Friday 27 July 2018

Chulmleigh Old Fair 2018!

Lottie and Caitlin with the Alden Gilson trophy and the envelope with their prize money!



Yesterday we had our fundraising stall at Chulmleigh Old Fair!  We had a big team effort this year!  This is the first time that Lottie, Caitlin and Becca had come to help on our stall.  Caitlin and Lottie have started volunteering for us recently.  Last Thursday they decided that they would make some decorations for the stall so they could enter the competition for the best stall in the market.  They worked really hard making ponies and rosettes, and special bunting to decorate the stall.  They wore riding hats and florescent jackets as part of the theme.  The judges were really impressed with their efforts and later on in the morning the town crier announced that People4Ponies won the Alden Gilson trophy for the best presented stall in the market!  Amazing effort and result for the girls!  Well done Caitlin and Lottie!  The girls are sharing the trophy between them...and they won a prize of £25...which they donated to the ponies...thank you girls! 

We also need to thank Archie for helping to get the stall loaded and set up and put away again at the end of the day, and to Archie's Mum who baked some cakes for us to sell.  Margaret was working at the yard yesterday and also did a lot of preparation work - organising the tombola and making jams and marmalades etc.  Ted and Jenny let us transport everything in their car as it was big enough to move everything we needed in one go.

Becca and the girls manned the stall so that Faye could go back to the yard to look after Rocky, who's been poorly, and to get the heavy yard work done.

The girls raised a total of £205 on the day for the ponies - such a brilliant effort - thank you so much to everyone!

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Monday 9 July 2018

July

Munchie July 2017 - 7 months into his rehab
Apologies for being behind on the calendar photo for this month...but hopefully you have figured out that this month's star pony is Munchie (Munchkin).  He is the grown up foal of Ebony who is one of our sponsor ponies.  We've been on an educational journey with Munchie and his rehab.  He really helps to challenge the stereotypical views of what is defined as "Cushings".  When we found Munchie struggling at his loan home he was not getting any real turnout at all - no more than an hour a day all year around because of laminitis and the rest of the time just stood in a yard.  He was caught in a vicious cycle because the less he moved about, the worse he became, he had more laminitis... leading to pedal bone rotation...on top of that he wasn't being fed the recommended feed which was causing him more issues...combine all that with his multiple inherited weaknesses, it really was a perfect storm resulting in a health disaster.  His coat was thick, long, and curly with dried in sweat.  His loaners have owned horses for many years and were very upset that they couldn't "fix" him but these cases are never simple and if Catherine Edwards hadn't come to show us iridology at that time, I don't think Munchie would be alive now.  Even though symptom-wise everything about Munchie looked like a Cushings pony the vet tests had always come back negative for Cushings and the iridology agreed with this.

So far Munchie has already had a huge transformation.  Even by last summer (6 or 7 months in) he was back to the same turnout regime as all our other ponies - no laminitis.  In this photo he was 7 months into his rehab and there was still an awful lot to work on.  His iridology consult gave us a plan so we knew which areas needed the most support.  We spent a very long period detoxing his kidneys.  It took about 8 or 9 months or so to really get on top of that.  Then was the tricky part working on his liver and lymphatic system to release toxins but not too much at a time. 

Our special technique for approaching pedal bone rotation without invasive/remedial trimming is working brilliantly.  What Munchie has struggled with health-wise is when he has abscesses - when the old internal hoof tissue has to make way for the new.  Abscesses are a good thing...but for Munchie his lymphatic system was under great strain already, any abscess caused him to have a health "crash".  He'd become sole sensitive after the abscesses due to all the toxins he'd been processing.  As we've got his lymphatic system in better shape over the course of his rehab we've seen a marked improvement in the way his body is able to cope with these and remove the toxins much better.  Red Light therapy has helped this a lot....and after using the red light during his abscess episode (after first purchasing it), Munchie started growing new hoof capsules at a dramatic, even more improved angle and this "new" hoof is now 3/4 of the way down.

When I think of how poor Munchie struggled with his health and laminitis at his loan home, there is nothing better than seeing him like he is now - stomping around the yard and gravel, enjoying his days out in the field with the herd and back to being a super pony again.  We still have aspects to work on but he has his life back which is wonderful!

Without the iridology we wouldn't have had a clear route to follow or know which body systems needed the most support - that's why I'm studying iridology - it enabled us to have all our ponies laminitis free which is wonderful!

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