I learned today what happens when a fainting goat gets into the poultice. You probably don’t need me to tell you that it makes a big mess. Poultice makes a big mess anyway without a goat (fainting or otherwise) in the mix!
Faune came in this morning with a fat left hind leg. He had a small cut about an inch above the coronet that we think is the cause. Usually about once a year or so this will happen where a horse gets a cut or a scrape and for some reason it makes the leg huge. 99.9% of the time a horse gets a cut nothing comes of it but occasionally you get this. Oddly enough another horse did the same thing a few days ago. My relationship with my vet (I guess I should say vets plural since we have two main vets from the same clinic that we work with) is very hot and cold. Mostly it is cold and I go for very long stretches without speaking with my vet(s) outside of the occasional question or exchange of text messages. Every now and then our relationship heats up and we see a lot of each other for a little while. I love my vets but I really do prefer it when we are in a cold phase of our relationship . . .
Anyway, we’re doing the usual bute, cold hose, SMZ’s protocol, and the vet also wanted the leg poulticed and wrapped at night. And of course as much turnout as possible as movement is a good thing. This evening I had all of my poultice materials spread around in the aisle of the barn and was slathering away getting the entire leg covered in poultice.
I heard the sounds of tiny little hooves on the concrete aisle but I was pretty absorbed in what I was doing so I didn’t pay much attention. Then I heard the sound of a plastic bucket being dumped over. I turn around to look and Jo the fainting goat had found the poultice. And I do mean she found the poultice. It was all over her face and one leg was coated in it. I can only assume that she stuck both her face and her leg in the poultice bucket.
She then proceeded to smear poultice everyfreakingwhere. She would turn her head around to scratch and get it on her sides. She would walk down the aisle and get it all over the aisle. She scratched on one of the stall doors and left some poultice behind there. I had to stop this or the entire barn and its contents, and Jo herself, were going to be covered in poultice.
I needed to get the poultice off of Jo. If you’ve worked with poultice you know it doesn’t really come off all that easily. If you have goats you know that they hate water. What a lovely combination of factors! Jo and I proceeded to have a rodeo in the wash rack and I attempted to remove the poultice from her. Somehow I got most of it off of Jo and on me. She still has a small smear of poultice on her head but I felt I had done the best I could. Then I attempted to clean up all of her poultice spots throughout the barn. Now that I’ve removed the poultice from the goat and the barn I am very ready to get it off of me as well!
Faune’s leg poulticed from top to bottom
Jason repairing a flat tire on the Kubota; he doesn’t look very happy here
Jason doing more fun stuff, cleaning up a downed tree limb (one of his least favorite activities is dealing with fallen trees and limbs)
Slinky, Teddy, Lucky and O’Reilly (Baby behind the fence)
Sebastian having his feet trimmed
Trigger playing with Gwen’s ponytail while having his feet trimmed
MyLight having a bath
Cuff Links and Missy
Ogie and Winston
Faune, Asterik and B-Rad
Lightening
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