Baby Firecracker

<3

My little gold nugget is one month old already! Where has time gone already?? She is still the cutest thing ever and I love her. But man, is she a little firecracker! She is gonna be a fun one.

She's starting to shed her baby coat!

We've been working lately on a few simple things, but she wants no part in anything but scritches. And maybe nomming on whatever it is you have handy (wheelbarrow, pitchfork, your arm, etc.) Her current favorite itchy spot is her along her back.

She's got two little teeth on top and bottom with two more making their way in. And does she like to bite! She's always liked to bite, but now it's actually an issue because she can leave a mark! I think my bruise total is up to five now... one bitten arm, two stomped feet, one fat lip, and one kicked shin lol. It's so hard to get after her for biting cause it's kind of adorable... she pins her giant ears back, then a couple seconds later she'll wrinkle her little nose, and then she chomps.

Angry mule baby

We've been working on touching her muzzle, haltering, giving to pressure with the halter, and picking up feet. All are absolutely awful baby torture. Haltering and touching her muzzle is going much better than anything else. She has never liked her muzzle being touched even though she is fine with being touched everywhere else. She's getting much better about it, which helps with the halter. She no longer books it out the door when I bring out the halter. She doesn't quite stand still yet to have it put on, but at least she's not violently flinging her head every which way while I do it.

Never too young to practice our picture posing!

I think picking up her feet has been the most fun. I put down new bedding pellets in the stall the other day which in case you didn't know are SUPER slick. I was working with Maisie on her feet, she's fine with you touching them but doesn't like picking them up... basically I was skiing across the floor with my arms around a bolting baby horse. That was interesting. Her front feet are going well and we can now pick up both fronts and hold them for a second as if I was going to pick them out. Next on the menu is to work on back feet, then to work on both backs and fronts to bring feet forward as if the farrier was going to work on them.

And lastly, I put a lead rope on the halter for the first time and she absolutely hated it. She caught on quickly about giving to pressure and turning her head side-to-side when I asked, so we quit there. But there were quite a few antics leading up to that... bolting and rearing and striking, etc.

This is gonna be a fun ride guys...

Happy, hungry mama

 

Mama found the apples!

Selfies after our halter training - I'm absolutely drenched in sweat!