It's that time of year when our trainer Ali goes to Iceland for a couple months to lead tourists through the wilderness on Icelandic horses. So happy for her!
Left to our own devices I've been trying to get Mag better on the lunge line. I know, it's ridiculous that it's still a struggle but I was able to keep him calm on the line recently and that was wonderful. Ali always prioritizes calm above all else.
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Mag has hives. He's allergic to almost every substance on the planet, and one bad bug encounter has his body geographically swollen. Why aren't there real allergy medicines for horses?
Yesterday he rolled and several swollen hives erupted into bloody masses and I spent the evening washing them and then finally closing them with alu spray. Thank God he's good with water. I thank God for every single talent he has: )
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Our pasture is more lush than it's ever been in fall, even after that awful heat wave. I can hardly find the poop piles! They are eating 2 flakes of hay per day! Together!
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Stalling Mag is a real problem, when I want to separate them to feed vitamins. He weaves terribly and I put on the classical music and sit in front of him and wait ...up to 2 hours, before he can finally take a bite of hay. His life of total freedom has really impinged on his ability to be contained even shortly.
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J and I have been sick all week. That's normal for J, as a school teacher, when school starts, the kids bring all sorts of illness and we suffer. This time the both of us. I had the lawn mower out 3 days ago, desperately needing to mow, and I just couldn't find the strength to do it. Today I just couldn't clean up poop, I'll try again tomorrow.
But when I gave Mag some bread tonight, checked his wounds, I hugged him from under his neck, massaging the top of his neck and saying, "Tomorrow I'll be better, I hope."
He reached forward and put his lips on my neck and for the first time ever, kind of lipped me in a horsey kiss.
I jumped back in alarm, don't bite me! But it wasn't stallion like, it wasn't the lack of hormone therapy (we stopped it in the hope that over Winter he'll be less studdy).
He was just offering me a massage, like a normal horse.
Sweetness!
4 comments:
I don't understand why he has to be stalled for 2 hours after vitamins?
We use a screwdriver to poke a hole into an apple every evening, and cram her Exioxx into the hole. One chomp from ol' Toothless and the whole thing is GONE.
She gets supplements with a small amount of beetpulp and is separated from goats while eating that--usually about 5 minutes. I leave her in the stall (which has an outdoor paddock attached, so she can move around and see everything) for a couple hours each evening when the weather is good, so she can eat her hay without having to combat pesky goats. In dumping rain she stays in the stall/paddock all night because she is old and gets cold. The vet wants her out in the past as much as possible now, so that works pretty well for us.
Thanks for sharing Fiddle's routine. It's hard with seniors, I know. I'm trying to simply get Mag OK with being in a stall, and the only idea I have is his bucket/mash/vitamins. Then Bellis and I stay in front of the stall and hope he calms down. Do you have any other ideas about how to get him OK in a stall? He lived just fine in a stall in his old life, but now he gets panicky.
Does he calm down when you and Bellis stay there? What if it's just Bellis? From this (far) distance, it's hard to say but my first thought is "herd-bound", which would be pretty normal for a herd-of-two. The Dragon is an absolute (glassbowl) if her goats aren't in the pasture, even if they are just in the yard where she can see them. She doesn't even like them, but they are Herd and are supposed to be in their assigned places.
I've used a mild sedative on her when she had to be locked in the stall for any reason, but usually I leave her paddock door open so she can move around from stall to the small paddock and she lives with that easily. She stays in the stall/paddock most nights in winter b/c she's a sissy about being out in the rain after dark. The goats can hang out in their stall, and she doesn't care about that.
Thanks for asking. He's not fine in a stall, no matter how close we are. But last week the farrier was here, and I put him in the stall to wait his turn, and stood right next to the stall door. He thumped around a bit and snorted and blew into my hair/ear, "I'm trapped in here!" in the most gentle way possible. Only once did I feel his skin touch my ear. I just stood there and he eventually settled. Isn't it interesting, how reliant horses can become on total 100% freedom of movement!?
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