Thursday, December 27, 2007

Still not sure what's up with Tonka. I don't know if he's drinking. Now he has bad diarrhea. Taking a fecal sample to the vet tomorrow, and penning him up tonight so I can monitor him better. Hope he doesn't do anything stupid when he's stuck in a small area. I knew a young horse, three year old like Tonka now that I think about it, who was kept in a stall and run and died from it. He liked to rear and play and he got his foot caught between the panels of his pen and broke his leg almost clean off and bled until he was found in the morning. Then the vet got lost and he had to be there like that for another 45 minutes, although they did get his leg out. Lovely story eh... Sorry. But you see why I worry... Tonka covers a LOT of ground in a day, and rears and jumps around a bit. Penning him up freaks me out.

I'm still soaking his hay, giving him salt, and dosing him with Probios (good gut bugs, like yogurt for us humans).

I remembered another sure-fire way to make them drink. Put dish soap in their mouth. Going to try that when I go out to build the pen and feed.

Here's Tonka enjoying his nice warm, wet hay. I soak it for a couple hours in hot water in a sealed container so it'll steam the hay that isn't submerged (I can only lift so much water...), then I drag it out in the toboggan and dump it in there for him. I leave the water with the hay rather than draining it like you would with a horse who needs limited sugars. He doesn't drink the water though.

And here's Bella eating her breakfast. She's a good, pretty girl.

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