Biscotti

Here are some photos of Biscotti and his adopter Tracy at his site check on 3/20/11.  He is just shy of 3 years old and as you can see, Tracy has started some light under-saddle training with him.  He looks just great!

*sigh*…another emergency vet bill tonight. My fault — the horses came off the pastures about a week ago. I’ve been rotating them in turnout out onto the smaller grass pastures I let grow the last few months so they all get a little grass time a couple of times a week. I didn’t even think anything of it since they were all out on grass all summer, and none of the horses have had any trouble — sometimes they only get an hour or two or sometimes I put a couple in my front pasture which is pretty lush. Well Scotti and Rhythm have been out a couple of times for short periods but today they were out for most of the day. Around 3pm I looked outside and noticed Scotti lying down, but thought he was just enjoying a chance to lie down on the soft ground for a nap. He was up later, but then not long after he laid down again. Then when I went to bring him in he was docile…too docile for Scotti, he always has to try to be Naughty and he didn’t once. And then I fed him his grain and instead of diving into it, he took a bite, and then started doing his infamous lip in the air, which is when I knew something was wrong because that is what he does whenever he is scared, upset, hurting, anxious, or excited. I was in the process of trying to take his vitals and on the phone with Hannah when he laid down on the mats in the shelter — ok, now definitely not ok. I checked his gum color and freaked out when from what he would let me look at was dark blackish/purplish color and at that point Hannah decided he needed to be seen. I took him out for a walk and he was pretty quiet and well behaved and then finally he passed a small pile of manure and was making a lot of gas noises and he immediately perked right up, just as Hannah’s truck pulled in. The dark gums turned out to be pigment (guess buckskins can have black points on their gums too!) but he was definitely having a gas colic and we gave him some banamine and by then he was perky enough to give us quite a bit of trouble…Naughty Scotti was back.

But THEN we went to put him back in his paddock and found Rhythm lying down. Sure enough, same thing was going on with him, he was burping gassy stuff and making lots of gurgling noises, so he got himself some banamine also.

So I guess I am going to have to be pretty careful with the lush grass I “saved” and make sure the horses are only on it sparingly. The funny thing is I had been using that pasture all week — Wishes, Slam, Vanna, Annie and Jasmine had all been out there for hours at a time without a problem. Anyway I am just kicking myself for not being more careful about it. 

Monica did a great job preparing Scotti for the show and he did so well! He didn’t much like being stalled, and tried a few times to climb his way out (Naughty Scotti!) but when he was out and about he was SUCH a good boy!

After his hoof trim today…and while everyone was focused on Lola and her antics, Scotti decided he’d like to pick up Daphne’s Hoof Stand…he kept trying and trying at different angles to get his teeth around the pad.…When that wasn’t working he decided to put his own hoof up on top again but he kept missing…Since he was so interested in using his feet, Daphne, in her great way of “playing” that is actually training, cleverly disguised, she get’s him to show just how far he can extend that elegant saddlebred front leg…

Scotti’s been being a pill to Lola and Aiden and Classy was having a nervous fit about being moved to another pasture and so I thought I’d try the two of them out together. Classy has a reputation for being dominant to other horses but I figured Scotti could use some getting kicked around as sassy as he is.

Well Classy’s reputation held true…WOW! She just exuded fury at him…and he did something I have never seen a horse do…first he went up to her doing that clacking thing that babies do, but as she just turned on the mean mare face more he actually squatted down like a submissive dog does, to the point he almost laid down completely! He did it more than once…the only thing that stopped him was her swinging her butt at him causing him to run off. She’s really being pretty mean and totally obsessing about Annie in the next pasture for some reason. But at least with her abcess she isn’t moving very fast right now so he could easily outrun her. I was a little worried that she wouldn’t settle down but within an hour they were both grazing together away from the fenceline and Annie, so we shall see.

It is good for Scotti to get bossed around a bit.…maybe knock the Naughty right out of Scotti!

New photos of Naughty Scotti. He is quite a bit bigger than Ariel now. He still has a long way to go to shed out his sheepskin rug but hair is coming off of him like no tomorrow.  Ok, he is the most expressive horse with his upper lip I have ever known. He catches any kind of scent in the air and up it goes. Here he is RUNNING with his lip up…funny boy!

Naughty little Scotti got his shots today. He was good for the shots, he’s just naughty in general. He’s got the funniest personality, but he’s a troublemaker!

One of the many reasons Scotti has earned the nickname “Naughty Scotti”.  Can’t you just see it?

Biscotti  is now a gelding! Everything went well and very quickly, he got up smoothly after the surgery and Kayo and he are sharing a stall and are “gelding buddies”.

Here some photos to start off his new thread, taken about a month ago. His winter coat looks like a sheepskin rug, it is hilarious! He is taller than Kayo, who is a month older, and Ariel, who is two months older, so I am wondering if he is going to be a tall boy.  And the other photos are of his gelding surgery.

And here’s a video of his post-gelding forced exercise with Kayo:

Hope is up at Julie’s right now, and Scotti is still here with me. Kayo and Scotti are scheduled for their brain surgery on Saturday…then the fun begins of the twice daily forced exercise. *sigh* — I am not looking forward to that part, but am looking forward to the removal of their manliness (actually, they are both pretty good boys, not very mouthy or studdy yet, but still, I’d rather have it all taken care before the hormones have a chance to take over their brains). 

Scotti is just fine from his choke incident a while back, and yesterday was the big day — he was weaned. We weaned him and the Arab filly we have from Sno County (Ariel) at the same time and also brought Kayo, Julie’s colt, here as well, so they could all be weaning buddies together.

I really thought Scotti would be the easiest because he is so confident and Hope really doesn’t have much interest in him, but we put all three babies in the paddock with the 12x24 shelter and he flipped out as soon as Hope was on the other side of the fence from him and went through the hot tape. We fixed it, put him back, and he went through it again, breaking it in several places the second time. We finally had to put him in a stall after Julie loaded Hope and Kayo’s dam up (Hope was completely calm, never called once to Scotti, Cricket on the other hand was trying to tear apart the trailer). He was pretty frantic for about a half hour but then he settled. Kayo was really very laid back and only called a couple of times, and Ariel had the easiest separation since her dam was just in the adjacent paddock and she could still touch noses with her. Within an hour it was all calm and Scotti was back with the two other babies.

It was interesting because immediately the babies started establishing dominance. My two had been together for months and knew each other but without their dams suddenly they were being nasty to each other and both vying for top position (and both chasing poor Kayo around). They worked it out though and soon all was quiet, until dark fell. Then Scotti saw the cow in my neighbors pasture and was convinced that she was his mother and started calling at her, that went on for about a half hour. At this point it was getting dark and I was bringing in the rest of the horses. All of a sudden, Kayo, who had been so quiet, went crazy and ran through the fence. I caught him, fixed the fence, put him back in and fed them, and he settled down, but this morning he was out and had actually broken through a couple fences and was in one of the far pastures with Benny, whom he had taken with him through one of the fences. The rest of the horses had stayed put though even with part of their fence down. Hot tape is great because it is safe, but it sucks because it breaks easy! Anyway, I repaired the fences, put him back in with the other two and all is calm again. Hopefully it will stay that way. They’ll get some turnout today at least in the arena and that will hopefully let them burn off some steam!

Next up: gelding surgery for Scotti and Kayo. We will probably wait a few weeks to a month before we hit them with that.

Scotti is sounding a lot better but NOT being a good boy for them. He’s making me chase him for 15 minutes before he will allow himself to be caught, and getting it down his throat isn’t fun either. 

Poor Scotti was sounding bad again yesterday, and thankfully Hannah happened to be out and checked in on him. He is back on the antibiotics for another week. He seems like he feels ok, but his breathing sounds like Darth Vader. If he doesn’t improve after another round of antibiotics he will need to be scoped. 

Scotti is doing much better. I had some gravel delivered today and he and Hope were very excited and running around. He’s still getting his hay soaked and his breathing is still somewhat ragged. He was not a very good boy for his antibiotics last night but was much better this morning. I will be happy when the 5 days is up. 

Scotti gave me a huge scare last night. I was gone most of the day school shopping and by the time I got out to feed it was 8:30 and already dark. I fed everyone and was heading back to the house passing by the front pasture that Hope and Scotti were in, and Scotti whinnied a greeting as he always does, except it sounded really weird and wrong. I went over to check on him and his breathing was really ragged and I realized he was choking. So, we ended up having to have an emergency call at 9:30pm from Hannah.

She tubed him and cleared the choke, but his breathing was still very ragged and he had fluid in his lungs so he clearly aspirated something. We improvised an inhaler with a paper bag and some inhaler medicine and gave him some of that, that seemed to help a little but he still sounded awful. We started him on antibiotics and he’s on a mush diet for a while. I checked on him twice during the night and fortunately, he sounded MUCH better a few hours later (I was very worried about him). This morning he is breathing normally but he has a runny nose and goopy eyes. It’s possible that the choke was secondary to an upper respiratory illness that he was already working on, because I had heard him cough a few times the day before.

Any way, he’s on antibiotics now and hopefully will be feeling better soon.

Here’s a photo from August 28th with volunteer Crystal:

And from Monica who did an article on him in her Horsebytes column:

Scotti sure doesn’t look like he has ever had any nutritional setbacks in his life! If you haven’t yet been to visit him, though, it is his personality that constantly lures people into the paddock.http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsebytes/archives/147502.asp

I was laughing yesterday while trying to capture a little video of these two before an impending storm:

Or go directly to the video:

A couple of photos from this weekend:

Hope and Scotti today:

Ok, the naming thing. We’ve thrown around the idea of a naming contest/fundraiser. I am not sure how many people are interested in this, but ok, how about $5/name?

Contest ends Sunday 6pm. And PLEASE, pick good names! We are looking for a barn name, not a registered name, so while “Sail the Golden Seas” was really creative and cute, we won’t be registering him (his adopter could choose to try, later), so we need a name we can call him with when he is out in the pasture. Also, believe it or not, the name IS important when placing horses. We are going to have a harder time placing a “Bob” than we will placing a horse with a really nice name that speaks to something about them. So think about that too.

Ok, have at it! If we don’t get any entries then Bonnie, Jenny and I will name him ourselves by Sunday, so either way he will have a name.

ETA: After further discussion, everyone loved the name Biscotti (Scotti for short) so we opted not to do the fundraiser and Scotti finally got a name!

Photos courtesy of Leah Anderson:

Hope’s baby (come on! Name please!) got his first “trim” today. He was a bit fussy at first but once I figured out that as long as I scritched his back and butt really hard — Daphne could do whatever she wanted with his feet.
Even for all his struggles in the beginning — Hope was across the pasture and never even looked up.….thank goodness she lets him nurse…other than that…she’s pretty much a hoofs off mom.

As far as the name goes…Um…Baby? Colt? Seriously, we’ve got nothin’. I’ve just had too much going on to think about it. But yes, he needs a name! Leah and I were chatting about how he is coffee-colored, like a Latte or a Cappuchino…Chino would be a cute nickname. But nothing has stuck.

From Monica B:

When we visited Monday we got to play with Hope and baby a bit. May I say, Hope is stunning! She has such vibrant contrast with her white and black. She has “cleaned up” beautifully. Her weight looks great and she is a very gentle girl and has such sweet eyes.

Baby is all colt! What a character. Even before we approached his pasture you could see him tearing around, whinneying, playing tag with some imaginary friend. When we got out there in the field with him he was like; “OH BOY!!!!, somebody has come to play!” Little boy antics ensued with only minor interruptions for quick visits to the milk bar. (Gotta keep up your strength ya’ know.) He seems to be doing very well.

The overcast broke and the sun shone thru. Hopes coloring was luminous and the field flowers sparkled against the green. What beautiful pictures we took of Hope contentedly grazing in the lush new field with baby chasing around nearby nibbling at flowers and chasing butterflies.

In the meantime, I forgot to post a link to this last week…

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsebytes/archives/140131.asp

From Valerie (volunteer):

He is a handful! On Monday I went over to Jaime’s and we stood there and watched him pounce mercilessly all over Hope because she had the nerve to eat her grain instead of paying attention to him.

He grabbed ahold of the crest of her neck and was shaking his head back and forth like a dog with a tug toy. Eating her mane. Rearing up and climbing all over her neck and grabbing her ears.

In the arena the other day — he is all about rearing up at you and spazzing around. And that day he was eating her tail. She caught on to that and not only whipped it out of his mouth but gave him a few extra whips across the face to boot.

He is really something. I love him.

Update from Valerie (volunteer):

An update on Hope’s baby. I went to Jaime’s yesterday and spent a little time with him.
You will all be glad to know that he is turning into the little stink we all hoped he would.
He is barely a week old and was already trying to nip me and grabbed ahold of my shirt. I was scratching his back and he humped it up and did a little bouncing with his head down. (Crow hopping in the making)
He is just as cute as can be. His pasterns are coming right up and he still has a wobbly hock but that doesn’t slow him down not one bit!

And from Jenny:

That shirt-grabbing seems to be a recurring theme. I have video of the little stinker grabbing my shirt… and playing with Hope’s fly mask… and stalking Bonnie while she picked up manure… and squealing and cantering off madly after seemingly no stimulus. 

Here’s a picture of him from Monday:

Our little colt is doing MUCH better today! Time for his first turnout! He wasn’t so sure he wanted to leave the safety of his stall, and twice he turned around and went back in the stall calling for momma to come back with him (she was eating grass and had no interest in him whatsoever). Finally he got brave and followed her out. Wow, what a springy high stepping little trot he has! He is ALL Saddlebred, that’s for sure! Once he got out on the pasture, he was testing out those little legs as much as he could. Here’s a few photos (taken with the new camera, what a difference!):

Hope’s being better. She still only nickered to him once in response to him calling her, and it was fairly half-hearted. However, she is content in the front pasture by herself away from the other mares. New moms usually do lose their desire to be with the herd, especially right after a baby is born, but I was worried that she was going to go nuts being away from the other mares. So there is some maternal instincts kicking in, finally! She really is quite patient with all his running underneath her that he likes to do — she just isn’t very vocal to him. He on the other hand, when he runs his laps around her he likes to also whinny as loud as he can, which is hilarious. She ignores him. 

Sorry I haven’t given many updates or photos yet. Its been miserable weather-wise and dealing with a sick foal in quarantine and a newborn means not much is getting done with him and he hasn’t been out of the stall yet except to go from one stall to another when I am cleaning stalls.

While Hope is a tolerant mother, she is not as interested in her baby as I would like to see. When I moved her into the next stall today, she was much more interested in getting out and where the other mares were than her baby, whom she was happy to leave behind. She would not call to him or even nicker and he was standing in the stall neighing at her and trying to figure out how to get out the open door. I kept walking her in front of him but she was ignoring him completely and he wasn’t catching on. I finally had to go lock her into the stall next door and then carry/push him up to the stall door, open it and push him in. All the while she was not calling or concerned, she just wanted outside. She doesn’t mind him nursing, but if something distracts her she walks away and will just push him aside not paying any mind to where he is. I am hoping when I turn them out she will get a little more protective of him and hopefully more maternal instincts will kick in. He seems fine but still very wobbly and unsteady on those flexy fetlocks of his.

Its supposed to be nice soon, so if not tomorrow, by Thursday we will have some new photos of his first adventure outdoors!

Biscotti was born at SAFE out of a 5 year old black and white pinto Saddlebred mare named Hope (Registered name “Acquiescence”) that was rescued from a large animal control seizure involving 9 other horses (plus 10 more in another county) in Carnation on February 22, 2008.  Hope was in horrific condition when she arrived at SAFE, and we had no knowledge that she was pregnant at the time, being so thin, covered in lice and rain rot, and with several dead horses on the property.  After a couple of months though, we noticed that Hope was looking a bit rounder in the belly than some of the other horses that had come from the seizure (and we had already had one surprise filly, Ariel, who was born from an Arabian mare named Amber, so we knew the possibility existed that Hope was pregnant).  Sure enough, when Hope was palpated by the vet she had a large, active baby inside her.

“Biscotti” aka “Scotti”, was born on May 12th, 2008, in the early morning without assistance.  He was buckskin, with two hind socks, and we therefore knew that his sire was the cremello Saddlebred stallion Seas the Golden Day, who had died of starvation on the property.  He was a little down on his pasterns at birth, but that quickly resolved.  Hope snuck him out in the earlyl hours of the morning, just before we were getting ready to start “foal watch” as she was only barely bagging up.  Here are his first photos of life: