I bet I think more about poop now than at any time since the girls were babies and the contents of their diapers were of utmost interest. It's such an indicator of a horse's well being. Is it firm? Green? Runny? Frequent? Few and far between?
Today I got to the barn and Dude's stall was perfectly clean. That is definitely out of the ordinary because normally his stall gets mucked by about 9/9:30 a.m., and then he stands there for at least another hour, perhaps longer, before getting turned out. Plenty of time to leave a couple piles--which is usually what we find when we show up in the late afternoon.
Hmmmn. No poop always gives me a bit of a twinge of unease, since most of the horses that have colicked in the barn have always started the process with minimal poop. I looked at Dude. He looked at me. He had his usual just-in-from-turnout dozy look. No sign of discomfort. So I filled his water bucket, then went and did Bestie's stall and water bucket. Every time I'd go down the aisle I'd do a poop check. He'd look back at me like "What's your problem??"
I split half a flake of hay between him and Bestie. Finally, about 5, I went by his stall again, and he'd pooped. Hurray!
The no-poop situation doesn't happen often, but when it does I always dredge up one of my favorite little memories. We hadn't had Dude long (meaning we didn't know him or his habits well), and it had been a hot day and I think he might have worked hard or had a show or something the day before, so he was a little sluggish. And he didn't seem to be pooping at the usual rate. We hung about wringing our hands and peering into his stall periodically in hopes of spotting a pile. Finally, we gave up and started to head home for dinner, leaving instructions with the barn manager to keep an eye on him. As we were backing away from the barn, she came running down the aisle of the barn shouting, "He pooped, he pooped!" High fives and a general feeling of relief all around.
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