Bo's Dismay and Babe's Delight

Much to Bo’s dismay and to Babe’s delight, Bo is in with the big herd. I’m a bit nervous because the big herd is a bit daunting. But Bo has met everyone over the fence. It’s just a matter of figuring out the pecking order. Poor Bo will be at the very bottom of the herd. Bo spent most of the night behind the manure pile (yes, I have a manure pile in the horse pen. It’s going away soon, fingers crossed.)

Babe seemed much more relaxed having Bo out of her pen. She had a look of contentment the minute Bo was out of the pen. Hopefully she’ll be just as relaxed when I put Thor in the pen with her. We’ll see how that goes. I’m still a little too chicken yet to try it. Maybe tomorrow.

We moved Savanna from her stall to the leanto. I want her to stretch her legs a little bit more. Being cooped up in a stall is no good and just increases her cribbing habit. She was also starting to get stocked up standing in her stall. I think having a week of low/no stress helped. I can’t tell if she’s started putting on weight or not. Usually it takes a week for the body to stop eating away at itself. So hopefully now that we’ve had Savanna for a week and a half she’ll start gaining weight. I brought her out last night and hand grazed her for a little while in the front lawn. I wanted to be close to the house while Mike repaired shingles from our terrible winds from last weekend.

Back to Bo. I still need to get pictures of him. It’s hard to believe that we’ll have had him for almost two months now. He’s really looking good. He looks terrible in with the other horses (he’s still so skinny), but from where he was to now, he looks fantastic. I can’t wait to see him all plump and sassy. As long as the herd lets him eat, he’ll do ok. I’ll pull him into the barn stall to let him eat and let him devour a sliver of hay too just to make sure he gets all the food he wants. He is such a pretty mover. He was trotting around the pen, just floating along with no effort even in his skinny state. He did a little bit of loping too. I can’t wait to see what he’s like once he’s at the proper weight. I’m betting he’ll be a handful. I keep picturing him under English. He’d be rather stunning. Of course, there isn’t enough leather for my fat butt to ride English, so we’ll just see how things progress.

I’m itching to play with Mayhem. She’s such a doll. I was messing with her last night just hanging all over her. She wasn’t very happy with me but she needs to learn. This morning when I threw hay, she was standing next to Queen. Queen waddled up and Mayhem followed. I busted out laughing. Mayhem was acting exactly like Queen. I really like putting a very young horse in with an older, more experienced horse. I did the same thing with Chaos when he was a baby. It seems to be working well for Mayhem. Of course Queen is digging every minute of it. I’m contemplating putting Sahara in with Queen. But I need to start working with Sahara to actually halter break her. She’s very skeptical of people these days. Of course, I don’t blame her.

And have I mentioned that I have the greatest family? My niece and nephews (along with their mom), went to Campbell Supply and bought fly masks for the horses. The oldest nephew picked one out for King. My niece chose one for Queen, and my youngest nephew picked one out for Chaos. Those kids have a heart of gold. Queen and Chaos are definite rescues. I pulled Queen from the Kramers auction and I took Chaos in before he headed to Kramers. King is the only possible non rescue. I bought him for a personal horse but he’s since come up lame due to muscle issues (sore muscles all the time). Had we not kept him, I’m betting he would have been tossed from one owner to the next until he ended up in the slaughter pipeline. I’ll be talking with the vet again to see if there is a different method we can use this summer. The meds we used last summer didn’t seem to work.

Speaking of meds, Sam finished his ulcer meds up this past weekend. It was for 30 days but I missed a couple along the way so it took a few extra days. The 30 days were to treat the ulcer. We are to do an additional treatment for maintenance. I haven’t gotten the meds yet but I’m already noticing that Sam is starting to not feel well again. I have a distinct impression that Sam will be on an ulcer regime the rest of his life. We’ll just do the “maintenance” portion but it’ll add up. I’ll do the “maintenance” treatment for 14 days. But I’m going to place an order to keep the ulcer meds on hand at all times. I also need to throw in meds for Rabbit’s heaves. Her heaves stay under control for the most part but the warmer the weather gets, the harder it is for her to breath. She really needs to go somewhere where it’s cold all the time. The crisp air seems to really keep the heaves down.

We are three weeks behind in the weather. I’m concerned that the pasture won’t come up in time. What worries me more is that I’ll be out of hay by early next week. I need to make a run to Madison to pick up one or two bales I had stashed at mom and dad’s just for a situation like this. I’ll also see if I can’t buy a few more bales to get me through until the herd is out on pasture. It’s never ending but now that we are getting down to the wire, I’m starting to feel the pressure and stress.