A Big Scare!!!

Bob-A-Loo, the White Silkie rooster, enjoying the chicken air conditioner. They really enjoy the coolness the frozen containers provide inside the plastic tote.

A.J. after she was sprayed off tonight.

Wondering if it was hot here today? Another triple digit day. High was only 105. Like that makes me feel cooler than it was yesterday at 109. Hot is hot.

And speaking of hot. We had quite the scare last night with Holly's ( youngest daughter's) horse, A.J.. While we were feeding we noticed that A.J. wasn't herself. She was not interested in her food at all. Not even her grain! This is highly unusual for her not to want to eat. A.J. adores food. First thought was colic. After a few minutes of observing and her we knew it was not colic, it was heat stress! She was lethargic, breathing hard, her gums were pale and she was very hot to the touch. Not good. We immediately took her out and started hosing her down. It took a good half hour to forty five minutes to cool her all the way down. Finally she started to feel better. After a little while longer she was getting back to normal. We knew she was okay once she started acting like her 'dragon' self. Don't get me wrong, she is a very sweet girl and would never hurt anyone. We call her a 'dragon' because when she wants to get in a mood, well, she gets into a mood. After a straight week of high temps, it got to her. Heat stress is bad. If we hadn't caught it in time she could have gone into heat stroke and that is very serious. Serious enough where a vet has to be called. She is fine now. Thank goodness. Tonight we sprayed all the horses at feeding time. Not taking any chances. The donkeys don't like to get wet so they didn't get sprayed.

On the same note about high temps, did you know that you can cool off a cat by dipping their paws into cool water? Same with dogs. Guess what our cats get! Yup, their paws dipped into water several times a day to help them keep cooler.

And the chickens love their 'air conditioner'. I also spray their coop and house down several times a day to help them cool down. In fact, I noticed that the chickens are enjoying taking mud baths. They make dips in the ground where it is still wet and almost instantaneously they stop 'panting'.

We have always had hawk eyes watching the animals, but after last nights scare, from now on it will be eagle eyes! Amazing how fast things happen.

Maybe tomorrow's blog will not be about the heat. Or a fire. Or a scare.

Oh, did I mention that A.J. is a real, honest to goodness BLM Mustang! I thought if any of the horses would get overheated it would have been my Paint gelding because he is a big baby. Nope, it was A.J. the tough one. Go figure!

Until next time.