• Aiken, SC

    info@equus-soma.com

     

  • Equus-Soma

    Equine Osteology & Anatomy Learning Center

     

  • Waldoboro, ME

    207-542-6132

  • River Bend Farm Dig - 2018

  • 10 August:
          After a week of rainy days, I returned to the dig site and continued unearthing the area where we found the distal bones of one of Mikey's legs. For some reason, I assumed this was a hind leg but when I uncovered the rest of the cannon the appearance of carpal bones indicated I was at the other end of Mikey.
           The heavy clay substrate slows down the digging but so does having to squeeze each ball to determine if its clay or a small bone!

  •         One of my bone-finding techniques is to push a long flat-head screwdriver slowly into the ground. When it strikes a bone the feel and sound are very distinctive.
            Within a few minutes, I had found Mikey's other front leg and was able to determine that he was lying on his left side, with the right front crossed over the left. I had to be very careful removing Mikey's left front cannon and pastern bones so as not to miss the "clay-ball" looking sesamoid bones and then the navicular!

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             Finally, I got to Mikey's left front hoof and was very surprised to find much of it intact. The coffin bone is still in position and the sole and bars are present. The only thing missing is the frog.

  •         The preservative qualities of the clay kept most of Mikey's left front foot in amazing condition, however, once out of the clay and into the air, the remaining soft tissues will dry quickly and shrink off the shoes.  I learned this from Petey's feet.
            In an effort to preserve as much of the foot as possible, I decided to soak it in ascending concentrations of alcohol as I used to do in the histology lab when prepping tissues for embedding in epoxy.  Hopefully, by the time we bring up Mikey's 2 hind feet (assuming they are as well preserved) I'll know what to do!