Thursday, September 11, 2008

Scout is scheduled to lose his jewels next Wednesday! Yay! He's the only critter on the place with testicles, must amend that. Not that I have anything against boys, if I needed an intact male of any kind (other than human) around here. But I don't. I'm glad we're getting it done without him ever realizing he's a boy.

Anyone want to share any stories of gelding with me? Preferrably more good than bad? I don't know what the percentage of complications is, but I'm a little worried something might go wrong after the fact. We have a vet around here that's been known to leave sponges in there. And then try to charge for the farm call to remove it and the treatment of the infection! Not my vet, thank you very much.

Linda mentioned gelding after the first frost to make sure flies aren't a problem. Amazingly enough, we have very few flies right now. I heard that we've already had a frost. Not sure if that's true, but I have been able to see my breath at night when I feed.

The main reason I'm not waiting another month to geld him is that I want to wean him. But I want to geld him and have him recovered before I wean him. So I'm kinda in a hurry. Bella is only 3, and I would LOVE to get a little more growth on her if at all possible. Taking the baby off her might help with that. I know, it's a long shot. (Reminder, I did not breed Bella, she was bred on the range before the BLM roundup. I would never breed a 2 year old. Or a 3 year old. Or maybe any horse...) Also, I want to start working with Bella, which I can't do with Scout pulling on her halter and getting in the way of her lead rope. I could take her out, true, but it would be more convenient if he were weaned. I'm not weaning early, he'll be at least 6 months old when I separate them. Not sure why I'm getting all defensive about weaning the boy. Anyway, there's my rambling on that subject.

Sooo... Just to bore you a bit more... Today I took in the recyclables, went to the feed store, Taco Bell, grocery store, fought with my son there, came home, sat on my butt, scraped and sanded trim, picked up the in-laws' mail, went to my sister's to get back some borrowed stuff, lend some stuff, and borrow some more stuff, dropped off the in-laws' mail, and then came home and worked on dinner. Ooh, that reminds me, I need to work on chocolate chip cookies. And separating out some sourdough starter for bread tomorrow. Mmmm, cookies. Mmmm, homemade bread. Better make sure I work extra hard tomorrow to make up for my gluttony.

Tomorrow I think I'm supposed to ride with my mom and her friend (who I'm nervous about putting on Mack) and then scrape and caulk and maybe paint, and then go to the fair.

Good times, my friend, good times! Better to be busy than bored.
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6 comments:

Lea and her Mustangs said...

Andrea - Gelding them young is great. We do earlier though. We put the mare/baby on the lawn, the vet does his thing and when the baby gets up it nurses right away and doesn't even know what has happened. The mare will keep baby moving around and you don't have to lunge them to keep swelling down or anything. Our vet does it at about 2/3 weeks. Wouldn't do it any other way.

9:02 PM
Andrea -Mustang Saga said...

Lea,

I wanted to geld him early like that, have heard a lot of good things about it. But my vet was nervous about sedating him that young. Then when he was old enough for my vet's comfort, he had cost us so much in vet bills already that we needed to wait. This is one expensive baby! Hope he lives up to his price tag. :)

9:15 PM
Lady Of Chaos said...

Well, you've heard my awful gelding experience. Jacob, though, his gelding went off without a hitch.

Just remember to make sure that the vet gets the little structure further up the cords from the testitcles, so that he's not proud cut. The vet that gelded Jacob made a point of showing me that he was taking those little things as well.

Also, do the trotting and hosing, it helps alot... Jacob loves being hosed between his legs now, hates it every where else lol, but we're working on that. :)

Good luck! I'm sure it will go fine.

9:48 PM
Linda said...

Wow. I didn't know you could geld that young--I thought the testicles had to "drop" or something. I learn new things every day!!

My vets never sewed them up afterward--just made the incision, clipped them off and cut and then left it open to drain.

As Lea said, movement is important to help it drain. But I never did anything special for it. All of mine healed right up with no problem and never acted like anything had happened.

Should go real easy for you! Hey, take some pictures!! :):)

7:56 AM
nikki said...

Oooh exciting!!! I've had to have a couple of horses gelded (one was 2 years and the other 1 year) the last being Tabasco. We had to wait until Tabasco was halter trained to have the vet come out. So we had the vet come out in June. Tabasco did not like the vet and we had to do a make-shift squeeze shoot to sedate him. The gelding part went great (and fast) the vet answered all of my questions. Afterwards I had to lunge him for 30 mins a day for 3 weeks and watch for any swelling or infection.

12:38 PM
arlene said...

Twenty years ago I had my Morgan Foxsun gelded at 27 months. I'd bought him a month before. I was 8 months pregnant with William at the time. We hauled him to the vets at Ritzville. The vet put him out on the lawn. I couldn't watch so I went in the waiting room where there was another very pregnant woman and we had a laugh about going to the vets for pre-natal care. lol.
We hauled him home with no trouble. I remember trying to make him move about (for drainage)afterwards and having trouble because I could hardly move myself.
Foxsun acted no different as a stallion. He's the same old boy year after year.

11:08 AM

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