Changing my focus

This blog has been about my adventures halter-breaking Billie, a mustang I brought home with the help of the Mustange Heritage Foundation.

It is now time to shift the focus because I have a total of 5 horses in my life and I can't just write about the one anymore.

For instance, this weekend I moved my showhorse, Sir Decker, to the farm, and it made for a doozie of a weekend adventure. I decided to move him for financial reasons, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to continue riding him as a show hunter, plus find more time to spend with my trail horses at the farm. The trail horses, Bo and Al, have been at the farm since December 2007. Ghost, my retired thoroughbred hunter (retired for health reasons) moved out to be with the quarterhorses at the farm last spring. I had hoped to move Decker to the farm in September, but changed my mind when it seemed too complicated. Well, money talks, as they say, it was time to cut some expenses, and moving Decker seemed like a good choice.

We'd been talking about making a move sometime this month (January), and last week I was trying to pin Charles down on a date. After all, it was time to pay board again--should I pay for the month? for a couple of weeks? What? Friday mid-morning, I brought it up again because I was on my way out the door to ride, and should leave a check for board.

After a few minutes of chatting, it was decided that Friday was as good a day as any, and we had a few days that I could spend out at the farm to help with the transition. So mid-day Friday, we drove out to Lucy's, loaded up all mine and Decker's crap, and took him to the farm. I got a few days rations to tie us over till I could switch to a new food, thinking to pick up the new feed on the way.

Problem #1: No one seems to be carrying the feed I was set on switching to! The feed at Lucy's is a super nice feed, but wholesales for close to $40 per bag--not in my budget. The feed I was hoping to switch to is Farnam's Platform Performance.

Well, we wasted close to an hour stopping at a couple of feed stores, to no avail. I called a few others Saturday morning, but nobody has seen this feed on the shelves for a few months. Not a good omen. Topping this off, getting the other horse feed has been hit or miss at best. The other horses (the other 4) get Farnam's Pleasure Horse. They all look really good, except for Ghost who is a hard keeper at best. But the rest have wonderful shiny coats, good feed, yada yada, so I'm sold on Platform feeds. What I'm not sold on is the lack of options to purchase it.

We made it out to the farm about 3:30 on Friday, needing to leave by 5:30 to make dinnner in town at 6pm. Decker was a good boy and went into the pen at the barn with no problem. Funny how the other horses at the farm seemed to know something was up and they all came galloping up to the barn just as I was untying the rope halter. Decker's pen was separated from the other horses by about 30 feet. They could all see each other, but nobody was going to get to directly interact. Decker was absolutely not interested in the other horses. He has his eye welded to the pasture scene where about 20 cattle reside. I think he was wishing to be let out in the pasture.

Al, Bo, and Ghost stayed in the other end of the pen the whole time we were at the farm. I put down a big flake of hay for Decker, he had water buckets full, and I decided that since he was not interested in hay, just he cattle pasture scene, the skipping supper rations was a good option.

We got back to the farm about 8pm, so I checked on all the boys at the barn. Decker still was ignoring the other equines for the most part, and seemed a bit more settled. He'd not drunk much water, but seemed to have eaten some hay. I put more down, and went to bed. I heard him whinny a few times in the night, most likely when the others would leave the barn pens.

In the morning, I first went to check on everybody. All four were at the barn, Decker in his insulated from everybody pen. He'd only had a little water, a bit conerning, and I couldn't tell he'd eaten any more hay. I put feed out for everybody, and Decker seemed to get started eating his. Then I went to get my own breakfast.

Later, I went back to the barn, and decided to let Decker out of his pen and into the bigger pen where he could interact with the other horses over the fence. I planned to stay and scoop poop. I scooped 3 wheel barrows full, in between shouting to break up equine interactions, and then it was time for lunch.

Lunch seemed to be taking awhile, so I went back up to check on everybody at the barn. I realized at this time that Decker had not eaten his breakfast--I don't know what I saw when his head was in the bucket and he was munching--I took for granted that he was eating. He was not eating hay or alfalfa, and he was doing his superman stretch for all he was worth. He'd been in the water trough, drinking--I thought, but he may have just been playing in the water with his new "friends" (the trough spans through the fence).

I decided it was time to call the vet for a shot--superman stretches are not a good sign.

The vet arrived within the hour. Decker seemed okay except for not wanting to eat or drink and playing superman. $200 and an hour later, he seemed perfectly fine, was drinking water, and seemed ready for hay.

After a few more hours, I decided to risk putting him out with the other guys. He already had a few battle scars from fence play, and the other horses would not be hanging around at the barn for ever. Getting him out on the house lot was, thankfully, not as full of drama as when we put Ghost out there. There were no races going on across the pasture, but there was much more jockeying for position, mainly with Bo, low man on the equine list at the farm.

I had locked the horses out of the barn pens for safety, so this morning had to go find them to bring them in for feeding. Decker ate his usual rations, Ghost got full rations, and Al & Bo ate their fill. Decker and Ghost had battle wounds addressed--Decker always gets really beat up! Then everybody was let back out for grazing, including a new round bale of coastal.

Later, Charles & I made a trek to Tractor Supply in Georgetown and bought panels and gates to make feeding pens for everybody. We tried them out this afternoon--another drama. Ghost was led into the first one, and as soon as the gate was shut, he started freaking out. I was sure he was going to burst through! Decker went into a pen next to Ghost, and that made Ghost mad again. Decker is a stall horse, so he was quite content to be in a stall. Good things happen in a stall, like food! Next, we were able to get Al to go into a stall, and he wanted right back out. He was not as big a fool as Ghost, but he definitely does not think horses belong in stalls. Last, I spent about 10 minutes coaxing Bo, Mr. Difficult, into a stall. Once everybody had a bucket of feed, the doubters settled. It took a bit longer for Al & Bo to figure out that there was also hay on the floor--it's a pretty good gig in a stall, you know.

When everybody had eaten and was mostly finished with hay, it was time to exit, another fun time. It was not as wild as entering the stalls, but not a lot less confusing for certain equines. When they were all safely out of the stalls, and seemed to be getting along, Charles & I left the barn pens to get ready to go home.

When we left, the horses were all camped around the round bale on the other side of the house lot. The house lot is 21 acres.