Plan B (and Plan C)

Some might have seen my post on Facebook about going into Plan B. I wasn't trying to be mysterious about not expounding on it, just too tired. Apparently, Plan B now makes my morning chores go from 10  minutes to 30 minutes and my evening chores, well, I'm not sure how much extra time it adds but it adds enough time to take a chunk out of my evenings.

So, what is Plan B you ask?

Stalling Bo and Junior every night in the barn. I can now regulate how much they eat and what they eat. Whereas before, with them being in other pens, it's hard to know how much they actually eat. And if I want to grain them or give them any extra supplements, I have to pull them out anyway and wait and wait and wait for them to finish eating. So it makes perfect sense (to me) to simply stall them overnight so they can eat in peace and have shelter from any and all SD winter weather.

With stalling, I now give them extra grain and extra alfalfa. They don't seem to be polishing off the hay as quickly. I'm hoping they'll work up to being able to eat more but we'll see. I am trying to put on as much weight as possible since I've done them an injustice by not watching them closer. Being under the weather for a month really takes its toll not on just me but on the horses as well. I'm afraid Junior looks worse than when he first arrived. Hopefully I can rectify that by implementing Plan B.

However, Bo does NOT like Junior. Even though they are stalled separately, they are not best buds and dont' appear to want to be. Yesterday morning I went into the barn to discover Junior in one corner and Bo in another (Junior has access to three stalls and Bo has access to two stalls). So I get the impression that Bo doesn't like Junior.

However, I DO think that Zeke might know Junior. Or at least there's some kindred bond between the two. That same morning, I let Bo out of the barn. Dude had Bo trapped in the leanto and I didn't realize it until I started throwing out hay. So Bo had to hang out in the leanto until Dude moved. I lead Junior back to the small pen with the mares. Zeke was hanging out by the fence line watching Junior. I think he wanted to talk to Junior. I'm not sure if he thought Junior was Bo or if he wanted to touch noses with Junior. Either way it was pretty cute. When Dude moved and Bo was able to stick his head out of the leanto, I was able to get Dude moved and Zeke's attention to tell him that if he was looking for Bo, that Bo was by the barn. Zeke took a beeline to Bo and then proceeded to harass him. I'm not sure but I think Zeke is jealous that he's not in the barn with Bo.

I've gotten a little spoiled with chores only taking 10 minutes in the morning. I'm going to have to start waking up earlier to get everything done and get to the paying job on time.

I'm threatening to haul Ivan and Brego up to Madison for a month. They are really irking me off. If I don't haul them to Madison, I'm going to rearrange horses because I am sick of Ivan being a bully. I've been watching him now over the past few weeks and every time I put a pile of hay down and Bo goes to eat from it, Ivan and Brego walk over and push Bo out of the way. So Bo goes on to another pile and either Ivan or Brego go over and push Bo out of the way. It makes my blood boil to watch it happen. It's gotten to the point where once Bo moves, then Zeke gets pushed out too. I have enough hay piles but I'm tired of watching Ivan be such a bully. Brego is following suite and that just won't do. If we weren't dealing with hauling water all the time, I'd be rearranging pens a little bit more because I'm FURIOUS with Ivan and Brego. But as it is, I may dump those two in with Rabbit and Mayhem and see how they fair with two red headed mares and then put Junior in with the big herd. I'm going to have to come up with something because I'm sick of watching the bullying.

So there's a Plan B for Bo and Junior and I may have to implement Plan C for Ivan and Brego. And to top it off, we are back into full swing winter. Starting tonight we have wind chill advisories so I expect everyone will be going into stalls tonight. Come on spring, I'm ready for you!