May 25, 2008

This morning when I went out to the pen, Billie came right up to me at the fence! She sniffed at me but did not want me to touch that muzzle today. I fed her and checked her water, then set to work cleaning up the pen. At first, I scooped poop I could reach through the panels, but lots more poop was in the center of the pen. I decided to try opening the gate to see what would happen--nothing. Billie stood watching me, seeming curious about what I was up to opening the gate and all. My hand waving did nothing to scoot her to the back of the pen so I would feel better about entering--she just seemed not concerned that I wanted to be in the pen with her. After a few minutes, I was no longer very interesting and she went over to her hay pile to munch away, so I decided it was time to enter all the way like it was no big deal that I would be inside the pen with a manure fork picking poop. I didn't turn my back on her the whole time but set about my work and got most of the poop up; Billie was fine with the whole event. Mostly she munched her hay; a few times she walked over to the side of the pen to peer around the shelter to see what was going on but would always go back to the hay.

Later this morning, Charles was visiting with her and was thrilled to have her come up and sniff him through the panels. She even let him scratch her muzzle.

We spent the day at a family reunion and got back later than intended. Billie was fine except that she had eaten every blade of hay I'd put down this morning. She set right to work when I could put more down, but didn't much care for the headlights of the truck shining in her pen--who would?