Wild Horses

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

A Kitten’s Tale

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I noticed her sitting in the far corner of the reception area, patiently waiting for the crowd to clear. She was an older lady with white hair. She was short and petite, and well dressed for Sweet Home. She was tanned to a rough brown, and her face and hands showed the wrinkles that came from years of outside work.

My curiosity was getting to me. I stayed up front to see what she was going to want.

“Ma’am, is there something that I can help you with?” I asked.

She approached the counter with slow, measured steps.

“Are you Dr. Larsen?” she asked. “I have heard a lot about you from my friends. I am June. I have a small place up on 43rd. My husband has been gone for several years now. It is just my cats and me now.”

“Yes, I am Dr. Larsen,” I said. “I hope that your friends said good things about me.”

“Oh yes, Doctor, you are well thought of by most people in town,” she said.

“So, what is it that brings you to see us today?” I asked.

“If I had a kitten that needed its tail removed, is that something you could do?” she asked.

“Yes, we do just about anything here,” I said. “What happened to the kittens tail?”

Ignoring my last question, she continued. “And how much would such a procedure cost?”

That depends on how large the kitten is and if the tail problem needs any additional treatment,” I said. “If it is infected, there might be charges to take care of that infection. That is something I could give you a close estimate for when I look at the tail.”

“I mean, if there is nothing wrong with the tail, how much would it cost for a 3 day-old kitten?” she asked.

“You’re asking about docking a kitten’s tail?” I said. “That is not something that is done in most cases.”

“You dock puppies tails,” she said in a matter of fact voice. “There can’t be much difference, most of those pups have no real reason to have their tails docked.”

“You make a good point,” I said. “Some breeds need their tails docked, others it is purely cosmetic, or for some breed standard. If you have ever lived with a Cocker Spaniel in a Western Oregon winter, you would understand why we dock some tails.”

“I don’t see a difference,” June said. “I have a litter of kittens, five of them, that I would like to have their tails docked.”

“I would have to think about that one,” I said. “You are asking me to stretch my ethics a little.”

“Now listen, young man,” June said in a stern voice. I wondered if she had been a school teacher in her day. “There are not many options for these kittens. Placing kittens in homes is difficult these days. All my cats are fixed, but this little mamma cat shows up and has this litter of kittens in my woodshed. I can leave them there and let them grow up wild. They will probably die from distemper next year that way. Or I can find them homes. If a kitten doesn’t have a tail, it is easy to find them a home. I never call them Manx, I just say they don’t tails. My husband used to cut off the tails with his pocket knife. Now I need you to help these poor little kittens find homes.”

“What do you tell folks when they try to breed these kittens, expecting to get kittens without tails?” I ask.

“That only happened once,” June said. “Most people have them fixed like I recommend. That one time, I just said, what do you think I am, some sort of a geneticist. That word shuts up most folks around these parts.”

“You win the argument about the ethics of tail docking,” I said. “I am not comfortable with you deceiving people about what kind of cat they are getting.”

“So you would rather I got the neighbor boy to put them in a gunny sack and drop them in the river?” June said.

“Okay, I will dock the tails for you if you get it scheduled before they are 5 days old,” I said. “But, if any of these kittens end up here for their shots or to be fixed, I will not be a part of your deception. If asked, I will tell the truth.”

“I see, you would rather have them search for a real Manx kitten,” June said. “Half of which will have bowel and rectal problems for their entire life. Many of those will not reach adulthood. My kittens save a lot of little girls a lot of heartaches.”

“Your husband must not have won many arguments,” I said.

June had the kittens in the next morning. The procedure was brief, I prepped the tail, snipped the tails with scissors and closed the wound with a drop of Nexiban surgical adhesive. The kittens were asleep before they left the office.

I didn’t charge June. I felt her intentions were sincere. In those years, I donated a lot of services to the humane society. June was serving in the same capacity. I only hoped that the humane society didn’t get wind of her philosophies. 

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

That Last Glass of Milk

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Dad came through the kitchen door with a bucket of milk fresh from the morning’s milking. The kitchen was the center of life in our modest farmhouse. The kitchen was not only the source of food, but it held the wood stove, which was the only source of heat in the house. Mom ruled the family from the kitchen.

All life entered through the kitchen door, the back door to the house. The front door was used only to access the front porch on rare occasions or during the summer when we boys would sleep on the old bed on the front porch.

Mom kept 2 large pans of milk on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator. She would allow the cream to rise to the top 24 hours before skimming the heavy layer of cream off the top of the milk. Living on a Jersey dairy, the raw milk contained about seven percent butterfat. We always had an ample supply of cream. It was used for whipped cream, for topping on desserts, like pies or berries, and any excess was churned into butter.

With three growing boys in the house, plus Mom and Dad and a sister, we would go through at least 2 gallons of milk in a day. We laid down a lot of calcium in our bones. It was rare for anything other than milk to be served at mealtime.

I grew up on raw milk. But that was a different time. In those days, a calf was born on the farm, grew up, and had calves on the same farm. It was a rare event for an outside cow to be brought into the herd. Herds were routinely tested for Brucellosis and TB. In such a closed herd environment where the milking was done by family members, and it was handled properly, the risk to the family from raw milk was very slim.

That is not the case today. Routine testing is no longer done because those diseases are rare. Other organisms are transmitted in raw milk, usually from poor sanitation or handling. Some microorganisms can be present in raw milk coming from undetected mastitis in a cow. 

Closed herds are as rare as the small family farm. When I was growing up, a herd of 50 or 60 milk cows was a large herd. All the cows had names, and I could recognize each cow by her udder. Today, a small herd is 400 or 500 cows, with large herds numbering in the thousands. Milkers are hired regularly, often with a questionable experience base. Diseases in the milking cow may or may not be detected on a timely basis. Raw milk scares me today.

When we got a new load of alfalfa hay, the milk’s flavor would be different or a time. Actually, probably just different, and it would take us a few days to adjust to that change. Then in the winter, when we would switch back to grass hay, there would be another period of adjustment.

When I joined the Army, one of the most surprising things was the variety of beverages offered at mealtime. I always chose to drink milk, not because I didn’t enjoy the other drinks, but because that was what one drank with a meal.

When I went to Korea, things were a little different. The Army shipped milk to Korea as a powder. They had a large plant in Seoul that reconstituted it. Then it was distributed to all the mess facilities in the country.

I almost gagged on my first glass of milk in Korea. The reconstituted milk was terrible. Worse than the milk from the worse truckload of alfalfa at home. But it is hard to change a farm boy’s habits. I gagged the stuff down, and after a few days, my taste was adjusted, and it was fine. I drank milk the entire 13 months I was in Korea. With some of the long hours I was on duty, I also learned to drink coffee. But that was only on duty, never with a meal.

Then comes one of those moments that changes one’s life forever. It happened at the Seattle Airport. Our flight back to the States was a long one. We had 13 hours of flight time and crossed the international dateline. We arrived in Seattle at 10:00 AM on the same day that we had left Korea on at 2:00 PM.

A group of us from the same unit were on the plane. We sat down for breakfast at the Seattle Airport while we waited for our flights back home. I ordered milk. After drinking the Army’s reconstituted milk for 13 months, this real stuff was awful. I couldn’t gag it down. So I had coffee instead.

That inability to handle milk continued through my leave time at home. Then I headed to Germany to finish my enlistment. In Germany, I was stationed in a small town, Schöningen, and lived away from the regular Army installations. I guess there was milk available, but I drank either coffee or beer with my meals.

That last glass of milk at the Seattle airport was the last glass of milk that I ever drank or tried to drink.

Photo Credit: Photo by Alexas Fotos from Pexels