The Morning Commute

Now that we've moved our blind 6-month old foal Brynn to the heated medical stall in Beauty's Barn, we have a new routine in the morning:  She commutes down the drive to Lena's Barn, about 150 yards away, where she joins three of our other blind girls -- Lena, Nikki and Destiny -- in their corral for the day.  Alayne took this photo of Brynn and me on our morning commute today. 

As you may recall from our post last Wednesday, Brynn leaks urine because of a medical condition. Now that winter is here, it's become increasingly difficult to keep her clean and dry.  So we decided to convert our medical stall into a new home for Brynn, and this is where she'll spend her evenings until spring.  We can still use the stall for medical purposes when we need to; we can take down what we set up for her in about 5 minutes. 

To be honest, we're not wild about having her in a heated stall, because horses can sometimes develop respiratory problems without enough fresh air.  And even though it's heated to less than 50 degrees, it's still an abrupt change when we take her out in the morning. 

But she's only inside overnight and during bad weather; the rest of the time she's outdoors.  We think that will help keep her from getting any respiratory illness.  We deal with the temperature change by waiting to take her outside until it's warmed up (we waited until mid-morning today, for instance).  We also have a beautiful horse blanket that some wonderful kids from Billings, Montana, recently bought and donated for Brynn, so we have that to use with her, too.

We'll have to manage this carefully and see how she does.  But I can tell you that at 5 p.m. this evening, when the sun had dropped below the Garnet Range to our southwest and the temperature plunged, Brynn was ready for the evening commute back to her heated stall in Beauty's Barn!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

 

Comments

[Leilani]

Brynn is really growing up; she's almost as tall as you, Steve!
A big "thank you" to the kids who donated her blanket; that is helpful!
The best part of your communte is...no morning traffic jams!
Have a safe day.

[ginger & Tobias (the greythound)]

I'm glad there's not a traffic jam for Brynn's commute! Looks you & Brynn are pretty much eye to eye at this point. It's great that you have a place for her to be in from the cold at night. (and to keep her cleaned off from her unrine leak as well).
Warm hugs to all,
ginger & Tobias