In Which Gogo Proves that even Foal-Safe Fencing is not Gogo-Safe

Oh, Gogo.
Oh. Gogo.
Gogo, Gogo.
WHY.

I think it can be safely said that Gogo is trying her hardest to discourage me from this whole 24/7 turnout thing. She, in her special Gogo way, is doing her absolute best to get into every single bit of trouble she possibly could now that I have removed her perpetual bubblewrap and have kicked her out into the night. Mysterious bleeding scrapes and wounds freshly appear on her every single day, and interesting bumps and swellings show up on various, confusing parts of her body, like on top of her butt (how??). Her leg has been ugly at best, and shows signs of potentally acute damage (great). One moment she seems at peace with her life, and the next she is galloping out of her shed at the slightest noise, poised trembling at the edge of the field as though monsters might come leaping off the top of her run-in at any moment. She seems happy, sort of. Or well, she seems to be settling into this odd new routine a little more as every day passes by. Watching her standing there eating her breakfast in the early morning light gives me absolutely no satisfaction at all. In fact, it's kind of depressing. She's filthy, and no amount of cleaning will ever get this nasty red dirt out of her hair until I can give her a bath again. And she's not really even enjoying it, I don't think. She'll probably get used to it. She seemed pretty happy yesterday, so I figured hey, maybe she's starting to really 'get it' and settle down and be happy with life!


Enter today. Morning comes early, and I hardly slept last night (on purpose, so it was okay!). I toodled out to her pasture on my way to work, tossed her some food, pulled off her blanket, and did my customary leg check like I do every day.




Hmmmmm. That right hind sure is huge today. Really huge. And.... wet?
Blood. It's blood. She's bleeding.




In the early morning light I see that she has shredded the inside of her right hind. Her left hind also shows damage, mostly in the form of her chestnut being nearly totally ripped OFF - down to the bleeding skin. There is nothing to put a stitch in, it's all just superficial, but it's pretty extensive. I groan, play quickie-doctor on her, clean and dress the wound rapidly, and rush off to work. At lunchtime, I come back to try and figure out what the hell happened, and to better attend to her wounds.

That beautiful, expensive, foal-safe diamond mesh fencing that everyone (including me) lovea and raves about? Don't know how, and don't know why, but she appears to have gotten hung up in it. Badly. The vast majority of the field has diamond mesh, sturdy wooden posts, and three strands of smooth twist high tensile wire overtop, making the fence nearly 6' tall. I am not a fan of high tensile of any sort, but this is fairly safe in terms of location and use (three strands very high up, all above the 4-5' or so of diamond mesh). However, there is one section of the fence where there is only diamond mesh and wooden posts, and no strands of high tensile. This is a piece of fence that Gogo and the horse next door share. There is nothing dangerous about this section of fence. It's different than the rest of the fence, but it's still well-attached and very safe. I like this fencing because it's great for enclosing such a large space while still keeping it safe - no evil barbed wire!

But apparently, the fact that diamond mesh is very expensive and made just for tricksters like Gogo did not deter her at all. Sometime in the night, it appears that Gogo kicked at her neighbor and then came down partly on the other side of the fence. She tore both herself and the fence up, but neither were serious. Still though.... gahhh. I threatened her with euthanasia this morning if she didn't shape up.







You win this round fence!! Hopefully with all the good cleansing, bandaging, and Banamine-ing, she'll be all right.




We hope, anyway.