Having endured, and actually continuing to endure, muddy fields this spring, perhaps it is of no surprise that the usual midges that come with the warmer weather seem to have been on steroids! From having very few about, we suddenly have swarms of horrible biting midges attacking the ponies.
In the seven years I have owned Diva, she has never been particularly bothered by midges, and although I put a fly mask on her to stop them getting around her eyes, I have never had one for her with ear protection. Her ears are small and the insides are covered with thick, fluffy hair, so midges have never bothered her before.
Before I really noticed many midges, I let Diva stay out overnight. When I brought her in the following morning, I affectionately stroked one of her ears as I was putting the headcollar on and I couldn’t believe my eyes. My hand came away full of midges and, on closer inspection, I could see they had chewed at her poor ears enough to make weeping sores! Cue beating myself up for being a bad mum but, as I mentioned above, this has never happened before.
I brought her in and gently rubbed in some pure Aloe Vera gel from Forever Living, which I find really useful to soothe any minor wounds and grazes. I checked her “undercarriage” and, sure enough, the little sods had been nibbling there too!
I left her in the stable away from the little horrors and, when it was my work lunchtime, I dashed to a local tack shop and bought Leovet Power Phaser fly repellent in both gel and spray. That night I kept Diva in and ordered a Shires XS Pony fly mask with ears. When I could cover her ears up, I turned her back out during the day, liberally doused with repellent.
Thankfully, the sore patches in her ears and down below soon healed and now she is well protected from the horrible little things. I am tending to still bring her in for the night at the moment, as the midges are at their worst at dawn and dusk. Strangely, they are still present on colder, damp days too, where I would normally associate them with warm weather.
My bank balance is a little lighter, but my lovely pony is now protected from the midges!
Once again I threw Arlo in at the deep end, affiliating him purely for the Arena UK second round show, and once again he pulled it out the bag. How lucky am I to have such a wonderful little horse? We haven’t really competed this year. I don’t really compete over the winter, and also my horsebox was away for repairs up until the beginning of June, so I had no transport even if I’d wanted to.
With the dry ground we don’t seem to be having much luck with shoes, as little madam managed to pull both her front shoes off within 12 hours the other day! We entered the arena with two shoes on for a schooling session and left it with one missing (took about an hour to find it). Then that afternoon, as I went to put some hoof ointment on, I looked down and had to double take, thinking I was looking at the wrong hoof. But, no, the other shoe was missing too.
After having a long wait and some lunch at the onsite café, it was time to get ready for the Joan Wolfe Overall Supreme Shetland Pony Championship. I got changed out of my usual showing outfit into black trousers and a maroon top with white spots, as you are expected to be a bit more “bling” in the evening.
We were all set to go for our next outing, and were super excited. That was until I heard the dreaded clunk of a loose shoe! I checked it over, praying it wasn’t too loose, but, nope, it was going to need a refit.