kirkcudbright | more songs about horses and chickens

Spring shots at the barn - eastern equine encephilitis, west nile, rabies - those were the shots as announced by Doc, maybe other things mixed into the particular vials. I was tasked with holding Stjarni and Ljufur as well as my own, and they were getting coggins as well, and lyo suggested getting coggins for Gemini as well, because, hey, why not, we might want to go to somewhere that requires it.

So an hour and half at the barn (everyone still shedding because it's not June yet), immediately followed by my weekly that-which-does-not-kill-me workout, followed by dusting the chickens, finally followed by a shower, and starting work ca. 3pm (with a massive email backlog).

The chickens have lice, northern fowl mites, and (probably) scaly leg mites. The solution for the first two is the same - weekly dusting with permethrin, pyrethrin, or similar insecticide until you've gotten the entire life cycle; plus a *thorough* cleaning and dusting of the coop. The solution to the third is coating the legs with vaseline, to smother the mites.

This all reminds me that it's tick season here in MA, and Gemini is especially reactive to tick bites - bite sites swell up and lose hair, even while the tick is still attached. Distressingly, the few ticks I've found still attached have been deer ticks, and horses are susceptible to lyme disease; even more distressingly, I forgot to ask Doc about this while he was around.

Doc (old-school country vet) failed to piss me off this year. Last year, presented with my brand-new mare, he said "You said 'she'; horses only come in 'he'." This year he was all about how calm she was (and the Icies too, in spite the several attempts to find a vein under Ljufur's fat).