GRAIN UNDER ATTACK!

I'm pretty sure that I have been given repeated signs from the gods of horse obesity that Gogo's days of grain-eating need to temporarily be over, and I think after this last one I need to listen. Firstly, Gogo is clearly gaining weight rapidly, and should not be carrying extra weight around on that leg, so if I can find any way to cut out extra calories, I should take it. Secondly, I already lost four bags of (incredibly expensive) Gro N' Win that I purchased in Connecticut when water leaked into my trailer during the snowstorm on the drive down to Texas and contaminated the grain. I managed to salvage a bit, but didn't have much, and searched desperately high and low in search of a grain dealer anywhere remotely near me that carried Buckeye. I finally found a place in Grapevine, over an hour away from my house. It was worth it, and I made the trek out there and brought a few more bags of grain home.

Things were going well until a few days ago. It is unclear whether or not this particular nuisance originated inside a bag of already contaminated grain, or if they came in through my open screen door, but I started noticing a massive influx of teeny tiny little beetles gathering near my door. I store my grain in my house specifically to safeguard it from rodents and bugs (you have no idea how terrifying Texas bugs are... I've already found THREE scorpions in my house... SCORPIONS!), but apparently, as my old landlord pointed out to me, I guess I should have gone one step further and gotten galvanized steel garbage cans. Worried about my grain, I went out and brought home some more intense storage containers, and poured the little bit of my first bag of Gro N' Win into the bin. When I poured my second bag into the bin (why did I do it second??), I pulled back the empty bag, looked into the bin, and gasped. It was CRAWLING with THOUSANDS of bugs!!! Closer inspection of the bag showed lots of little holes all over the bag that I didn't see before. Did the beetles sneak into the bag, multiply and start busting out, or did they bust in?

Either way, my entire remaining store of grain is gone. And my house still is crawling with bugs despite my best efforts to eradicate them. They don't bite, they so far haven't gotten into my food, and they haven't done anything except be annoying, but if I can't get them under control I'm going to have to bomb the house. Damnit all. Thought I could protect my grain in here, but noooooo, apparently not...


Anyway, I threw in the towel and gave up. The grain is impossible to get and impossible to store, Gogo is a Fattie Boomblattie, and she's not doing anything but eating right now. For the first time in four years, I'm taking her off of the Gro N' Win. Instead, I contacted SmartPak, went through their list of multivitamins, and ended up picking the SmartVite EZ Keeper Grass Formula. From now until she's presumably back in work someday, she won't be getting any grain. I also went ahead and ordered SmartShine, seeing as my bag of ground flax also got destroyed in the buggy process. It's cheap, although it's probably completely unnecessary. I loved the freakishly amazing shine that flax brought out in her last spring, and some extra Omega-3's won't hurt her. (If you notice in that picture from the shavings in her tail, she hadn't even been groomed yet that day... she was just that shiny standing around in her stall!)

It's a minor calorie reduction, but it's something to try and counter her ever-growing foodbelly. The other interesting thing is that this is the first time Gogo will ever be on a soy-free diet. (I mean, nearly every horse feed and supplement has some sort of soy base or derivative, but I guess you could call it for the most part 'soy-free.') While I don't honestly think that Gogo has a soy sensitivity, I am interested to see if removing soy from her diet will cause her white line to tighten up - a common problem with soy sensitive horses. Her hooves are rock-crunching and always have been, but she's had just a hair of white line separation and very slight flare on all four for pretty much ever. It just hasn't really ever gone away. I had attributed it to the soggy mushy climate of New England, but it's still here now that she's been in Texas for four months. Gogo easily drops a whole new foot in about six months. It will be interesting to see as her foot keeps growing down what happens. Trust me, nobody loves Gro N' Win more than I do, but you never know!



Can you find the Mami in the picture? :)