And Then There Was Mud

Another nice weather day but I just wasn't feeling like riding so I went out to the barn with some chores in mind. I was late on deworming this month so that was on the top of my list. I also borrowed Steph's cordless clippers. Of course the horses weren't up by the gate so I had to wade through the mud to get to them. By the time Axel and I got out to the drive way he was covered in mud. There were no puddles to walk through so we walked through a big snow bank to try and clean our feet off a little. It didn't really help so I walked him around the arena for a while. One of the other boarders was riding so we just hung out in the middle. Axel was very interested in watching the mare trot and canter around. When his feet were as dry as they were going to get we went out to the crossties to groom. He actually did really well for most of the time but when the girl and her horse decided to go outside to ride he started in with the head flinging and getting angry at the crossties. I shaved up his back ankles to try and prevent mud fever but it might be futile judging from the amount of mud in the pasture.

When all the exciting grooming was done it was time to deworm, something I am not terribly adept at. I gave Axel half an apple and then shoved the dewormer in his mouth. He was pretty good about it, I had a bad angle but I think most of it stayed in his mouth. He spit a bit out but the job was done. I gave him the rest of the apple and took him back out side.

Cody was still on the far end of the pasture when I turned Axel out, luckily Danny came along to see what was going on and somehow got Cody running and they both came up to the gate so I didn't have to walk through the mud a second time. At least with Cody I wasn't planning on shaving his feet so I didn't even attempt to get the mud off of him. I groomed him quick in the crossties and he started to get figity pretty quickly. I brought him into the arena to deworm where I figured there'd be more room and less obstacles in our way. Cody was not playing my game. He squeezed his lips closed and flung his head in the air and was not going to be dewormed no matter what. I struggled a while with my hand on his nose trying to keep his head down and figure out how I was going to get the dewormer past his zipped lips but I gave up and went for an alternate method. Cody always opens his mouth for the bridle and bit. So I grabbed a bridle and held it as if I was going to bridle him. When he opened his mouth to take the bit I put in the dewormer instead. In the end it went quick and easy, though I wonder if I'll ever get a bit in his mouth again! He was rewarded with a bunch of quality apples courtesy of my place of employment.

Now that the ice is gone from the drive we can use the side door to the barn aisle instead of the tack room door. There's a pretty decent step up and it's pretty narrow so it's the perfect door to practice backing out of so when I was done with Cody that's exactly what I did. And he did fabulous backing through the narrow door and down the big step. I'll have to start doing that with Axel. Unfortunately they keep a bale of hay there and Axel is constantly trying to eat it.