The Big Project

Yes, those WERE wild horses in my last post! Cool! I only wish I could have seen them up close. But then again.....apparently there is not enough land or feed for the size of the herds.....so that is a concern.

This is what we woke up to on Saturday morning:

By later that afternoon, this is what it looked like~

 Separated ponies.

Mother Nature is having a hard time letting go of winter! It melted off quickly but left the pasture soft and mushy.  I hate spring pastures before they dry out!

Speaking of pastures, my major project (after helping pick up two new horses for the ranch, which I will post about later) I separated My Boy and Loretta. My Boy went to the back pasture where he started out before we added the front pasture/run in shed. He won't have a shed but we don't get a lot of rain here, and I can blanket him if need be (I can't blanket Loretta.) Besides, they hardly use their shed anyway, much to Ranch Boy's chagrin!

I separated them to make feeding easier, as Loretta is on a new diet and My Boy doesn't need as much hay or grain as she does. It will also put less stress on her at feeding time, as My Boy is more dominant. I feed them in multiple piles so it isn't like he's chasing her from the hay, but sometimes he can be a little nasty with the evil eye and ears and I don't want her to feel any anxiety over it. They are still over the fence from each other and napped "over the fence" together today so they aren't experiencing any separation anxiety.

Let me tell you, My Boy was eager to hit the back 40 as there were little shoots of green grass in there for him! I hardly had the gate opened and he ran inside before Lo had a chance to figure out what was going on!

I got his trough filled and then set to cleaning out the winter muck from Loretta's.

The bottom was filled with dirt somehow. The few random warm days we'd had in the past couple of weeks also helped grow some nasty dark yellow slime which I scrubbed. Scrubbing the inside of a water trough is always a pain, I can never quite get a good angle with the brush! By the way, that black spot on the rim is where the trough heater burned a hole clear through back in January. Silly me didn't realize that when the water level sank and the heater got stuck on the ledge, that would happen (I have no defense, it mentions this hazard right on the box.)


Much better!!

My baby girl didn't feel good again yesterday. We'd had a stretch of decent days, but I could tell her tummy was off. She is on a new diet plan for colonic ulcers, thanks to our VERY knowledgeable horse friend over at Brown-Eyed Cowgirls, thank you thank you!!!

 Loretta often eats or stand with her hind end up under like this, to relieve pain and pressure in the hind gut. I can only imagine how this is going to make her back feel! I see chiro work in her future....

Due to her previous owner's busy schedule, I am keeping Loretta until mid-April. We will re-evaluate at that time whether the diet appears to be helping her and what the next steps will be.....


I hope you all had a great weekend!

Ranch Girl