Nicole Schnell

It has been a busy past couple of weeks!  Breeding & foaling season is definitely in full swing!  There are babies running around everywhere, and we've been busy checking mares in the mornings, grooming them, and sending them to the breeding sheds.  I've been on two more shed runs, once back to Stonewall and then one trip to Ashford.  Last Thursday night we had 5 mares foal!  That was really exciting!  We were getting a little behind as far as due dates, but one busy night caught us right back up.  Most of the new foals have been fine, we had one get a little sick early this past week, but she's doing fine now.  One of our older foals, who was born with a slightly crooked front leg had surgery recently.  She had a transphyseal screw put in her knee to help the joint grow straight as she gets bigger.  What happens is, the screws are put in on the side you want the joint to grow away from, and this encourages the bones to grow straight and align properly as the bone matures.  She is still on restricted turn out, but she?s been doing great post-surgery, and is still just as full of energy as she was before.  I feel so bad for her because she gets turned out in a little pen and everyday she starts bucking and cutting up, you can tell she just wants to go run around and play like all the other babies.

We've been doing a lot of really cool vet work in the mornings.  We've been ultra sounding our mares that have been sent to the shed and most of our barren mares are in foal.  On some of the older embryos you can actually see the heart beat on the screen!  That's really cool.  Our vet is pretty awesome; he's been letting me do a lot in the mornings when he comes out.  I've gotten to draw blood and give some of the injections.  He also let me cut open a few of the mare's caslicks!  That was really awesome!  Just today we had a different doctor come out and look at one of our older foals who's had a swollen hock.  X-rays of the joint hadn't shown anything abnormal, so this doctor actually ended up ultra sounding her lungs, and suspects she might have rhodacoccus.  One of the side effects associated with rhodacoccus can be swollen joints that don't really cause lameness, but swell up really bad in response to the disease.  To help further diagnose, today the vet performed a trachea flush where he put fluid into her lungs and then drew it back out so a culture could be done to see if any bacteria was present.  Then, he had to put the foal under anesthesia, and he flushed out the swollen hock joint.  This will get tested as well to help diagnose the exact problem.  But those were both really cool procedures to get to help with and watch. 

Our manager gave me a copy of the teasing chart they use for 4 of the mares on the farm, so I get to keep up with that throughout the rest of the time I'm here.  It has been cool to get to see how they mark everything down and how to decide when a mare needs to be palped, and how to get them to cycle if they're not, or even just looking at how each mare's cycle can be very different.  One of the topic choices for our next paper is actually about how to manage a teasing chart, so being able to do it on my own farm has been really helpful in class work assignments as well. 

This past Tuesday's class was back at Rood and Riddle.  We all had to bring in a placenta from our farms to dissect.  I think we ended up with about 8 different placentas so we laid them all out and talked about differences in each one, which ones looked normal, which ones didn't.  We also learned all about the different parts and the functions of the placenta.  This was one of my favorite classes we've had.  It was really interesting to learn about what you should be concerned with when looking at a placenta after a foaling and what may look weird, but is completely normal.  Class this coming up week is out at the Thoroughbred Training Center.

Last Wednesday on my day off I went out to KESMARC to shadow for the day.  That was really exciting.  Not only did I get to see all the different therapy methods in action and learn a lot about rehabilitation, but I also got to meet a local celebrity.  Jean Cruguet, Seattle Slew's jockey actually stopped by that afternoon and I got to meet him!  It was cool to get to meet him and talk to him for a little bit.  He actually still exercises horses some mornings out at the race track!  I've added a picture I took with him on the picture page.  He's a short little guy, but I guess they all are.  Anyway - at KESMARC I got to see them do all the morning treatments they have to do before the horses get to work out.  I watched them run the hyperbaric oxygen chamber on a dummy foal that came in that day.  I got to observe an equine physical therapist do laser treatment on one of the horses.  And I also got to go around with an internal medicine specialist who came in for the day to scope several of the horses for respiratory problems.  It was fun to observe the scopes; he passed the scope around and let everyone helping look and then he'd explain what was going on with each of the horses and what he suspected it might be.

I think that about catches you up.  Of course in-between all the excitement there has been a lot of the normal everyday chores;  dipping navels and giving enemas to foals, grooming mares, pulling manes, cleaning stalls, moving horses around to make room for all the new babies, and so on.  But the weather is getting so nice here!  It has been in the 70?s for over a week now, which has been really nice!  Not so great in the afternoons when the horses would rather stay out in the sun than come in when they?re supposed to, but it is definitely nicer than 20?s and snowing.  I?ve added a few new pictures, not too many though.  Racing starts at Keeneland next week!  Anyone keeping up with the Derby prospects?  It?s just over a month away; Derby is starting to become big talk around here, which is really exciting!  I?ll keep you guys posted, and I?ll post again hopefully sooner next time!