The Story of Hewey - part 6
...a work in progress...
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The next week or so was pretty uneventful. Hewey still had someone with him 24 hours a day and it was still very difficult for me to leave him. However there was some amount of normality returning to the stables with me giving some lessons, horses being attended by the farrier and mares being covered and scanned. Hewey did not mind most of this but still for some reason really hated it when the breezeway was being swept.
Up until the time that Hewey was moved onto straw, I was still living and sleeping with him in the ‘padded bassinette’ of covered straw bales. This meant basically sleeping on my back with my legs up on the one of the surrounding bales. Once Hewey moved to straw I moved outside his bed (on his old bedding) and so was actually able to sleep fully stretched out. When we put the gates up I actually moved ‘away’ from Hewey into the corner of the stable, but was still using the original bedding. The difference now was that I could use an electric blanket which the cats thought was great. It was strange that it did not really occur to us get a stretcher or folding bed but I think it was because the arrangements sort of evolved and there was not really any time for planning!It was quite a challenge to actually sleep as not only did Hewey still require some feeding, but he snored when asleep and the stables were also inhabited by other horses and animals. One horse windsucked, another pawed and actually I think all of them (including the cats who loved having me out there) snored when asleep! However I did sleep surprisingly well between feeds.
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On the 1st of March it was time for the next review of Hewey's joints. This time he was too big to go in the car so it had to be the float. Loading was not a problem as he would still follow me anywhere. He was of course still too small (although he now weighed 64.5kg) and frail to be tied up and thought that the idea of standing up for that long was way too hard. A deep straw bed was settled for with an extra bale to lie against (and for me to sit on). He actually lay down for most of the trip and even had a bottle on the way. This time he was still driven right in to radiology but was able to walk in to to get his x-rays. The results were excellent with small square bones having now appeared in his knees. These were still not solid but dense enough for the next major step. Life in a whole stable! This was of course a huge step as now I would no longer be sleeping with Hewey. |
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So on the 2nd of March the home comforts of our stable were moved out and Hewey had the whole space for himself. He was not impressed as he had no human company inside with him and no more television! The top door to outside was open to Gloria and he had a ‘Hewey height’ window into the breezeway so he could put his head out. It was an Equine Studies day so he had lots of company but not constantly. I had just been given a bed to use so I was able to spend a night off the ground for a change. Quite novel! By now Hewey slept through most of the night and if he did need a feed could help himself out of a bucket. He still had bottle feeds during the day.
| Over the next few days Hewey was ‘weaned’ off human company and on the night of the 6th of March actually spent his first night alone in the stables. This meant that I slept inside for the first time since the night of January 11th. You would think that this would be the best sleep that I would have in ages. Not so as I worried how Hewey was going and still had to check him through the night to make sure he was OK. While I slept with him if he wanted anything he would wake me so I did not have to worry at all. His milk consumption was up and down at this stage but he was drinking about 16 or 17 litres per day. |  |
Over the past few months we had been trying unsuccessfully to get Risqué in foal using chilled semen. Our last hope with her for the season was to take her to the stallion in NSW to try for live cover.
| We decided that I could drive to Berrima with her on the Tuesday, then to Lochinvar and back to Berrima on Wednesday, then home on Thursday. This meant that Hewey of course was going to have to live without me for 3 days. I knew of course that he would survive this as he still had Richard (aka dad) to look after him, just no mum. Richard still checked him multiple times through the night.
We were still entertaining a fantasy of getting Hewey on to his biological mum as a source of milk. He had never had a drink directly from Gloria but despite best advice I couldn't see why, if he was used to drinking from a teat and she was still producing milk, they couldn't cut out the 'middle man' (namely me)! Even if Gloria didn't actually feed him, I wasn't going to teach him to eat horse feed and grass; that was her job. So to this end we took Hewey for periodic visits to Gloria to introduce the idea. |
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By the night of the 10th we were checking Hewey only once through the night, however the night didn’t start until after midnight. Then on the 15th he was left on his own from midnight until 8am. This was followed up on the 16th with another big day! Equine students and Hewey's first farrier visit. His feet were tiny and as he had very little weight bearing on a hard surface the walls were a little ‘curled under’ so he needed a trim. The most difficult thing about this was his short stature. Maybe next time we should put him up on a table to save the farriers back!
| Hewey was now allowed to go out into a bigger yard, so the door to the outside yard, and Gloria, was opened. Hewey had become accustomed to her as we had a few days earlier replaced the door with a mesh gate giving him a look outside. It was now up to Gloria to start teaching him how to be a horse. This included eating hard feed. He was not quite brave enough to share her feed but he would copy her. |  |
Hewey was now up to about 20 - 22 litres of milk per day with more from the bucket than the bottle. We had been hanging the bucket from the wall so he would not spill or dirty the milk and we could give it in lots that would last him a couple of feeds (weather and flies permitting). When we opened the stable door for Hewey to go out, Gloria could also come in. Interestingly she thought that the bucket of milk was a great treat and happily drank it all!
To keep the milk for Hewey only, we had to devise a ‘Hewey flap’ for the door! This was achieved by tieing a lead rope threaded through a tail bag across the doorway at about chest height for Gloria. Hewey was able to easily pass under it but Gloria was excluded. Hewey by now had grown out of his loaned clothes but still needed to be rugged as his coat was very fine. He was now wearing a very fancy tartan large sized dog rug.
On the 21st of March we weighed Hewey at 96kg and on the same day checked his ‘big brother’ Patch who was 99kg. Their growth rates were still tracking the same so Hewey was clearly growing well.