Moving Again

I've been really horrible about keeping up with this blog lately.  I think part of it is the distance between my horses and myself.  But anyways better late than never, right?

Last time the horses had just gotten their feet trimmed and I'm happy to report that a month later they still look like they were trimmed last week and no one was sore from it that I noticed.  The family hadn't plowed the wheat field and a lot of volunteer wheat was growing so we figured we'd turn the horses out there for a change of scenery and something to munch on.

Low and behold, a couple weeks out there and I'm pretty sure Haji gained weight.  And they weren't eating much grain at that point because no one wanted to come up to the barn to eat.  All the while they were still on their first bale of hay.  Of course out of that whole 11 acres or so, the horses chose to stand in the one little patch of brush which meant tons of burrs.

And by "horses" I mean Haji. Though the other boys had their fair share of burrs as well.

When they needed to plow the wheat field they moved the horses back to the front pasture where they nearly finished off the first round bale.  So that bale lasted them since the end of September!  Guess they weren't done with the grass yet after all.

I wasn't able to make it out to Canby after that so Jeff took on the chore of pulling all the t-posts and trailering the horses over to his brother's place.  There's a leak in the well so we can't leave the water on all the time which means we can't use an insulated/heated automatic waterer.  And since the hose will freeze we can't really get water at all at our place so we decided to move them for the winter.  The cattle pens are all full of cattle at the inlaws so Jeff's brother's place is the only place left but there's no fence.  So Jeff pulled the t-posts in the dark and hand pounded them into frozen ground til his hands hurt for a week. Don't worry, I got to hear all about it ;)  Not being there just compounded my worry about the horses and not being able to manage their care being so far away.  It was a rough night to say the least.

So when they moved they threw out some hay from the loft and then put out a new round bale without the net which they all but finish in a week.  When I finally got out to see them after Thanksgiving they were FAT, super fat.  Which for Haji is a good thing, scratch that, great thing.  And that's without a lot of care in feeding him several times a day.  So I'm hoping he'll keep that weight on this winter. At some point someone took off Haji's blanket when it was a little warmer so I threw that back on him though he's got a nice winter coat and would probably be fine, I like the thought that he doesn't have to use his energy to keep himself warm and it'll help keep that sticky hip of his nice and warm.

So we had ourselves some more chores this past weekend and luckily the weather cooperated wonderfully.  I wrapped up the wire fencing from our place (that is a super lame job BTW) while Jeff started cleaning out his brother's barn.  Sunday I was able to get some time while Daniel stayed with Grandma and I went out to help.  The barn was full of who knows how many years worth of manure.  But between Jeff hand shoveling (I helped a tiny bit) and Joe running the bobcat they got the barn looking pretty nice.

We tied off the sides of the barn so the horses will just have access to the middle portion. That way they don't mess up the sides where the bobcat can't get and make it easier to clean in the future.  Also leaves the sides for storing various random things we found in the barn.

I put the buckets on the fence inside the barn which should mean a person can enter the barn from the small door and fill buckets without having to cross any fencelines or even go in where the horses are. The buckets will be out of the snow and rain so they can stay hung up and they won't go wandering away when a horse decides to play.  I thought maybe a neighbor kid could even feed but Jeff thinks that's too dangerous.  Anyway it's a pretty nice set up at this point.  The buckets are a little closer than I had hoped so hopefully the boys can figure out how to eat in peace and not run Haji off.  When I feed them from their buckets on the ground Sunday morning they all stood nicely and ate and Haji was able to finish before Axel came looking for seconds.  So that was nice.  Oh!  I saw Haji pin his ears and move Cody off at one point over the weekend.  Yay Haji!

I think there might be a bit of mud in our future but we'll see.  There was a low spot where the paddock is set up but this fall they filled it with gravel so maybe it'll be okay.  They do have a cement apron on the barn as well as the barn aisle to stand in if the mud gets bad.  We'll just have to scrap the aisle of manure on occasion.  Maybe throw out some stray or something.  I don't think it'll be as mud free as I thought our place would be but I think it'll be okay.  They don't have a large paddock right now but when the ground freezes they don't do too much moving around anyways.

So we cleaned up the barn, cleaned up their paddock area and put out a new round bale with net and everyone looked pretty happy.  I'm a little concerned that Haji hasn't figured out the net yet, so I'm hoping he figures that out soon if that's the case.

Sadly my hopes to see if Axel would not get swollen this winter are foiled.  They had a full round bale not in a net and he's swollen up again so I guess that experiment is off.  Oh well, I'd rather have fat happy horses in the end.  I'm also hoping this small area will make the three horses become better buddies in the end.  Maybe Haji will stick up for himself a bit more or something.

So after all my personal turmoil over the horses and their home and gaining or losing weight, I'm feeling good after this last weekend visit.  I'm thinking maybe the initial weight loss Haji had was a combination of not great hay, not getting grain quite enough, and the other horses running him around too much.  The hay is decent and the boys don't seem to run him around and he's getting regular grain so I think he'll do good this winter.  I think I can relax now.  Thanks so much to Jeff's brother for letting them live there this winter (I'm sure he doesn't mind the added bonus of us cleaning his barn either).

Back to Work, Again

I went to the barn armed with a plan, sort of. The plan is to get Axel riding more. And to maybe put them on small squares for a few weeks to see what happens, or maybe not. I was still deciding at the time. Cody seems to have managed to stay out of the mud lately. Axel, on the other hand, has not. Most of the mud on his legs was dry but near his hoof it was still pretty wet. Since I planned to ride I need to put his bell boots on so I scraped as much mud off as I could.

It's amazing what a mess he leaves behind when I groom him. I was sneezing dirt all night. So much to Axel's dismay when I was done grooming him I tacked him up and brought him into the arena. I started by just lunging him for a while. I was hoping he was feeling as frisky as he was the other day and I wouldn't have to force him to pick up some speed. But he was pretty content just walking. So after he walked along in a circle (which he's getting almost good at) in both directions I clicked a few extra times to see what he'd do. First I got the "WTF" look from him and then he'd hop up in the air like a bronc a few times and then break into a trot for a few strides. I asked him a couple more times, I didn't really want him to trot, cantering seems to be a better gait for his knee but he just was not into it last night. He did manage a few strides of canter in each direction but there was a lot of crow hopping to get there. His trot was actually not terribly lame and I think if he'd bend his knees and pick up his feet it would go a lot better. I had forgotten his second pair of bell boots, I was going to put them on all 4 feet in hopes of inspiring a little less shuffling.

So we wrapped up the lunging after only a few minutes. Probably over 5 but I'm sure less than 10. Axel has not been pleased to wear a bridle lately. Not sure if it's just the year vacation he had or if something is bothering him. But I put his bridle on, convinced him to stand still at the mounting block, and hauled myself up on his back. He actually walked out really nice for the first lap or two around the arena on a loose rein. Then he started chewing on the bit and it seems like when he starts doing that he stops moving well. So the next 20 minutes or so I was after him to keep moving. I tried a few things like backing him up, wiggling the outside rein, holding my hands a little higher, and bending him both directions in attempts to get him to stop chewing on the bit and start paying attention. Didn't really work. He was paying enough attention to me that I was using mostly leg and seat cues to change his direction. He almost seemed like he was going to settle in near the end of the 20 minutes but as soon as we stopped to rest he started up again. If he doesn't settle in after a couple weeks of regular riding I might have to investigate his bridle and bit a little more. He did make it the full 20 minutes without a change in his lameness which was nice and after I got off he seemed the same and moved out fairly well. He wasn't interested in rolling, he wasn't really sweaty at all.

He's definitely low on muscle tone these days. It's hard to tell since he's so beefy to begin with but you can see between his back legs when he walks, normally those muscles rub together. And when I shift my weight to dismount he really braces himself and grunts a little. I should really get the chiropractor out to adjust him. He usually doesn't need it but a year off of riding and moving in general might have taken a toll. I just have to find the money. There so many other things he probably needs first like another knee injection, teeth floating, things like that.

So in the end I talked with J and he has some small squares he kind of wants to get rid of so he has room for the tractor in the barn. I hemmed and hawed over what we should do. On one hand I don't think it really has anything to do with the hay and I hate changing more than one thing at a time. On the other hand if we're going to test that theory we should do it now when it's still warm out. So he's going to put out small squares for a couple weeks and we'll see if that makes a difference. In then end we'll go back to big rounds for the winter because Cody just really needs it. My thought is keep exercising and if he gets better with both small squares and more work we'll see what happens when we add rounds back into the mix. If I wasn't worried about him eating fences posts or Cody losing too much weight, I'd say Axel could stand to drop a few pounds. He's probably better off being on the lighter side of things with his arthritis and ringbone but he's destined to be retired sooner than later and I think he'd rather be fat and happy than thin and mobile!