Poop, wonderful poop!

Horse people are a different breed. Probably nobody else in the world can get quite as excited about a pile of manure as horse owners -- especially a horse owner with a sick horse.

There remain a lot of mysteries about Dash's ailment -- what caused the fever (blood tests were all normal), why will she eat anything except the teff hay, was she impacted or just empty -- but last night things started to "come out" all right.

Anyway, I'm still cutting her meals into smaller chunks for another day but it appears whatever was ailing her no longer is.

Since the vet gave her a bucket of mineral oil Tuesday morning about 10, she has pooped six times. Three of them were since 5 p.m. last night.

My theory? Friday night she decided, for reasons I can't fathom, to stop eating the only hay she was being offered, which is this lovely teff grass that I planned to feed all three horses this winter. It's a wonderful hay, highly nutritious, palatable, fresh, clean, weed and mold-free. But I think Dash took exception to it for reasons of her own.

I had noticed Saturday that there was uneaten hay in her bin but didn't think all that much about it because I give them a LOT of hay these cold nights. But Dawn and Dash have access to each other's feed and they go back and forth all the time so I did have a moment to wonder why Dawn hadn't eaten the leftovers. But I didn't think all that much about it.

I think Friday night she ate the 2# of Strategy pellets and left all or most of the hay. I think Dawn ate Dash's hay Friday night. Saturday morning they only got hay. I think Dash didn't eat it and Dawn ate what she wanted and got full (since she already had a double meal the night before) and left some.

I think Saturday night Dash probably only ate the pellets and Dawn probably helped with the hay again.

Sunday was Christmas. I didn't pay much attention to what might have been left in the bins when I fed. I was gone all day. My neighbor fed at night and didn't have reason to look to see if hay was still left in the bins. I think Dash ate the pellets Sunday night but probably not the hay.

Monday I didn't feed; I swept the loose hay out of the garage into a huge pile and let them eat that. Some of that hay was alfalfa and bermuda, so Dash may have eaten some of that, but most of the sweepings were teff.

Monday afternoon Dash had the fever. She pooped around 3 and again at 4:30 and that was when I realized she was sick and refusing to eat. Gave her a fever reducer and expected her appetite to return when the fever broke (less than an hour later).

But Monday night she ate only the strategy pellets but didn't touch the hay and I finally noticed that fact. She pooped once overnight.

Tuesday morning she still hadn't touched the hay, but I gave her 2# of senior feed and she ate that.

Vet gave her oil about 10 a.m. in case she was impacted although she really didn't have any symptoms of it.

She was offered alfalfa and ate that. That was when we realized she was only "off" her feed if her feed was Teff hay.

She pooped once that afternoon. Sunday's pellets?

She pooped once during the night. Monday's pellets?

She pooped once Wednesday afternoon. Tuesday morning's senior feed?

Finally sometime after 5 p.m. she pooped twice, and then once again during the night. The small meals she was fed at intervals on Tuesday after the oil was given? There was oil in this poop.

Anyway, if I am correct that she started refusing hay Friday or Saturday, the lack of pooping may have been due to a lack of anything to poop.

But . . . we'll never really know.

I'm just glad to see that wonderful poop out there and know that she is NOT plugged and everything that has gone in, has come out.

And if you are not a horse person . . . you don't "get this" . . . but the horse people do, and are rejoicing with me over those piles in the corral.

And that's the latest from the Ranch.

The "Caca" part of the Ranch

Rancho Mucho Caca was not named in vain (and yes, I know, it should be "mucha" caca but I think it sounds better this way). Caca is a big part of my life. This morning I have spent the last two hours dealing with caca -- an hour shoveling a week's worth of manure from the stalls followed by another hour tending to the three automated self-cleaning litter boxes that serve the six cats who live in the house. I still have one ordinary box to clean out but that will only take a minute.

Here at the Ranch, there is a six by eight foot open trailer with 12 inch sides that belongs to a gentleman down the road whose hobby or livelihood (I've never asked which) is the production of compost. That trailer has been parked outside my gate for four or five years now. I load it up with horse manure, chicken litter, and fallen leaves and fruit (but no branches or grass) and he comes down with his little garden tractor about once a week and hauls it off.

I have another friend who is into compost who would take it too, but I'd have to haul it about 3 miles to him. Before I got into this arrangement, it went into the dumpster. I save about $20 a month in trash fees by not having a dumpster. Of course, the tradeoff is the occasional trip to the brush pit to dispose of tree trimmings since they won't fit in the household can I now use.

The reason corral cleaning took an hour today instead of 15 minutes is because it has been cold and rainy all week and I've been swamped with out of town errands and just haven't taken the time to do it.

The nice thing is that the two mares out there have been staying in since it was so cold and rainy so the manure was essentially un-rained-upon. It was all under roof, somewhat piled up, and not soggy.

Normally I clean daily, twice daily if I can during the summer. But along with the cold comes freedom from flies, and they are the primary reason I try to keep the stalls pristine.

As for the six indoor cats I have, I found it interesting to note their potty habits. I have three "Litter Robot" self-cleaning litter boxes. One was bought new for about $400. The second one was a refurb unit I got for $300. The third someone found for me at a Goodwill store and bought it on half-price day for $65. It is one of the earliest models, they have been vastly improved since then, and very noisy and slow.

And THAT was the one where the cats had filled the catch pan to the brim. It appears that is the box of choice for doing "number one."

The other two Robots (R2D2 and C3PO) had barely been used at all since their last emptying about two weeks ago, and apparently those Robots are used primarily for "number 2."

There is one open box I keep in the bathroom, not self-cleaning, and it seems to be their second choice of toilet, and it is used for both number one and number two.

Which makes me wonder -- who decides? I've noticed this pattern before when I had multiple litter boxes, that some are used for one function and others for the other function, and usually another box for both. (I try to have as many boxes as there are cats but I have two "extra" cats at the moment. Anyone want a nice spayed tortie? Or two?)

Which makes me wonder if Alfie, the little Princess, has claimed one box as her personal potty and uses it for both. Or do the boys use the old Robot for pee, and one of the newer ones for poop, and the three females share the open box, perhaps because they don't want to touch the sides of the robots?

Who knows?

I do know that Bugsy prefers clean litter, so he probably uses the lesser-used robots. Alfie is a longhair with a big fluffy tail and probably doesn't like going inside the robots (she's also the one who pees in places other than the boxes in the first place but that's a subject for another blog post).

I think I will get her a Litter Maid, which I've used before unsatisfactorily, but there are better litters available now that resolve some of the issues I've had. It's also self-cleaning, but open. The Robots are a big globe that the cat goes into, and the globe rotates to sift the litter so they're inside it while using it.

As for the horses, Dawn is the best when it comes to bathroom habits. She literally piles it up against the back wall of her stall, or far corner of the corral. She never walks through it or spreads it, and she pees in the poop so there are no mud holes. Dash, her older sister, tends to go in an area, walks through and scatters it a little.

Their mother, however, is coming back from Oregon in two weeks, and she goes everywhere, walks through it, scatters it, pees all over, and is generally a slob.

The reason I can get away during non-fly season with not cleaning for a week is because they do pile it up, so the majority of the corral area stays clean. The manure I picked up today was mostly in a 10X20 area of one stall, with a small amount in a 6x6 area of another stall.

And that's probably more than you wanted to know about the Caca at Rancho Mucho Caca.

Watch for the 2012 "Manure Makers of Rancho Mucho Caca" Calendar coming soon.