip said that it was tasty, and that the water was fine. He smacked his lips.

Still, the toxins might have been working silently. Were they going to kill him overnight? I woke at 5 and went out to the barn in my pjs. Pip was chewing his cud. Where’s my breakfast? he asked.

A day later, and I’m sure that Pip is fully recovered.

 

He’s wondering why the raspberry plants are again off-limits.

As expected, right on time, but much too early for my liking, one (or more?) of my hens  is going into the molt. I know this because I am finding hard outer feathers,

 

and soft downy feathers in the bedding.

 

Of my fifteen hens, three are broody – Pearl,  Florence, and Veronica.

 

That leaves twelve potential layers. But Jasper has issues, so she’s out of production. I haven’t seen an egg from Onyx in a month (I don’t know what’s up with her. She acts fine, but she’s never been a regular layer.) Misty lays only two eggs a week, Owly only one. Despite the slackers, the flock has provided me with an abundance of eggs this summer. That’s about to change. Have you noticed feathers floating around your coop lately?

I’ve been hearing from many of you concerned about how your hens can cope with the heat. I complain when the temperature here hits 80º F. That’s nothing compared to what my friends in the southwest are dealing with – triple digits day in and day out! You’re right to be worried about your hens. Heat stress kills.

Heat affects some hens more than others. If you live in a clime and are thinking about getting chickens, select a breed appropriate for your area. For example, as charming as the fluffy cochins are, this breed has too many soft feathers. It’s like if you walked around outside with a down coat on all summer.  Also, they go broody, which means that they’re more likely to hunker down in a stuffy coop than to find a shady cool spot to hang out in. I know. Here is Pearl. She has just roused herself from her broody daze and is having her morning walk-around before going back into the nesting box.

 

On the other hand, Misty, the Andalusian, is suited for hot summer weather. Her big comb dissipates heat. Her sleek body and few under-feathers protect her from the sun without unduly insulating her. I’ve never even seen her pant.

 

Twiggy, like Misty, is designed for handling hot weather. She’s a Leghorn. Despite the August temperatures, she continues to remain active and lay eggs.

 

But, even if you have an entire flock of these trim Mediterranean breeds, you still have to feed, water and manage the environment to keep your healthy and safe. I have a FAQ that provides lots of tips for easing heat stress, like this one about feeding watermelon to keep your hens hydrated. Please read and share!