Random Musings

Par­don the length, it’s my story and it just flows…just skip me if you don’t like long!
The back­story: I took my first, long-anticipated trip to the UK in 2000.  I never thought I’d ever make it there, thought this would be my once in a life­time trip.  Even bought an expen­sive HD cam­corder at the time and was called the mad pho­tog­ra­pher when I was there because I never stopped film­ing (12 hours worth), nor tak­ing pic­tures.  I wanted it all remem­bered.  I had done a giant web­site for the Roman­tic Times Con­ven­tion and Kathryn’s tours…was sup­posed to be in trade for a trip, she had to can­cel due to fam­ily issues about 2 or 3 weeks prior, she just gave me the cash and said have a go at it kid! I imme­di­ately booked a flight and an escorted Trafal­gar tour (by myself).  I made sure it encom­passed the *whole* of the UK as I thought I’d never ever be lucky enough to make it back…you see, my heart and soul is in the UK. It started in Lon­don, wound it’s way up through Shakespeare’s coun­try, the east of the Isle, York, up to Scot­land, Glas­gow, back down through Pen­rith, Cum­bria, The Lake Dis­trict, Chester, Sal­is­bury, Stone­henge and Bath.  I was in heaven. And.…I kept see­ing this heavy heavy but short *draft* horse that looked like our paints, but so much hair.  It’s one of those things that you see…you kind of go huh. stop. process. won­der. then are so over­whelmed by the whole, that you just file that away in the back of your head. I got back home, had just bought my first love, my brand new white Corvette and a few years went by.  You have to remem­ber this, that car was my ulti­mate goal.  I had done 3 things that year — bought my first house, my ulti­mate car and went to Eng­land.  I didn’t know what to do b/c those were my life goals.  I loved that car more than any­thing and swore I’d never give it up.  I was to pay it off and store it for my kids one day. I then got my first horse and wouldn’t you know it? He’s part draft, part paint black and white and a bit hairier than most.  I had this image in my head that wouldn’t go away.  In 2004 and in to 2005 I started research­ing horses, genet­ics and breeds as I went back to school for another degree, this time Equine Ag…If I was going to own a horse, I bet­ter darn well be edu­cated about it all, I thought.  And I would have loved to be in the indus­try work­ing, per­haps run­ning the account­ing of a big farm or some­thing.  I dreamed. I also fig­ured there was no way I’d ever own my dream Friesian…and I stum­bled across this horse in the roman­tics cat­e­gory that the light went off in my head I remem­bered from 2000 some­where just before this time…I put the Gypsy Cob on my list of loves, but never could afford.  Some crack pot at the time called Den­nis Thomp­son had them priced at 50/60 thou­sand dol­lars and was hootin and hol­lerin about ‘dis­cov­er­ing’ the breed…which con­fused the hell out of me b/c I saw quite a few when I was there in 2000 and they didn’t seem all that rare or hid­den. I, of course, say Bartko’s site and quickly book­marked it to ref­er­ence over and over as I started research­ing true cost and the real his­tory.  I imme­di­ately planned for a trip to Appleby a year in advance and was bound and deter­mined to go in 2006. To me, THAT was where the real breed was and I HAD to be there to see it first hand. I told Ryan, new boyfriend at the time, you are wel­come to come with me, but I’m going hell or high water. He opted to go when he found out the ration of Gypsy men to women there…and was glad he did…I con­tem­plated run­ning away with a Gypsy boy sev­eral times while there, of course.  I had dated a true Rom  Gypsy here in Chicago for a cou­ple of years and was just in a  whirl how all so many pieces of my life were com­ing together and mak­ing sense.  I’ve a Gypsy heart as well, always have.

Now the real fun begins…I met Terry from the White Hart online when book­ing this quaint lit­tle hotel pub.  We talked all the time before going through­out the win­ter before.  He talked about his da and his buddy Rob (Wat­son) and his horses and the breed.  I metic­u­lously planned out this entire trip…we flew in to Man­ches­ter, dipped down to Chester real quick to replace a bracelet I had lost from my first trip from the Cathe­dral there…then drove up to Appleby.  Let me tell you, to return and drive some roads and visit places I had been before, not even real­iz­ing their sig­nif­i­cance was just pos­i­tively *eerie*.  We got in to Appleby on Thurs. We get there in the after­noon and for those that don’t go, A.) Thurs­day is when a lot of horse breeders/dealers pull in and a lot of the seri­ous deals are made for the cream of the crop before the crowd gets a hold of them — and then they are tucked/hidden away — and B.) in 2006 they were not as of yet really bus­ing in tourists — grrrrr — and doing any of the crazy sh*t they are doing now to try to con­trol the fair.  I regard it as the last great year and thank the stars we went that year as the last true hey­day of a good fair.  The Gyp­sies I know agree that that was one of the last hurrahs…great weather too…we got sun­burned on the bank.  It was no where near as overrun/crowded as now.  With that in mind, you can under­stand, I got a very good seri­ous edu­ca­tion about buy­ing, sell­ing, trad­ing, cus­toms, cul­ture and immersed myself right in to the breed and it’s history/culture/mystery.

So now you can under­stand the build up…Here I was, walk­ing among the beau­ties there and had never in my life seen so many iden­ti­cally gor­geous horses of one breed in one place.  It is so immensely dif­fer­ent than any­thing you will see here.  I don’t even have enough words for the expe­ri­ence.  I walked the park­way next to the river where all the mares and babies used to line up and I am not kid­ding you…I cried. I could barely breathe.  I’m choked up just think­ing of it.  It was like time stopped.  It was…for lack of bet­ter word: mag­i­cal. Cliché, yeah, I know.  I was obliv­i­ous to all that was around me, like in a movie where the sound, the noise, the voices just muf­fled out and all I could see where the horses…the love, the per­son­al­ity, the calm in every sin­gle mare stand­ing there just reached out and grabbed me. I’ve never felt what I felt ema­nat­ing from those horses in any barn, horse­show or trail ride I’ve ever been on (remind me to tell you about THAT ride in france one day lol).  The pic­tures we have from that first and sec­ond year are sim­ply stunning…we haven’t been able to cap­ture that since.  I stood there with this one mare — noth­ing spe­cial, noth­ing stun­ningly con­formed — but just hold­ing her head as she dozed on my should and I rubbed her face, ears, under jaw and leaned in and whis­pered to her…she whis­pered back, I swear. It was at the end of those 20 min­utes or so, that my life changed…

Ry finally got me to leave her…we walked up and down the river and my brain kicked in to a gear that ger­bils in a wheel only dream of.  My first silly thought (about run­ning away from it all here where my heart is) out­loud was to Ryan: ‘What would you do if I ran away with a Gypsy boy?’…he paused, his answer in a mop­ing voice ‘Call your parents…they’d help me bring you home’.  Min­utes pass…analyzing, weigh­ing the chess moves.…‘I think I might sell the Vette’.…dumbfounded silence ensues from Ryan.  He thought I was kid­ding. I would never ever utter those words, any one thought.  Over the course of Fri­day at the Faire, I ran all sce­nar­ios in my head and how this was going to work. I also ran the gamut of emo­tion from log­i­cal ass­es­ment, to excite­ment, to antic­i­pa­tion, to anx­i­ety, to over­whelmed depression…it was a roller coaster…In that one deci­sion, I just opened up a whole new world to myself full of a ridicu­lous amount of paths. On top of it all, I decided it must be a mare wor­thy of breed­ing if I am going to invest and do this, mean­ing I’m not get­ting my beloved boys. On Sat­ur­day at the fare, I viewed the mares with a whole new set of eyes.  I sharp­ened, honed in.  I lis­tened inten­tenly to the Gyp­sies as they struck their deals, what they said, what they were argu­ing over, what was sell­ing, what was cre­at­ing crowds, what they took behind car­a­vans to fin­ish the deal when it was a seri­ous push for a mare that *wasn’t* for sale, yet the new guy walked away with her.  I ques­tioned, I asked, I didn’t push them though. They didn’t ask if I was Amer­i­can, they didn’t care at the time. I fig­ured out what I liked, what I wanted to breed, what I respected, what I should be car­ry­ing on.  Iron­i­cally, I had met Robert Wat­son on the Hill and didn’t know who he was or that he was Terry’s friend.  I asked him about the mare he brought up from the field, grass stained (seri­ously) and all, with foal at her side, pulling out fairy braids in her hair.  I asked about sell­ing her and import­ing her.  I found out later, she sold for 40 thou­sand pounds.  Later, I told Terry about the mare, and when he found out it was Rob­bie, we met and talked that night in the pub.  We arranged to go out to his fields to see his horses first hand and , those that he doesn’t bring to the faire. The first field we went to, just the three of us, was a field full of yearlings…about 30 of them perhaps…the pic­tures we came home with were amazing…they trav­elled like a flock of birds as one. I *called* them too me in a moment that was sur­real, they came one by one fol­low­ing each other to me from about a foot­ball length away as I squat­ted in the field, hand out­stretched and *call­ing* to them with patience and love. They came, they sur­rounded me, they rubbed their noses on me gen­tly. Not a one of them was mean or aggres­sive or scared in any way.  I picked one or two I really liked…but I was wor­ried about import­ing a baby, unproven. I told him about this heavy heavy black mare that I saw, so off we went to see his breed­ing mares. I was still waf­fling between the tra­di­tional black and white, which seems like it’s a must have, and my love of the solids/blagdons.  The next field we walked in where his favorite mares.  The heavy, and I do mean heavy, black mare  he was talk­ing about foaled most likely a cou­ple of hours before we were there.  Amaz­ing. They still had rem­nants on them and the baby was test­ing his legs all around the munch­ing mare. I took sev­eral ana­lyt­i­cal pic­tures of the mares I liked…Robbie was a wealth of info about them.  It was…just amaz­ingly lucky to have any oppor­tu­nity like this. Even more ironic, was on just a ran­dom note of either being hit on by the guys there or talk­ing to them on pur­pose, I had met the Vines and the Coates (and actu­ally I think Brian Cash too, but not sure). 

I couldn’t decide on a Cob and had to return first home to imme­di­ately put the Vette up for sale.  (The full impact of that didn’t hit until it left my dri­ve­way and I had a men­tal break­down of hys­ter­ics about an hour after…all I remem­ber is some­thing about becom­ing the ‘crazy cat lady’ and ‘what am I doing???’ on the phone with my mom).  In the mean­time, I began seri­ously research­ing what was already here in the United States.  I wanted some­thing imported from there. I set­tled on Bartko…started stum­bling across Sil­ver Dap­ples and at the time knew noth­ing about the rar­ity or such within this breed.  I just knew it was, well dif­fer­ent, and I like to be dif­fer­ent and it reminded me of my dream horses of carousels and if I was going to have all that hair and that beau­ti­fully thick body, why not it be a carousel horse?  I looked at 2 I found that were really, not good qual­ity in the body…I found an older mare I liked that I think was with Loretta, but that would mean import­ing.  I then found Celeste.  She had a filly she had Bartko bring over and was for sale.  Bingo. We struck up a deal, I gave her hold cash and we waited for my Vette to sell. 2 months later, Sor­cha was on her way home to me. I’ve never looked back since. I’ve regret­ted get­ting involved a time or two with reg­istries and pol­i­tics here, but I’ve never regret­ted these horses.  There is not another breed under the sun like them.  I pon­der if there ever will be.  There is not another cul­ture under this sun so dear to me either. And to come full swing in horses, trips to the UK and my past with Gyp­sies (peo­ple) before…still just makes me go ‘wow, there is such a thing as fate’ and signs to the path you should be.  It brings me to tears to close this and say, I will never ever give up my love of these horses or their his­tory, both good and bad (and we  do real­ize that within the romance, there is always bad things…there would not be a bal­ance to life it twere not that way). And every time I am dis­heart­ened by things within the breed, each year I’m in Eng­land breath­ing in a deep breathe of the life-giving oxy­gen that is the Gypsy Cob.  Each year, I cel­e­brate and remem­ber why *I* love this breed, the thoughts *I* had that first year, the emo­tional roller coaster of the true romance that was that first year and noth­ing will ever change that or take it away, though we may never re-live that type of time again.

With Gypsy Love, thank you for read­ing my story.
Kat

Tags: Appleby Fair, Appleby Faire, Buying First Gypsy, England, England Gypsy, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Gold, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Rom, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Vanner, Horse Fair, Stowe Fair

So made the coolest dis­cov­ery last night…should have put two and two together ear­lier though…I’ve been using Sulphur8 prod­ucts — a human prod­uct — on Sor­cha after read­ing about oth­ers using it, and it’s work­ing great…well, at the Black Lady Beauty Sup­ply store last night, I am aisle cruis­ing look­ing for bobby pins and such and lo and behold, what do my won­der­ous eyes should appear but the Sulphur8 prod­uct line at half the price and no ship­ping right there in front of me…then it dawns on me…The rea­son I used it in the first place was because it is made for those that wear braids or dread­locks all the time…well duh!  I turn around and real­ize there are sooo many prod­ucts there for braids, dry hair, itchy, to add silk­i­ness, etc…that are prob­a­bly BLOODY BRILLIANT for our horses. 

I keep Sorcha’s mane always braided and now that she is in a much much drier stall and though I love the Equus Sur­vivor, I need some­thing that I can put on that will pen­e­trate the braids when I don’t take them out daily.  And with her being cool and dry all the time now, her hair has become stiffer, so this is a gold­mine of discovery/realization — and ESPECIALLY b/c the prod­ucts are so much cheaper than what we get raped for with horse sup­ply stores.  

I let you know what I try, though I can say for now I’m still using my MTG-SafeGuard-Furazone mix­ture for the backs of her knees (and it looks fan­tas­tic — pink soft skin, just a lit­tle flakeys, and her hair is soft soft soft).  When I give her a bath, I would use the Sulphur8 only on her feather, HiHo Sil­ver from Rio Vista on her body/mane/tail.  After bath and when she is semi-dry (and also just a refresher dur­ing the week), I spray her body with Eqyss Pre­mier Rehy­drant Spray which smells great btw.  I spray her lightly all over, then curry comb it out/in.  Every other day or so, she gets the MTG mix­ture on the back of her front knees and then straight MTG down the rest of her feather…though I’m switch­ing to a 1:1 mix­ture of the Shapley’s light oil and MTG and I use a spray bot­tle now to put it on.  Using a comb, I lift the feather hair to get under­neath and at her coro­net area as well, mak­ing sure to get down to the root where the new hair is grow­ing out.  We are still grow­ing out what was last shaved just before sum­mer, and it grew super fast to start and is slow­ing down now…though I expect with the win­ter com­ing on, she’ll prob­a­bly fill out rather well hair-wise in preper­a­tion. I lastly fol­lowed up and occa­sion­ally when she is try or if she is itchy — which has GREATLY slowed down now with reg­u­lar use and now I’m just on main­te­nance with these things — spray down the crest of her mane and at the base of her tail the Sulphur8 anti-itch braid/dread releif.  GREAT STUFF! 

Really, when you put 2 and 2 together, you real­ize that the best place for prod­ucts for our ‘hair dilem­mas’ with these horses are *already* out there, tried and true, for those who have worn dreads and braids for *years*.  Again, always take care, test and use logic as horses do strange things like eat thier own hair and put things in their mouths (though I know a few humans that do the same too), so always con­sider the ingestibil­ity fac­tor when doing exper­i­ment­ing with these things as well.

So, for now with my new dis­cov­ery, I’m going to try a nat­ural Olive Oil based line to soften up her braids (and actu­ally myself as I’m still recov­er­ing from super long exten­sions).  I have a cream for her that I am going to put in before I braid her up, braid her up, then I have the light spray that I’m using for meself, that I will also touch up her braids there­after with.  The hard part is, with the wealth of hair she has, I go through so much prod­uct to actu­ally sat­u­rate it ALL. lol.  The other ones I con­sid­ered and will try at some point if these don’t work the way I want them to, are the Shea But­ter and Car­rot Oil based lines, and there is always the good ol’ Tea Tree Oil stuff.  I’ve used that on myself and really didn’t feall any dif­fer­ence though and it is more a nat­ural anti-fungal and scalp cleanser and that direc­tion of prod­uct ver­sus a hair growth pro­moter and soft­ener.  There is a world of things to try out there and each of our horses some­times have such unique cir­cum­stances or symp­toms.  Of course, you could just use motor oil like the Gypsy Rom do, but my thoughts are since we aren’t in the same pas­ture and envi­ron­ment and weather they are that do that on a reg­u­lar basis, I’m going to find other routes (i.e. Mudd, bugs, grass, sea­sons, weather, sand, silt, etc…all these things are very dif­fer­ent here than the grounds and area there and change circumstance). 

I’ll keep you posted on progress!   And will post links to some of the stuff I’ve been using.

Tags: Feather Maintenance, Gypsy Horse Grooming, Gypsy Vanner, Horse Grooming Products, Mane & Tail Grooming

Brannagh’s turn tonight! Got a nice quick bath since she doesn’t need the absolute devo­tion and ded­i­ca­tion Sor­cha needs with all that hair! lol. She also has a much shorter atten­tion span for groom­ing than Sor­cha by a mile.

Got her all shiny and good-smelly, again with the Rio Vista Hi-Ho Sil­ver (yes, on a black! lol) and the Equi­tek won­der­fully herbal smelling spray. Some good fly-spraying, a comb out and the mon­ster was a semi-happy camper…you see, her sl…ave-human didn’t bring her car­rots or apples tonight and she was bit put out! LOL!!! Checked in on Sor­cha, that bath did her WONDERS! and gave baby ye ol’ Jolly Ball that the girls ignore…she squealed and snorted at it and then the three of us had a mutual nibble-groom ses­sion. Sor­cha is really putting some good weight back on. Brenn is look­ing superb in her shape, but needs more work-out muscling now. Very excit­ing times ahead! <wink>

Tags: Gypsy Care, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Grooming, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Life, Gypsy Maintenance, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Vanner

Well, what can I say about lit­tle Greta other than she is SO adorable! She is inquis­i­tive, kind of eye and face and is now grow­ing teeth of course.…LOL. She is so thick, com­pact, won­der­fully con­formed and yet moves like she is train­ing to be a barel racer in cir­cles around her graz­ing mum.… Her coat is still baby thick and wavy like my Cor­nish Rex cats almost and her mane and tail beau­ti­fully blonde. She has a bea­t­u­i­ful shape to her neck back and butt and a crease that is to die for in her lit­tle apple butt. She picks up her feet when asked, though still get­ting her whole bal­ance thing down pat and loves her body curry combed and touched, includ­ing her face. I slipped the hal­ter on the other night and she was quite intrigued with it! I also, um…haltered her butt! lol…actually I was let­ting it sit on her back and lay across her with­ers and butt to get her used to things of that nature flop­ping against her or ran­dom objects sit­ting on her. She is quite the flirt some­times, she wants to play but batts her eyes at you and skip steps away…and heaven for­bid you ignore her! When Heather, my vet, and I were talk­ing she prac­ti­cally raided her vet tote and any other for­eign object in the stall to get atten­tion! The other night, the boys were chat­ting directly in front of the stall with the door open as I was undo­ing and rebraid­ing Sor­cha mane — which takes about a good half hour just in up/down time — and Greta kept toy­ing inno­cently with them in peak­ing out of the stall. She finally decided to just walk by and make a go for it and took a stroll down the aisle of the barn by herself…the boys went after her, and Sor­cha was bloody bril­liant! She didn’t charge past me as I told her to Ho and call her baby, which she of course was doing as she turned a few cir­cles in her stall wait­ing. Greta, smart cookie she is, took a walk right back to mum just as casu­ally. lol. Sor­cha is won­der­ful with her — just enough par­ent­ing, but not com­pletely over­pro­tec­tive. She’s very aware of where lit­tle Greta is, but is ok where her dash­ing and dart­ing about as long as she can see, smell and hear her. And last night, as I worked on Sorcha’s legs again, mis­cheiv­i­ous Great thought it would be funny to squirt mom’s milk at me…so much for wor­ring about Sorcha’s milk pro­duc­tion! If the weather holds out and I have a lit­tle help, we are going to try the won­der abil­ity that is the wash rack this week­end and give Sor­cha a good bath and baby and spritz or two, though she’s keep­ing her­self pretty clean as a whis­tle just yet, thank good­ness! She has all the style and poise of a princess, but so far none of the brattiness…I’m sure *that* will change when she hits the ter­ri­ble ter­ror age though! Can’t be *that* lucky she’ll be a Grace Kelly or Princess Di for­ever! I’m telling you…she picked her name and told it to me as it was the fur­thest thing from what I was rumi­nat­ing on before her birth and singing to momma’s belly about brew­ing me up a sil­ver dap­ple filly (no joke) lol…and she’s liv­ing up to the poise and beauty that is her name­sake and the won­der­ful ladies of that era. *sigh*. Happiness.

Tags: Baby Gypsy, Gypsy Care, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Foal, Gypsy Grooming, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Love, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Training, Silver Dapple

So Bren-Bren is absolutely LOVING her new digs…she is now, and almost was right away (mind you we have only been there for 2 weeks now, though it seems like longer) out with other horses…she is even out with a big ‘ol giant retired bull! Remem­ber, this is the girl who sup­pos­edly ran through fences.….. and fought with other horses…I think the horses attacked her to be hon­est and her being thrown in a dry lot only served to give her rea­son to ‘move on to greener pas­tures’ so to speak! lol. She is SO com­pletely happy, that even when she comes in for grain time and evening hay, she eats half or so and munches absentmindedly…but then stands at her win­dow star­ing in to the back pas­ture intently as if it could make her mag­i­cally appear in the mid­dle of ‘her’ field! So much for being food-crazy…I think she was more pas­ture long­ing than any­thing. I’m so happy for her right now to be out run­ning, graz­ing and social­iz­ing all day. She has a beau­ti­ful corn field next to that pas­ture too that absolutely glows golden orange-yellow in the sun­set in the evening. She is stretch­ing out her legs and work­ing her mus­cles and STILL runs like she thinks she’s an Ara­bian with her tail held high. I got to watch her train­ing ses­sion on Sat­ur­day (see the pics below) where she is learn­ing to bal­ance the weight of a rider and her­self with sad­dle too. She’s almost an ace now with lung­ing and chang­ing direc­tion and stands so per­fectly still with no aid for tack­ing up. She has a won­der­ful look in her eye when she trains, focused and pay­ing attention…you can tell she enjoys it…though of course, she does pull out the occa­sional ‘test­ing the trainer’ to see if *she’s* pay­ing atten­tion still too! lol. But it’s all in fun with her and never out of angst. She really is a bit of a prankster! Think I might rename her Loki…kind of suits her. lol. Though her hair is com­pletely dif­fer­ent of type than Sorcha’s and breaks off quite eas­ily with her very thin strands, it grows long very quickly and her mane is able to be split in to a dou­ble with the way it hangs actu­ally, though not strictly because it is too thick. I think it will be bath­time this week­end and if the weather is nice, field pics!

Tags: Gypsy Behavior, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Fields, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Life, Gypsy Mischeivious, Gypsy Stalls, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Training, Pasture

REMEDY FOR ‘SCRATCHES‘
by Heather Smith Thomas
http://www.anvilmag.com/farrier/101f5.htm

Pub­lished in the Jan­u­ary 2001 Issue of Anvil Mag­a­zine
Note: Images with cap­tions are included at the end of this article.

‘Scratches’ is a term that refers to a skin prob­lem on the lower legs of horses, caused by a fun­gus (and some­times com­pli­cated by bac­te­ria). The affected area becomes crusted, scabby and thick­ened, cre­at­ing bumps and some­times open sores. In severe cases the affected skin may ooze or the whole lower leg may swell, and the horse may become lame. This skin con­di­tion gen­er­ally affects unpig­mented skin (the areas of white leg mark­ings) more read­ily than dark skin, since the unpig­mented skin is not as tough-and more apt to chaff and scrape, open­ing the way for infection.

Scratches is a der­mati­tis, or inflam­ma­tion of the skin, and the most com­mon cause seems to be the fun­gus Sporotrichum schenki. Some horses seem to be more sus­cep­ti­ble than oth­ers, just as some seem more vul­ner­a­ble to other fun­gal infec­tions such as ring­worm and girth itch. The fun­gus lives in organic mat­ter and enters through breaks in the skin when the horse walks through con­t­a­m­i­nated pas­tures or muddy, swampy areas.

The der­mati­tis that results is basi­cally an inflam­ma­tion of the deeper lay­ers of the skin, some­times involv­ing the blood and lymph ves­sels. The most com­mon site of inflam­ma­tion is the pastern and fet­lock area, often in the heel and back of the pastern where the foot bends. The involved skin becomes warmer, red­dish and thick­ened. Then the skin sur­face becomes scabby and cracked, and if the con­di­tion is not treated it usu­ally becomes badly cracked and ooz­ing and spreads to include larger areas. Infec­tion may also spread to the inner tis­sues and is some­times com­pli­cated by bac­te­r­ial infec­tion as well. The thick­ened skin may come off, leav­ing bare spots cov­ered with rough skin, or raw areas.

Tra­di­tional treat­ments for scratches were astrin­gents like meth­yl­ene blue, iodine mixed with glyc­er­ine, or oint­ments made with zinc oxide, nitro­fu­ra­zone and steroids. But a bet­ter treat­ment, rec­om­mended by sev­eral vet­eri­nar­i­ans, is a mix of nitro­fu­ra­zone, DMSO and thi­aben­da­zole (a cat­tle wormer that is also a good fungicide).

Thi­aben­da­zole cat­tle wormer paste is hard to find any­more, how­ever (no longer being sold by most vet­eri­nar­i­ans or mail order live­stock sup­plies because newer drugs have become more pop­u­lar), so the horse­men can sub­sti­tute any of the other ben­z­im­i­da­zole dewormer drugs, found in horse paste worm­ers. Some of these are fen­ben­da­zole (mar­keted as Safe-Guard or Panacur), cam­ben­da­zole, oxy­ben­da­zole (mar­keted as Anthel­cide EQ), oxfen­di­zole (trade name Ben­zelmin) and mebendazole.

The area on the horse’s leg to be treated should first be scrubbed thor­oughly to remove all dirt, then the mix­ture can be applied to the affected part of the leg. The mix should be one part nitro­fu­ra­zone oint­ment (an antibi­otic salve), one part dewormer paste con­tain­ing thi­aben­da­zole or any of the other benizmi­da­zoles, and one part DMSO. These ingre­di­ents can be obtained from a veterinarian.

The DMSO (dimethyl sul­fox­ide) helps reduce swelling and inflam­ma­tion, and also helps the fungi­cide (the wormer paste’s active ingre­di­ent) pen­e­trate the area deeply and thor­oughly, tak­ing the med­ica­tion into the under­ly­ing tis­sues. The nitro­fu­ra­zone com­bats any bac­te­r­ial infec­tion that may accom­pany the con­di­tion, and it helps buffer the DMSO so it won’t burn or irri­tate the tis­sues. The wormer paste kills the fungus.

The dewormer is the safest type of fungi­cide to use in con­junc­tion with DMSO, accord­ing to our vet­eri­nar­ian, since it is an oral med­ica­tion, safe to use inter­nally in the body. Harsh or poi­so­nous fungi­cides like iodine should never be used with DMSO because the DMSO car­ries the med­ica­tion into the body and could cause seri­ous problems.

The affected area should be well cleaned before apply­ing the med­ica­tion, so no dirt or out­side con­t­a­m­i­nants are car­ried into the deeper tis­sues by the DMSO. Warm water is usu­ally ade­quate for wash­ing the leg, and a handy way to apply it is with a well-rinsed dish­wash­ing deter­gent squeeze bot­tle, using your fin­gers to remove any dirt that is cling­ing to the leg from the oint­ment applied at the last doc­tor­ing session.

After the area is washed with warm water and is very clean, it should be dried it with a towel. The skin should not be wet when the mix­ture is applied. A mix can be made that will be enough for sev­eral doc­tor­ings, or it can be mixed up fresh each time-just the amount needed for one appli­ca­tion. It can be eas­ily stirred up with a fin­ger, in a small wide-mouth jar. If a per­son doesn’t want skin con­tact with the DMSO, rub­ber gloves can be used to mix it and to apply it to the leg.

Mixed with nitro­fu­ra­zone oint­ment, the DMSO doesn’t burn or irri­tate the skin or raw tis­sues like it can when used by itself, but a per­son may still ‘taste’ it if your skin comes into con­tact with it. If using bare fin­gers to mix or apply the med­ica­tion, hands should be washed imme­di­ately afterward.

If applied daily, this mix­ture usu­ally clears up scratches faster than tra­di­tional treat­ments. Ban­dag­ing, even in severe cases, is unnec­es­sary, and can actu­ally be detri­men­tal to fast heal­ing. The mois­ture should not be held in.

With this treat­ment a bad case of scratches can be cleared up even if the horse must be rid­den and con­tin­ues to get the area wet and dirty when trav­el­ing through mud or on a dusty trail. The leg should be washed and med­icated each day after the ride. For a really resis­tant case that has bac­te­r­ial com­pli­ca­tions, you can also give the horse oral sulfa tablets to help com­bat the bac­te­r­ial infec­tion, and dex­am­etha­sone to aid in reduc­ing the swelling and inflam­ma­tion, accord­ing to our veterinarian.

The best pre­ven­tion for scratches is to keep white-legged horses out of muddy pas­tures. The fun­gus, once intro­duced into a pas­ture, remains there indef­i­nitely, and horses are apt to pick it up when there are cracks or breaks in the skin. Pink skin chaps, cracks or nicks more eas­ily than tougher, darker skin; that’s why the prob­lem is most com­mon in horses with white leg mark­ings. If a horse must walk through mud or water often, the skin may tend to chap or crack more read­ily, and the fun­gus may be picked up from the mud. Scratches can also be a prob­lem in win­ter pas­tures, and even dry sum­mer pas­tures if the fun­gus exists in the dust and dirt and is intro­duced through breaks in the skin. But if caught early, a few treat­ments will clear scratches right up. A more seri­ous, neglected case will take a bit longer.

Tags: DMSO, Feather Maintenance, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Grooming, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Horse Grooming, Gypsy Maintenance, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Vanner, Horse Grooming Products, Mane & Tail Grooming, MTG, Scratches Remedy

SCRATCHES, DRY HAIR, ‘ITCHIES’ AND MORE: For those deal­ing with any­thing *akin* to scratches, here is a great link! Now that the horses are TOTALLY in my over­see­ing of their care, I’m using a ver­sion of this (passed by my won­der­ful vet) to treat Sorcha’s dermatitis…which, by the way, is NOT scratches at all, nor mit…es. She has ouch­ies behind her knee area that she picks at all the time (kind of like me and my mos­quito bites lol) and just never allows them to heal com­pletely. Add to that dry feather — and remem­ber it’s grow­ing back in with a ven­gence, so that itches too — and voilà, prime sce­nario for her itch­ing the hell out of her­self! I am using MTG as the deliv­er­ant instead of DMSO (also ok’d by the vet) since it’s the nec­es­sary sul­phur needed and helps oil the feath­ers and, at least for my horse, has no reac­tion or burn­ing with it…some horses do, mind you. But in 1 appli­ca­tion, I saw a dif­fer­ence. I mixed up the potion 1:1:1 as stated and applied to just the needed area (with gloves this time so I could really rub it in b/c I bite my cuti­cles and didn’t want to moosh it in there) and then used straight MTG on the rest of her feather…which I haven’t been able to do for a while now…There already is a marked dif­fer­ence in the stiff­ness and soft­ness of her feather. The ouchy areas that usu­ally get dry scabby are nice and pink healed. I am apply­ing every other day instead of daily while I was test­ing. I also am still using the sul­phur 8 braid spray stuff on the base of her tail area and down the cen­ter of her mane to keep her com­fort­able with all that hair. Really like that stuff and olther parts of the brand/line and was rec­om­mended by some­one on the Gypsy forums…

http://www.anvilmag.com/farrier/101f5.htm

Tags: Braiding, Dandruff, DMSO, Furazone, Grooming, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Grooming, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Scratches, Gypsy Vanner, Itchies, MTG, Oil, Scratches Remedy, Scratching, Stomping, Sulphur, Tail Wraps

Both girls trimmed on Sat­ur­day, both stood per­fectly with­out cross ties while being worked on, baby Greta stood duti­fully by momma watch­ing the won­der Phil do his work on her hooves. Every­one thinks Sor­cha is putting on weight, I remain skeptical.

Vet pulled blood on Thurs, inter­nally Sor­cha is doing fine, so that’s keep­ing me sane. I can’t thank my fan­tas­tic vet and Sap­phire Hills enough for the atten­tive­ness to my girls. Sorcha’s stall fan ROCKS and both girls are get­ting plen…ty of food and pas­ture time…we are watch­ing the grass intake a bit b/c I don’t know how long it’s been that they have been off it, but so far they are absolutely lov­ing it. And baby Greta thinks she’s a bar­rel racer, that’s for sure! Vet agrees as well, it’s not really scratches, nor mites we’ve been deal­ing with on Sor­cha, just some dry itchy skin and feather. I never thought it was either, truth told…I’ve got a rem­edy mix I’m ran past her and am going to try this week since I’m not too keen on the whole motor oil thing just yet! Besides, I already hung a wal­nut branch and celtic horse brass ‘ward’ I made out­side Sorcha’s stall with an old Rom ‘whis­per wish’ for good health…being the super­sti­tious rodeo lot they are there, I just got winked at and accepted, but I don’t want them to think I’m *that* weird! lol It’s so nice to be in charge of the deci­sions for my girl and have a ‘team’ involved of peo­ple that are all on the same page here along with my vet. I’m feel­ing much bet­ter about the whole sit­u­a­tion, but a load of guilt for not break­ing away sooner. Bren is a loud­mouth and ‘spoke up’, but my Sor­cha is so quiet and a sweetheart.…Just count­ing my bless­ings that all the girls are as healthy as an ox each. Bren is work­ing with Keely 3 times a week now. Greta is now very much a curi­ous tot who we can touch all over and pick up her legs. Well, that’s it for the update tonight! More to come this week and pic­tures as well.

Tags: Changes, Gypsy Care, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Diet, Gypsy Farrier, Gypsy Foal, Gypsy Fortune, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Love, Gypsy Luck, Gypsy Maintenance, Gypsy Remedy, Gypsy Shoeing, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Tranining, Gypsy Trimming, Gypsy Vanner

Met with a trainer for Bran­nagh on Sat­ur­day and was very excited and pleased. Tried my best to not be the horse mom that says ‘how won­der­ful’ her horses are and leaves out all the ‘silly quirks’. I think I made it out worse than it was of course, but made sure I gave as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble. The more knowl­edge a trainer has, the bet­ter they can be pre­pared for what to expect in train­ing, I say. Had a lovely after­noon then back at the sta­bles hav­ing some much needed *Bran­nagh Time* and boy did she really want the loves! She’s got Ry’s num­ber lately, but boy did she stand still and curl her lip for me in th…e cross ties when it came time to curry comb! Took me a while to work out the fairy braids, but out they did come! We rubbed and scritched and brushed out and looked pretty and nuz­zled some more. She had a moment of danc­ing and being goofy, but I was *expect­ing* her to behave and behave she did very well. That girl is WAY too smart for her own good. Hope­fully, after train­ing this sum­mer, my friend Jaime will set­tle in from her wed­ding hula­baloo (been there, done that, not doing it again!!!) and work with Bren over the winter…if she takes to it, hope­fully it won’t take much con­vinc­ing for Jaime to work with her to do the drill team. Bran­nagh is look­ing so beau­ti­ful these days,that it makes me sad to see Sor­cha hav­ing such a hard time with the preg­nancy. I’ve made the deci­sion that no one is going out for preg­gers this year…Bran is going for train­ing and Sor­cha is going out to play with the girls and fat­ten up once the baby is weaned. She is on a nice calcium-rich sup­ple­ment now to give her a boost (along with lots of other good vitamin-schtuffs ). When I had the vet out to pal­pate and check for swim­ming (tee hee) baby, she pulled a fecal and blood work as well and glad to say she is right as rain so that’s a big relief. The corn oil and pel­let grain did her good in the meantime…seems her first baby is just stress­ing her out! She’s got her foal­ing stall all set up and she’s lov­ing the extra space. Her butt mus­cles have relaxed a bit, so it shouldn’t be long now for her. *VERY* ner­vous and excited at the same time.

Tags: Gypsy Baby, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Foaling, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Nutrition, Gypsy Supplements, Gypsy Vanner, Gyspy Training

BRANNAGH NEWS: So The Mon­ster got a good groom­ing the other day and shed a lit­ter of kit­tens. Bran­nagh, it seems, is a late bloomer in the feather department…she’s real­l­l­lly start­ing to bulk up on her hair! She’s on a sup­ple­ment, but only a black horse one, noth­ing spe­cial. Tail wrap still hold­ing strong…she’s got such dif­fer­ent hair than Sor­cha, it’s so odd how var­ied in so many ways the Cobs can seri­ously be!

SORCHA UPDATE: I felt the baby do a shuf­fle in Sorcha’s belly last night. She is look­ing so much bet­ter lately and it makes me feel less ner­vous. Her feather is grow­ing back in nicely and she is much much more com­fort­able with any ‘itchies’. Re-wrapped her tail the other day too…braids have been hold­ing out fine,… just the wrap needed some re-doing.  She’s such a chunk! Still doing the Sil­ver Simon Baby Dance!!!

Tags: Gypsy Baby, Gypsy Care, Gypsy Cob, Gypsy Foal, Gypsy Grooming, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Maintenance, Gypsy Tinker, Gypsy Vanner