Summer Update

 

 

 

Summer is coming to an end more quickly than I would like, as usual. School started this week for most counties around here. *sigh*
The photos above are of "Gunny-Bunz". He is doing so much better after the nasty, sad spring he had. He's now being ridden, and in the photos my horsey pal and former student "C" is riding him. ("C" didn't give me permission to post her photos so I am protecting her true identity.) By the way she is an instructor now herself, and a swell rider, if I may say so. Late September marks one year I have had Gunny and Major:

Gunny is doing better, gaining weight on his high fat feed and "Equi-Jewel" - a stabilized rice bran pellet from Purina feeds; something new I am trying and am very satisfied with, btw. The abscess is gone, he's no longer having inflammations in his knees for the most part.... all together a huge turn around for Gunny Bunz. I still want to have his knees x-rayed before offering him for sale, just to be on the safe side. My only complaint about Gunny is he does not get along with other horses very well. Certain ones, sure. Others, he has NO tolerance for. I have no idea what creates these preferences, it is just a quirky thing with him. He hates Jazz.

Major thinks he is quite "the man" since going to his first CT clinic two weeks ago. He suddenly started getting sassy and punkish. He got in quite a lot of trouble in a schooling session last week, and if C is reading this, she knows what I mean. Then this weekend, when the home owners at our facilities were in, he threw a huge fit in his paddock when I got to the barn to stall the boys - running madly around the paddock, bucking, kicking, rearing.... it took me a few minutes to halter him and then he wanted to rear and kick on the lead line on the way to his stall. He wasn't being mean or naughty, just exploded with exuberance and energy, and knew he had a whole audience of people, who came down from the house to watch. He is SUCH a racehorse. He loves to perform and be watched, I think. Punk. I took him totally off the high fat sweet feed I was using to get him to gain and switched him over to 100% Strategy Pellets. He's maintaining weight on that just fine, and I am hoping if cuts down on this hyper stage he's going through. He's great, though. What a horse.


Jazz, our new girl, is settled in just fine. She is just a truly pretty, girly girl. We have discovered that she is a very neat and tidy horse, always deposits her manure in the same corner of her stall and does not disturb it, as the geldings do. Also, she seems to not want to urinate in the paddock, but waits to go in the privacy of her stall. It's like she can't bear to do it in front of the guys. In addition to this, we have discovered that she likes her hay "fluffed". That's right. One day I just stuck a couple firmly packed flakes in her net and when I got back in the afternoon to turn her out, she had hardly touched it. Now, we make sure her flakes are fluffed and then put in her net, and then she eats it better. Whatever it takes to make her eat, I'll tell you. She is also on the Equi-Jewel, and loves it.

So, that's it for the end of summer, back-to-school update on the fresh otttbs. Let's hope and pray Gunny's x rays come back clean, and that we can find him a good home where his looks and talent will be appreciated and used.