When you look at Raven, it’s hard to believe that this big, beautiful filly was a rough-coated, dull-eyed, rain rot covered baby less than a year ago. She has truly blossomed! She amuses us daily with her playful personality and enthusiasm for life.
Right now our biggest challenge with Raven is with keeping her GI tract happy. She has continued to be incredibly sensitive to changes in feed, and we still have her on a very strict feeding regimen that is carefully managed with the help of our veterinarians at Rainland. We have slowly been introducing hay back in at a rate that her body will tolerate, with the goal being to make her as “normal” a horse as possible in relation to feeding. It is a slow process bringing her along from a place of such malnourishment as a foal, but we are making good progress.
Raven has made it clear that we are doing this feed transition on her body’s terms, and she lets us know if we’re going too fast. We are finely in tune with her mild colic symptoms and hyper vigilant about watching her response when we make diet adjustments. We have had long periods colic free that is very encouraging. Even though it’s slow going, we believe she will indeed get to a place where her feed management will not be so much of an issue.
Here are some lovely photos taken by Jessica Farren last week at SAFE. As always, thank you Jessica for capturing Raven’s beauty so well.
