Thinking of Spring

We are having yet more snow, although again we managed to dodge the worst of it, we have been lucky this year, there have been three big storms predicted to hit us and none of them have. Further north they have not been so lucky.

The photos today are hopefully going to brighten up your day if it needs brightening. I took these last summer out in the pasture. Strangely enough the one above looks like the milkweed plant flower that the Monarch buttterfly caterpillars feed off but it had totally different leaves and general structure. I even found one with a monarch caterpillar on it. Will have to do a bit of research as I thought that the milkweed was the only plant these caterpillars ate.
The one above was a tiny little weed, I had to lay on the ground to shoot it as it is only about an inch long, if anyone knows what it is please fill me in LOL.

Taxes is doing great, the wound looks aweful but he is full of his usual naughtiness again and lets me flush the wound with no problem with warm water and spray it with an antibacterial spray the vet gave me to use.

I put the horses in last night because of the storm warning so they will probably stay there til tomorrow. Our helper has made headway a bit in the barn and hopefully we will get it in ship shape by the end of the week again. Blue is already starting to shed his winter coat by the handfulls. I find that the white hair always sheds first, so all the horses with lots of white are shedding profusely.

Well thats my bit for the day, still hoping and praying that we will sell some horses soon to good homes, keep fingers and toes crossed for us LOL (((((Hugs)))))

Lori
xx

Taxes Treatment Day 1

I am very pleased with how he has responded to the flushing, I filled a gallon tub with warm water and flushed the wound out three times and he was soooooooo good. Then I sprayed it with an antiseptic spray and he didnt have a problem with that either. Good boy.


I will take pics every few days and then once a week to keep up with progress. Pics today are ones I posted before on my other blog when he was 3 months old and was playing with his Jolly Ball. He ran into the fence the next day and cut his back leg up.


Lori

Taxes Has Done It Again

(Click on pics to see larger images)

Well Mike your little buddy has been up to his tricks again. I was out feeding yesterday morning and had just put all the horses out and partitioned off the section where Taxes gets to have a bit more space and play over the partitions with the two other colts (MiKael calls it face boxing which I love). I was cleaning up and the next minute I looked up and this is what greeted me!!!!! I have hunted high and low to try to find out how he did this but cant find anything, no hair on something, no evidence at all.

That triangular flap at the bottom is just a flap of skin. At the top the muscle got torn a bit too but fortunately not too badly. We had two options, anaesthetise him (it is very very cold you can see the breath vapor in the top pic) and stitch him up and hope that he doesnt pull the stitches out, or leave it as it is and flush it with sterile water and use a clear antibiotic spray on it four or five times a day.

As most of you know, Taxes is a little tyrant and has a very strong personality so we decided on the leaving it and trying to keep it clean while it heals. It looks absolutely dreadful. He likes to bite everything so I know he will just have it all open again in an instant which is what happened when he cut his hind leg on the wire a few months back. The added bonus is that because it is still so cold we have no flies, which can be a terrible problem in the summer with open wounds.

So I will keep you posted on his progress here, but it is going to be a few months to get this fixed at least.

Lori

Unidentified Hawk

(click on pic to enlarge)

This is not a great picture because the bird was a long way away and I got as close to it as I could before the railway track started hiding it from view (that is what you can see in the foreground) It is also cropped drastically. Any idea which hawk this one is? For some reason I am having problems loading the pic. I have seen it around more, probably attracted by the sparrows that I feed.

Ball Python Feeding - Quite graphic Photos - Part 2

This shot was after he had worked his prey down into his gullet. As I said in my last post they usually get fed once a week and this was a medium sized mouse.

Lori

Ball Python Feeding - Quite graphic Photos

A friend of mine and her sister have a python which I have pictured in this series and two Boas. This snake is about 2 or 3 feet long so is still quite small and he gets fed every Tuesday. I am a staunch animal lover so this wasnt easy for me to document but I did, and it was in a small tank which made space to work a problem.

(Click on all pics to see larger versions)

After striking at the mouse and having its mouth around its middle the python curled itself around the throat area to suffocate the prey.
He then proceeded to unlock his jaws so that he could consume the mouse from the head first.
He had to stretch and ripple his neck and body to work the mouse down into his tummy.

I will post another picture in a second post of him after completely consuming the mouse.

Iam hoping to do something similar with the Boas, the one is about 6 foot long and the other about two feet long. I will post what I have of them in a seperate post.

Lori