A rib! By jove, that's a rib!

On Sunday the boys were trimmed, and to be honest I hadn't seen them in a week.  It's just... hot and complicated.  My distraction, which needs desperate updating, has taken up much of my time as I prepare to move into my own artisan space.

But anyway.

My thought upon seeing Peanut was that he didn't look nearly as close to foaling anymore.  He looked thinner.  Not... normal... but thinner.

As Anne-Marie and I chatted while Gene was getting trimmed, I jammed my hand into his side and, by jove, I felt something.  Normally, you could poke and prod him all you wanted, never finding his ribs.  You know they had to be in there somewhere, but good luck finding any evidence.

Even though being barely able to feel a rib when you really dig into the blubber is no accomplishment, it's at least a step in the right direction....

... unless it means he's sick.  Sigh.

I'm just hoping it's because they connected his 15 acre field to the back 6 acre field, and so maybe he's been running and carrying on.  He has a lot of new scrapes and scratches, so perhaps he's been frisky.  Or, maybe my mean theory of a horse that has a lot of flies on it = a horse that is using calories to get rid of them is working after all.

In other news, with each trim he is getting worse and worse at picking up his front feet.  He does it fine for me... except when Kate is there.  It's getting frustrating because I don't know how to train him when he's fine at all other times.  Kate can shoulder him until his desired foot is far out to the side, but the bugger will not bend his knee nor take the edge off of the ground.  Then, when she was trimming the fronts, he would occasionally pull the rears up like he was foundered or some such, stand like that for a while as if on a tiny pedestal, then try to take a step forward with the front not being trimmed.

Argh.

He's good for the rears, but not with the fronts.  There is no pain reason that I can think of to explain this, other than he is a big rear foot rester, and having his fronts trimmed means he has to put both rear feet on the ground.  He's usually unhappy about having to load the foot currently at rest.  But if his rear feet/legs/whatever hurt, why pull them under his body where they would take more weight?  His fronts shouldn't hurt, at least nothing else is giving any hint of it.

Little bugger.

But... I guess farriers everywhere would rejoice if that was the worst they had to deal with.