Wild Horses, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Standing at the corral fence, we were looking at the ugliest horse that I had ever seen. She was an older roan mare that my father-in-law, Jim Leibelt, had just adopted from the Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse Adoption Center in Burns.

She looked like she had just stepped off a Spanish galleon, a real mustang in every sense of the word. Her massive head dominated her features. It made her appear unbalanced, almost like a trout living in a stream with little or no food source. Long hair hung from her lower jaw, making her head look larger than it was. Her hooves were large and splayed out from a lifetime on the open range. Her ribs were countable, indicating that grass on that range was sparse.

She paced up and down the far fence of the corral, uneasy with our presence. Her experiences with people had likely been unpleasant. She would rest her head on the upper rail at times as if she was trying to gauge the height. Just in case she needs to jump out.

“Are you sure want to pregnancy check her, Jim? I asked.

“I would like know, just so we can make some plans for taking care of a foal,” Jim said.

“How do you think we are going to do that without getting killed?” I asked. “I don’t think I am going to be interested in standing behind her.”

“I figure we can run her in the chute,” Jim said.

“I am not much of a horse doctor, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said. “She would tear herself up in there.”

“The other option is to run her into the crowding alley and throw a rope on her, and you can check her reaching over the fence,” Jim said.

“We can try it that way,” I said. “We might get lucky.”

Jim opened the gate into the alley, and she ran right in when he started over the fence on the far side of the corral. He closed the gate, and we pushed her up the alley toward the squeeze chute. Jim lassoed her and tied the rope to a post at the end of the alley.

All hell broke loose. When the mare realized she was tied, she fought the rope for all she was worth. She pulled back, throwing her feet in all directions. Her front hooves seemed to reach the top rail of the alley. This fight went on for a surprisingly long time before she choked herself enough to settle down.

The walkway on the outside of the alley fence allowed me easy access to her. The major problem was it was on her left side with her head to my left. That meant that I would have to check her with my right hand. I was almost blind with my right hand rectally. That was sort of a funny thing. I trained myself to do rectal exams with my left hand, leaving my right free for any other tasks that may be needed. I could almost see with my fingertips of my left hand, not so with my right hand.

With a lubed plastic sleeve on my right hand, I took a deep breath and leaned over the upper rail. The old mare had decided that she caught; she did not move as I inserted my hand into her rectum. I advanced my arm, halfway to my elbow my hand bumped right into a foal. Pregnant for sure, I swept my hand over the fetal head and feet. I would guess close to 6 months. Good enough for family work.

“Jim, she is about six months pregnant,” I said as I pulled my arm out and stood up, thankful for being in one piece. “That is a rough estimate, but pregnant for sure. Now we just have to get that rope off her.”

I had never been more thankful for a quick-release honda. Getting this rope off this mare without a quick-release would be difficult if not dangerous. I grabbed the short leather thong on the quick-release and gave it a good pull. Then I quickly ducked as the rope flew when the mare threw her head up and quickly backed out of the alley. 

I was thankful that it was over. It was a little sad that she was not the only wild horse I would have to deal with in those early years. When BLM started adopting the wild horses gathered from the Eastern Oregon rangelands, it seemed everyone wanted a free horse.

***

I slowed the truck to a crawl as I made a couple of the sharp corners on Old Holley Road. I looked carefully for the driveway to the place on the corner. They had called to have a horse castrated.

A small group of people was in the pasture behind the barn, standing and talking while watching me pull my truck into the pasture. 

“Is this where I am supposed to geld a horse?” I asked after I rolled down my window.

“Yes, this is the place, Doc,” Ed said.

“Where is the horse?” I asked.

“He is in the shed there,” Ed said, pointing to a small shed behind the barn.

“Well, let’s get him out here, this pasture looks like a good spot to do the surgery,” I said.

“Can’t do that, Doc,” Ed said. “He is sort of wild. I don’t think he has ever had a hand laid on him. We don’t have any facilities for handling a wild horse. We just offloaded him into that shed, and that has been his home for the last few days.”

Great, I thought, now I get the rest of the story. I don’t know what they expect me to do with a wild horse, free in a pen, and has never been touched by man.

I entered the shed, there was a large gray stallion, cautiously eating hay out of the feed rack. He glanced at me but did not seem concerned at my presence. My guess was he had been around people at some point in his life. Many wild horses on the range have gone wild from some of the ranches in the area.

Just the week before this call, I had read an article in Veterinary Medicine, a minor professional journal. This article was about sedating a horse in this circumstance. They suggested using a full ten cc of Acepromazine, a popular tranquilizer, in a syringe, squirted into the mouth of the horse. There would be rapid absorption through the oral mucus membranes, plus whatever he swallowed. It just might be the ticket with this guy.

Ed came over to the truck when I returned for my rope and a syringe full of Acepromazine.

“What do you think, Doc?” Ed asked. “Are you going to be able to handle this guy?”

“My first thought was just to leave,” I said. “You need to be a little more forthcoming with information when you schedule an appointment. But I do have a trick to try on this guy. If it works, we can maybe get the job done. If it doesn’t, you are on your own.”

I returned to the shed and offered the stallion a handful of grain. He quickly nibbled at it and nuzzled my hand for more.

“You know what grain is and where it comes from,” I said to the horse who was still nuzzling my hand. 

I took another handful of grain and held out my hand for him, making him stretch his head through the feed rack to reach the grain. As he ate, I slipped the syringe into the corner of his mouth. He did not object. Then with a hard push, I shot the full dose into his mouth. He reared and pulled his head out of the feed rack, getting a good gash on the top of his head.

The reaction was rapid. Within a minute, his head was starting to hang down. Giving him a little more time for the Ace to work, I returned to the truck and got everything ready to anesthetize him and do the surgery.

Then I threw a rope around his neck and led a staggering horse out into the pasture.

Surgery was a breeze. Less than 2 grams of Pentathol was needed to put him under anesthesia. I laid him on his right side and pulled his left leg out of the way with a sideline. He was 4 or 5 years old, and his testicles needed a strong pull to break the cremaster muscles, but other than that, it was a standard castration. I removed the bottom of the scrotum and stretched the incision to allow for adequate drainage. Then I gave an injection of long-acting penicillin and his Tetanus vaccination. I didn’t want any complications with this guy.

“Doc, how would you recommend we tame this guy down?” Ed asked as we waited for him to recover. 

“I would get a halter on him and a long chain to a heavy tire or something he can drag around the pasture for a few days,” I said. “This guy is not completely wild. He knows what grain is, and with a little work, he will tame right down. If you work with him several times a day, you will have him tamed down quickly. Then you can figure out which one of you are going to try to ride him.”

That proved to be adequate advice. The horse was dragging the wheel around the pasture for a week or two, and then Ed had him eating out of his hand. He became an excellent horse for them.

Photo Credit: Photo by Rodolfo Quirós from Pexels

No Room in the Inn

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

I hadn’t been watching the clock and was a little surprised when Debbie Walk came through the door a half-hour late. That was unusual for her, and it usually meant she had a problem.

“What’s up today?” I asked.

“I have a ewe, Becky, that I am keeping out at Darlene’s, and she is close to lambing,” Debbie said. “She has been getting large, and this morning Becky has a vaginal prolapse. I mean, the whole thing is hanging out.”

“That probably means she has a pair of large twins or maybe triplets,” I said. “Do you want to take one of those paddles to try on her?”

“This is the biggest prolapse I have seen,” Debbie said. “I think I would feel better if you checked her.”

“It looks like you picked a good day to do it,” I said. “If we hurry through the morning surgeries, we should have time to run out and check her.”

Debbie had Becky in a small pen in Darlene’s old barn. There were few windows in the barn, and the only light came from the open door and a single light bulb.

Becky was up, stomping her hind feet and turning circles. Debbie’s assessment was correct. The entire vagina prolapsed, with the cervix bulging at the end of the prolapse. The mucus plug was still present in the cervix, and it had collected more than its share of straw and debris.

Debbie tied Becky to a corner of the pen, and I started cleaning the prolapse.

“I think this is a good time to clip some wool from her rear end,” I said. “It will make things easier to keep clean. With the looks of this prolapse, we might be struggling with it for a few days.”

After clipping the wool away from her vulva and inner hind legs, I finished washing the prolapse. Then I applied a lot of J-Lube.

“Judging from the size of his gal, I am guessing she has triplets in there,” I said. “These gals just run out of room in their belly.”

I carefully started pushing the prolapse back into place. Becky strained hard against my efforts, but finally, I had the vagina back where it belonged.

“Now, the secret is to keep it there,” I said as I slowly withdrew my arm from her vagina.

Plop! The whole thing popped out again.

“This is going to be a struggle, Debbie,” I said. “Do you have a breeding date on this gal?”

“No, but she is the last of my ewes to lamb,” Debbie said. “She has to be close.”

I stripped her teats, and she had plenty of milk.

“Okay, I will replace this again, and we will put a retainer in and hope it holds things together,” I said. “If it doesn’t, we probably should be talking about a C-section.”

I replaced the vagina, inserted a plastic retainer in the vagina, and tied the ends to the wool. 

“The makers of these gadgets say the ewe can lamb with these in place, but I have seen lambs get hung up in them,” I said. “You are going to have to watch her close.”

We cleaned up and returned to the clinic. After getting the truck squared away, it was time for lunch.

“I am going to run out and check on Becky during lunch,” Debbie said. “I have been thinking, if she continues to have problems, let’s just plan to do a C-section. I can’t live in that barn for the next three or four days.”

It wasn’t long, and Debbie was backing up her trailer to the front of the clinic. I went out and helped her bring Becky into the back of the clinic. The prolapse was entirely out again, and the retained was flapping in the breeze.

“That didn’t last very long,” I said.

“No, I think I’m ready for you to do a C-section,” Debbie said.

“We might be a day or two early, but she isn’t going to go on this way,” I said. “We have a little time before the afternoon rush. Let’s just do it now.”

We got things set up in the back of the clinic and rolled Becky onto her back. There was no need to prop her up. Her belly was large enough that it hung to the floor on both sides.

Debbie clipped and prepped Becky’s belly. I threw a knee pad on the concrete floor and kneeled on Becky’s right side. I had trouble getting close enough to be in a comfortable position to make a midline incision.

“There have to be three big lambs in here,” I said as I made an incision on Becky’s midline, just in front of her udder.

C-sections in ewe are usually simple. With a ventral midline incision, it is easy to pull the uterus up so it can be incised outside of the abdomen. I pulled the omentum forward and reached into the belly to explore the uterus. 

The uterus was too large to pull up to the incision. I grabbed the head of one lamb through the wall of the uterus and pulled it outside the incision. I incised the uterus over this lamb’s head, and the head popped out and shook. I extracted the lamb, clamped and severed the cord, and handed it to Debbie.

“Boy, he is an active one,” Debbie said as the lamb shook in her hands.

I reached into the uterus and grabbed the hind legs of another lamb. This lamb came out through the incision, kicking and shaking his tail.

“Is there another one?” Debbie asked.

“I am sure there must be. Both of these were from the right uterine horn,” I said as I reached into the uterus and reached to the left side. I grabbed two legs and gave a tug. There was some movement, but nothing came easily. I went further and swept my hand from side to side. There were two lambs.

“Debbie, there are two more lambs,” I said.

“Oh, my gosh!” Debbie said. “Have you seen quads before?” 

“Once in a ewe and once in a goat,” I said. “Explains the prolapse. There was simply no more room in the inn.”

I closed things on Becky, and Debbie had the lambs cleaned up and on their feet. Becky rolled up on her sternum and licked on the lambs as Debbie put them in front of her, one at a time.

“Do you think I should make bummers out of a couple of them?” Debbie asked.

“You have to feed them if they are bummers,” I said. “I would leave them with mom and just supplement them as needed. They will learn things from mom they will never learn as a bummer. Sheep things, you know.”

“How will I know which ones to feed?” Debbie asked.

“Feed the hungry ones,” I said. “They will sort things pretty soon. There will probably be one who is pushed aside most of the time. But leaving them with mom is best if you can manage things.” 

“Do I need to do anything with Becky?” Debbie asked.

“Just keep her in a few days,” I said. “We can run by and check her in a couple of days. She will have a lot of membranes to pass, and we want to ensure that incision stays together before we turn her out.”

Debbie loaded the lambs into the trailer, and then Becky followed along. They will be happy to be back in their barn.

Becky passed her membranes that evening and her incision healed with no problems. The four lambs did well, and with Debbie’s supplemental feedings, you couldn’t tell any difference between them.

Photo by Jaemin Don on Unsplash.

Monday, October 8, 1956

The sun was just breaking through the clouds as we turned off the highway onto the long gravel road to Margery’s house. It had been a long drive to Smith River, and it would be good to get out and stretch my legs.

Mom warned me about the long drive and said I would be the only kid here since it was a school day. Still, I begged to come along to the family gathering to celebrate Auntie Dee’s birthday. I was used to entertaining myself, so being the only kid didn’t worry me.

“Robert wanted me to make sure I got all the information about Mid’s new TV,” Aunt Lila said as Mom steered around the last corner. “He is determined to put an antenna on top of our hill and string the wire all the way to the house.”

“That sounds expensive,” Mom said. “How does he know it will work?”

“He had a guy come out, and he could pick up a station from Eugene at the top of our hill,” Aunt Lila said. “And yes, it is going to be expensive. but David probably knows, after our trip this summer, TV is pretty nice.”

“I don’t know. It just costs a lot of money,” I said from the back seat, remembering the TV sets in some of the motel rooms on the east coast that you had to put dimes or quarters in the box on the side of it to turn on the thing.

“Yes, that is right,” Aunt Lila said. “Ours won’t have a money box on it, but it still will cost a lot of money.”

We pulled into the driveway. There was a large two-story, white farmhouse on the left and a large barn on the right, located about fifty yards from the house. Sparse pasture land behind the barn faded into a series of low sand dunes. I could hear the waves when I opened the car door. The ocean was not far.

The house was packed, and all the women were in the kitchen when we came through the door. 

Auntie Dee hugged me.

“David, what are you doing here today?” she asked. “You should be in school.”

“When he heard we were celebrating your birthday, he begged to come,” Mom said. “I couldn’t refuse.”

With that said, the chatter in the kitchen started, and I headed to the living room, where all the men were in front of the TV set.

“You better watch this, David,” Uncle Rodney said. “The guy pitching is named Larsen, and he might be a cousin of yours.”

“I don’t have any Larsen cousins,” I said. 

“You never know,” Uncle Rodney said. “Your dad doesn’t know that side of his family. Besides, this is the World Series.”

I didn’t know anything about baseball. I had heard about the World Series, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I found a seat and watched for a few minutes.

“You are going to get into trouble for missing school,” Uncle Duke said.

“Mom will write a note and say that I was ill,” I said.

“What does ill mean?” Uncle Rodney asked. “You don’t look very sick to me.”

“That’s what she writes when I stay home to go fishing,” I said. “I don’t need to go to school all the time. I learn faster than the other kids.”

“You skip school to go fishing?” Mid asked.

“I learn a lot when I am fishing,” I said.

“I bet you do,” Mid said. “You keep it up. I like to see a kid who likes to fish.”

I found a seat and watched the game for a couple of minutes. It was really boring. I headed to the barn.

I loved old barns. Every one of them was different but alike in so many ways. Margery, Auntie Dee’s daughter, and Mid had lived here a long time. This barn still had stalls for the workhorses, and they probably hadn’t used horses in the fields since the war.

The harnesses were still hung by the stalls, and unlike Grandpa’s harnesses, these were still soft and well-oiled. They smelled like good leather. 

I looked through the barn and ran a few chickens out of the mangers. I gathered as many eggs as I could hold in the front of my tee shirt and headed to the kitchen.

“Oh, thank you, David,” Margery said when I came through the door with a shirt full of fresh eggs. “I didn’t have time to gather any eggs this morning. You are such a great help.”

Margery unloaded the eggs, and I returned to the barn. After another trip through the barn, I headed out over the sand dune toward the ocean. By the time I got to the top of the hill, I could see the ocean.

“This would be a great place to watch for Russian submarines,” I said as I found a tuff of grass to sit on for a time. After ten or fifteen minutes, I decided that no submarines were nearby, so I returned to the house.

“What have you been up to?” Uncle Rodney asked as I was looking for a place to sit.

“I gathered some eggs from the mangers and looked through the barn,” I said. “Then I walked out to the ocean and watched for Russian submarines for a time.”

“Russian submarines, did you see any?” Uncle Duke asked.

“No, but this would be a good place for them to land,” I said. “There is nobody around to see them for a long way in each direction.”

“You better give up watching for those submarines and watch the end of this ball game,” Mid said. “Your cousin is about ready to pitch a perfect game.”

We all sat and watched the game come to an end. A guy named Yogi ran out and jumped up on the pitcher at the end of the game.

Don Larsen had just pitched a perfect game in game five of the 1956 World Series. The New York Yankees had beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in that game, and they would go on to win the World Series that year. And this was the first sporting event that I ever watched on TV.