Living the Baby Horse Life

Baby horse has mostly been living the life, just hanging out in the pasture. But we've been working on some basic life skills on occasion.

Tying champion

Whenever I clean the barn she gets to be tied and learn about standing. We have worked a little bit on cross tying, which she definitely was not sure about. I haven't actually tied her yet, just run the lead ropes through her halter/the cross tie rings to get her used to use to how it looked/felt. She was quite unsure and kept eyeballing the lead ropes, but we ended on a good note with her snoozing, though I wasn't able to walk away quite yet.

Not really sure what's going on

She also has gotten her vaccinations (complete with booster) and is up to date on her worming. She was initially pretty offended about getting poked with a needle, but didn't give me too much trouble. She's a champion about being dewormed which I really appreciate!

SO FLUFFY

Other than that, I'm hoping to haul her to the barn that Jetta's at one evening for a field trip. I was going to do it last week, being spring break and all, but when I hooked up my truck and trailer, the truck started leaking a large amount of antifreeze so the BF worked on it this weekend and hopefully it'll be as good as new soon!

Trying on her big girl halter... she's too big for yearling size, but still too small for horse size!

Maisie hasn't hauled alone yet, but we've practiced loading and she doesn't hesitate. She is not a fan of me tying her and threw a bit of a tantrum, but we worked through it and she ended up being (sullenly) ok in the trailer. Hopefully she'll be quiet to haul!

And lastly, she got her first acupuncture session on Friday. My friend PR just got certified so she came out and tried a few points. No results yet (in terms of cribbing) though I have definitely never seen Maisie that relaxed! Her lower lip was droopy and she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. But maybe we'll try a couple more sessions and see how it goes.

Model status

Most excitingly... She jumped an almost 5 foot fence about a week ago. This is the second time in her 8 months of life that she has jumped a large pasture fence. I am not amused. She better grow up to be a great jumper! I think what happened is that she was turned out with Kestrel, my roommate's 3 year old Appy mare. Kestrel is very submissive towards the roommate's other horse, hence why we turned her out with Maisie. Unfortunately, Kestrel quickly figured out how easy Maisie is to boss around, resulting in Kestrel chasing, cornering and trying to double barrel Maisie. So they lost their turn out privileges together which is a huge bummer. Luckily Maisie only ended up with a small scrape on her right knee and stifle which I cleaned and examined. I was worried she had a puncture wound, but it's really just a scratch on her knee.

Naughty babies

So that is the exciting life of a baby horse! I can't wait to take her on her field trip next week, so I will keep you updated on what happens!

Derpy run