What Do Wednesday: Another Wintery Edition

INJURIES.

Horses make them. Expertly.

This topic stems from one of the most recent TOABH, a comment from my last post & the fact that my dear Lilly recently & mysteriously wrecked her LH. Dealing with it has been...an adventure.

Since it is winter, and we are/have been experiencing ridiculous sub-zero temps for weeks now (in case you werent aware) tending to [serious] wounds can be tricky and need some creative measures when it comes to wound care.

In any others season, I think *most* horse parents would rotate between some sort of wrapping, stall rest, salves/poultice and cold hosing system to mitigate swelling and risk of infection. Severe injuries do not count, as they require hospitalization and surgeries, etc and thats one ball game I hope I never have to play.

I've seen the horrors of those kinds of injuries and I do not wish that on my worst enemy.

In this case, treating Lilly's leg wound(s) have not only been exhausting but extremely stressful. I literally spent like 70 minutes, combined, today worrying about my horse at home and if she was in pain, was out of hay or water, was too cold, was too hot and if the barn had burned down yet, thanks to electric water buckets.

As mentioned previously, a commenter had mentioned her way of treating awkward wounds (hock joints) and being creative with supplies. Since I LOVE to pic y'alls brains for more ideas and solutions to problems.... I want to know from everyone... What do you do when your horse has injured her/him/self in a place thats very inconvenient for bandaging? Also, if your horse gets hurt in winter, what do you do to combat the cold when treating said wound?

In summer, rarely do I worry about anything besides flies and most wounds can be covered with salve when not able to bandage. However, tis' not winter and common methods of treatment are currently unavailable to me....like cold hosing. Hosing would seriously cure half my anxiety right now.

Since I'm a list person I've come up with "Winter Wound Care Grand Plan", complete with numbered steps and photos for easy referencing. Please disregard ratchet-ness of barn and the disgusting mess our poultry/waterfowl are constantly making. They are darty & they wont leave.

Repeat twice daily with the exception of step 2.

1. Gingerly unwrap leg(s) and assess current fucked state

Still VERY swollen, but honestly looks better than yesterday  

Conclusion----obviously unwilling to bear weight and still EXTREMELY tender. Like, the most. Originally I thought the inside wound on her cannon bone & the hock injury would be the buggar, but she seems to be VERY ouchy on her ankle. Quite warm throughout entire leg. RH hock also warm and slightly swollen. Unfortunately, there is hair everywhere and she wouldn't let us come near her with clippers. We can only assume soft tissue 'damage' and minor cuts under the hair near her ankle. Quite worried about it, will monitor closely, nervously and excessively.

2. Venture to reach vet. (Play phone tag all day) Finally get a ahold of saintly vet, ask if you can up Bute dosage because old mare butt is obviously 3 legged lame

3. Attempt to wipe salve off/clean wound with heated water from electric bucket & soft towel.
   Mare will not allow you near wound....
   Keep trying.
   Dodge half-hearted kicks...
   Get most of the old salve off wound.

4. Celebrate and stretch, you've been hunched over for some time.

5. Dunk hands in heated bucket to thaw.

6. Seek to convince mare that cold soaked rags will feel REALLY good on hot, swollen legs. She will disagree for some time. Delicately lay rags on hock joints, wait and hope she doesnt move, awkwardly and gently wrap with polos to keep in place. Repeat with ankle joint.

7. Admire handiwork and let rest for 10-15 minutes while completing step 8

This was really hard guys

This is what torture looks like

8. Clean stall. Dole out PM hay. Prep PM grain.

9. Again, gingerly unwrap, and remind oneself to take used wraps inside (aka throw on the ground outside door).

10. Try to get some salve near the actual wounds and not on the ground, opposite leg, on oneself or elsewhere. It will be difficult because horse will be flinging about trying to dodge your futile attempts

11. Wash and thaw hands again in heated buckets

12. Trick horse into standing immobile while trying to get gauze to stick to wounds/salve by being as delicate as a butterfly with placement

13. Fully unwrap vetwrap from roll, since its probably frozen to itself & being bastardly. Attempt to warm in your hands, but theyre probably wet, & not helping. Drop vetwrap. Repeat step.

14. Readjust gauze.

15. Sneakily and quickly get that mother 'effin vetwrap around the damn leg, hopefully near the wound and hope she doesnt flinch/whole thing doesnt slip.

16. It does.

17. Repeat steps 11-15 again with fresh supplies, while cursing under your breath (or louder, if you're me)

18. Admire handi-work and catch a breather/wonder why you fucking own horses

Not too shabby. Better than yesterday! *pats self on back*

19. Stuff mare's face with noms & pet neck for dealing with this shit (you're about 35-45 minutes into the ordeal by now)

20. Re-roll legwraps because you probably haven't yet. Forget you didnt wash hands and get salve all over wraps. Get clean ones. Note they are the last clean pair and try to remember to wash dirty ones (spoiler, you wont).

21. Tell horse to brace for the worst, and try to wrap legs, making sure the most injured leg gets as much coverage as possible and wrapping other leg for support. Horse will resist at first but then accept her fate as she is quite over this by now and just wants more food.

22. Repeat steps 18/19

Are you noticing a trend here? I like blue shit.

23. Return traumatized animal to her stall and give PM grain with meds.

24. Clean and refill heated buckets.

(Once inside)

25. Dry/fold cold compress wraps. Remember you forgot the other dirty wraps down at barn. 

26. Pre-crush pills for AM because you will hit snooze one too many times & be running late

26. Blog about it and collapse into bed.

So there you have it. A way too detailed numerical list of what I've been doing for what seems like eternity already.  You're welcome.

I've decided that wrapping the hocks overnight/during the day terrifies me & I'm too worried it will do more harm than good. But, the cold compress seems to be working in lieu of no hose, and she seems to actually enjoy it once I can get the damn things on. I don't blame her, those wounds are gnarly. I wish I could use ice packs, but shes so tender, I dont think the awkward pressure would work out in this instance.Vet has coordinated antibiotics & bute, so medications are taken care of. Luckily, if I mix it with a little water and dump on grain she doesnt even notice. Hallelujah. Otherwise, it could be worse and I'm glad she seems to have a good attitude about being inside and treated like a queen. 

Like I said before, I've been really lucky when it comes to horse bodily injuries and this has to be the closest to worst I've had to deal with, which is nice (I say that lightly-this has been the opposite of fun for both parties). I've had cut coronet bands (scary) and my mini's hoof splicing (ULTIMATE scary) but otherwise, this is the most creative I've had to get with bandaging and technique.

So, dear readers, What Do?

Feed me YOUR secrets!

TOABH: Costly $$

I really thought we were in the clear and headed for better weather ( I cant stop focusing on the weather I'M SORRY) but the weather guru's assured me the frigid arctic temperatures are here to stay at least for another week. I literally think I'm about to go insane and I may or may not have walked around in a zombie-like depressive state yesterday.

To entertain myself, since I have yet to muster the energy to write the follow-up post, I figured I would hop in on the hop.

I forgot to copy/paste the actual question in my sleep deprived 6am chugging coffeestate, but she asks, whats the most costly injury to date, time counts as money too. 

Now if we were talking about human injuries, I woudl be a prime candidate. I've been in and out of the hospital many many times, I get sick often thanks to a genetic blood disorder and I have a tendency to injure myself on many occasions.

Luckily, I've been blessed with very sound, safe, healthy horses *KNOCKS ON WOOD CROSSES FINGERS AND TOES* and Yankee is really my only candidate for injuries based simply off the span of time I've owned him. Besides two bouts of colic and thrush every spring, he's remained generally injury free. 

Once, my mini mysteriously shaved off half her foot exposing the laminae, but that honestly did not cost much in vet bills. Just a shit load of time wrapping her foot for over 6 months.

Surprisingly, Yankee's injury wasn't even really an injury, but a cancerous tumor on his tailbone. I wish I could figure out how to go back in the archive and find the post without it taking a thousand years to find, because the incident and the vet bills were traumatizing for both of us (yes I'm sure Yankee was concerned about my bank account because he's considerate like that). 

Essentially, he had a tumor growing on his tailbone at the tip, & I didnt notice it for weeks apparently because I'm a terrible horse mom. Pants has a huge thick tail and I keep his tail up in a sock for most of the year, periodically taking it down. One day it starts oozing blood, I dig around, freak out, call the vet and he's like "Oh this is probably cancer" while  looking at me disapprovingly.  Cue meltdown.

We ended up CUTTING OFF HIS TAIL from the last vertebrae and it was horrifying and terrible and I never wish that on anyone. I literally cried the entire time. Yankee was a trooper because he was sedated, and now has one less vertebrae. Neat. The vet had to come out 3 times after that  to "burn" off the end of the tail with carbon whatever. All I know is that is was a LOT of money.

Almost $2000. And for a broke bitch, it took me almost a year to pay that off. 

Speaking of injuries, I've been dealing with this in subzero (-10) temperatures and its not fucking fun for anyone, especially Lilly. 

jesus christ wtf

Poor girl. Imagine my panic when I see her limping up to me in the field. I remain calm, try not to have a heart palpitation and hurridly search the field for the cause/blood/hair. I literally found zero disturbances in the fencing, snow, surrounding areas or gates. LIterally none. Like what the actual fuck and how did this horse do this to herself.

Do not like blood. Blood scary.

I discovered trying to clean, sanitize and wrap a seriously injured leg in -10* with a horse who does NOT want you near her injury, is damn near impossible and I am legitimately sore from trying. Like, my legs and shoulders hurt from the weird crouching position I was in for over an  hour.

The worst of it.

To double the fun, both her hocks look pretty torn up and bandaging hocks is pretty impossible. Awesome. 

Her LH got the worst of it, whatever "it" is, which remains a mystery for now. 

Luckily (?) the vet said she will eventually be OK, gave me bute and antibiotics and told me to keep her inside with wraps. (Unfortunately thanks to the placement, stitches wouldn't hold so that's brilliant.)

Um, yeah, not easy when she doesn't want you touching her. This AM it was HUGE and hot and all I wanted to do was cold hose the damn thing but no, its too fucking cold for that. So I resorted to *trying* to sponge off the injury with freezing cold water, pretty much unsucessfully, got kicked twice and managed to get a cold compress on the leg for the day after 15 min of coaxing and kind of hobbling her so I coudl wrap it.

Essentially, might be the worst combination if mishaps and unfortunate coincidences to occur (subzero temps, placement, mystery, not being able to stitch, no hose, less than cooperative horse, barn door frozen shut, lights not working in barn, etc etc) & dealing with it has been brutal and quite miserable for both parties. 

Overall she seems comfortable and happy with her stall and hay for once, and I'm just relieved she didnt rip her leg off.

But seriously, wtf horse.

The Other Side

**EXCELLENT discussion/input on my last post. I will be doing a follow-up shortly to it since it raised up some very interesting things.

So we've officially survived "Snow-ice-artic temps-mageddon 2015" and have come out barely scathed on the other side. I think we all are absolutely sick of winter and feeling a little cooped up though.

Bacardi lately has taken to romping around on his own accord to amuse himself which is one part adorable and one part nerve wracking. Horses will be horses though & I feel more guilty locking him up inside than letting him romp around outdoors!

Frolicking wildly

Interesting angle

He has some impressive reach with that RH and MAN this horse can buck.  Heres a quick VID on my insta of his antics if anyone hasn't seen it yet. 

Otherwise he spends his days looking ridiculous in all his layers & eating me out of house and home. I think right now he's getting 1 to 1 1/2 bales a day while we try to find another round bale supplier. The struggle is real.

Marshmallow is not amused

Its killing me to not ride. For one, I enjoy it & two, I keep thinking of his muscles just shrinking away and all my hard work going to waste. We will have to double-time it once spring rolls around #boohoo

Lilly has been Lilly. 

Many of you may not know Lilly well, so I want to take a minute to explain her to y'all.

She's quite the Queen B. She knows her job, what she wants and when she wants it. But she also is sweet in a bitchy, endearing way. I would love to say she tries her best to please you, but really, humans are her servants & we do HER bidding. As long as it is in the realms of her acceptance, she will do it nicely (aka being ridden) but otherwise will just do what she wants. I kind of let her be, because shes so reliable and steady, but sometimes her bitchiness is just funny.

The other day I was bringing her in for the night because of the windchills. She knows where her stall is and I rarely ever halter her to bring her in, she just trots around to whichever door I have open.

Sidenote, we have a GIANT sliding front door that usually works. Unless its below freezing and then it will freeze completely in place, however you left it. I try to leave room enough for a wheelbarrow, but I also like to close it because of wind. Its a tough situation.

Anyways, when it freezes, we have to let Lilly in, do stalls, and turnout from the back doors. She will run around to the back if the front sliding door is closed.

This time though, she decided she could fit through the wheelbarrow sized opening and basically BULLDOZED her way inside. It was actually really funny after I got over the initial shock of her doing it/checking her for injuries. 

Icicles on the marebutt face

Mares will be mares!

If he's not raring around his fields at mach ten, Bacardi is begging for TREATS & being adorable in general despite his clothes situation.

"Foods for meh?"

Ice in his tail

Since shredding my very expensive and lovely neck blanket, he's been without protection on his neck from the wind. I think it was a little much for him on the -30* days and when I came home from work, I found him shivering even with a wool belly blanket liner and a heavyweight turnout with belly band. 

I was SO nervous to give him another blanket, but felt really bad he was so cold so I upped him to 3 blankets and  threw on my full neck/face sleazy in hopes that would act as a windblocker. It was my "show only" sleazy that I only use to keep braids nice overnight, but I felt so horrible I threw it on anyways! I just prayed he wouldnt rip it.

He did though, within 12 hours of it being on. Horses man! BUT, he seemed warm enough and happy with that addition so thats all that matters. 

3 blankets felt excessive, but he seemed totally fine so I let him be for  a few days while the temps remained subzero. It warmed back up today for a bit so we all got a breather but its supposed to drop below zero again tomorrow night. UGH! How do people in Canda deal with this on a regular basis.

Our water tank heater doesnt seem to be able to keep up with these temps either so I've had to chop ice constantly. I don't mind so much, its a great workout, just really nervous about them being unable to access water. I thought those buggers were guaranteed to like -1000* or something, but I guess not.

Our bird collection is surprisingly doing well. I for sure thought our chickens would freeze to death., which made me really anxious to think about. They refuse to live in their coop and prefer the barn. I noticed their combs looking frostbitten & really started to worry but they pulled through! The Ladies look a little rough, but otherwise spritely. 

Lady Gaga & Pocahontas 

Our duck brood has also taken up residence in the barn. I've tried keeping a hole chopped in their pond, but with -12 to -17 actual temps, the pond freezes up so thick and fast their hole became impossible to keep large. I also think the actual temps and wind started to get to them and they migrated inside. They discovered hay piles & seem content so I let them be.

Along with OUR birds, Starlings have moved in to the barn and never have I seen more bird shit in my entire life. I had to bring tarps in the barn to cover up my halters, hay, boxes and western saddle because of the sheer amount of bird crap covering said items. I'm not joking, its monumental and now frozen to everything. Disgusting.

Anyone know how to get rid of starlings by chance?

I hope everyone else has made it to the other side fof this freeze without mishap! I've seen quite a few burst pipes on FB and have been wondering how everyone was faring.

Hopefully weather will warm up and we can all get back to riding!

Winter Timewasting Activity

Since its winter and it seems if you aren't frozen to death yet, you're well on your way and riding is mostly out of the question. But that still leaves you with horses on the brain and an unfulfilled quota of horse in your life. If you're like me, you take to stalking COTH, blogs, insta and catching up on my two favorites- Dom Schramm and Denny Emerson. Literally Gods.

Because I like to stir the pot and express my opinions about things, I would like to propose a (mature) debate/conversation about rider position over fencing.

Before we begin, for your winter boredom pleasure, read THIS post about how rider positioning affects the biomechanics of jumping that Dom posted on his FB, if you feel so inclined to do so. His beautiful self is featured in the blogpost, but I also found the information riveting, curious and thought provoking (adult words, yay!). A few of Denny's photos are also featured in the post, so there's a good one-two punch if you worship both men like I do.

Have we all caught up?

Excellent.

First off, if you're a Hunter and can't take the heat, I would exit immediately, because half of my post revolves around the riding techniques and practices I currently see in the Hunter show ring & you might not like what I have to say.

It is no secret that I *almost* despise the Hunter ring. No offense meant towards any of my lovely Hunter blogging friends, truly, I'm sure you all have your reasons for being part of the sport and that OK by me! Hunters just aren't my thing. And yes I've tried it, up to the B levels, and absolutely none of it was fun. From my experiences and my experiences alone, people were hateful, rude and full of spite. NEVER did I get a well wish for any round and half the time parental units would try and sabotage myself in the ring. WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE DO THAT TO LITTLE KIDS. In addition, competitors would do everything they could to best you in the ring. Cut you off, crowd you, block you etc etc. It was heartbreaking as a child to have people treat you in such a manner when shows were supposed to be fun. Competitive sure, but also fun. Never once was fun. Luckily, I was pretty good at it and Spirit had the knees of a champ so we did win quite often, which softened the blow of poor sportsmanship around me.

Not one time has an eventer been mean spirited towards me or rude. Ever. Just sayin'

I also REALLY dislike the hunter look in general. Literally, everyone looks the same (Yes, I realize the same thing could be said for dressage, but at least in XC you can bedazzle yourself if you want and in the ring youre at least ALONE!) and in a ring full of horses its REALLY hard to stand out. Every. single. horse I see looks like they hate their life, poll below the vertical, or broken at the 3rd and a big fat fake tail. Just a few examples....

 /rant.

What I really came here to discuss is my absolute BIGGEST pet peeve in the entire horse world. And that has to be judges pinning bad/incorrect riding.

Who determines such as "incorrect or correct" though?

I *like* to think that old timers generally have the right idea about things (enter Denny Emerson) and new age riding has REALLY gone downhill. I know I'm not alone either. Just today I saw a huge thread on FB about the decline in Arabian showing integrity and how depressing it is with the steep downhill fall horsemanship has taken lately. Dressage too. All I see nowadays is people complaining about rollkur and false contact, yet ALL I see is people riding with false contact and judges rewarding them with flawless scores! Its mind boggling! Don't even get me started on western pleasure and peanut rolling, dead tailed horses. Not picking on any one sport here either; I recently posted about the ridiculousness of eventing safety and the turn MY sport is taking too.

Getting back on point.

The article outright called out hunters (and some jumpers) in the very first paragraph noting that the most common form over fences is to throw oneself up the neck so as to get out of the way of the horses mouth.

Personally I find this incorrect.

The blogpost I referenced supports my way of thinking.

When I was a hunter, I was TAUGHT to throw myself up, jam my heels down, arch my back and push my hands as far forward as I could. It was called "the snap". It used to look like this...

and has somehow morphed into this....

However, no one told/showed/understood (me) how this affected the horse over fences. Also, no one taught me the correct way to ride your horse. I was taught the "yank & crank" method. Bad bad bad.

So I grew up thinking this was how you rode. And this is how many many people still ride. So thankful I switched disciplines. Changing your way of riding is hard and takes years and a ton of work. Ask me how I know.

Not getting into "yank and crank" today, but I would like to discuss positioning over fences and the "winning" way vs the "correct" way.

Not naming names here, but today on COTH I watched 2 videos of Thewinning rides at The Palm Beach Hunter Spectacular. HERE is the link if you're curious (I recommend watching).

DISCLAIMER. I am in NO way bashing the young lady as a person, or even her skill. Just speculating on the JUDGING of these classes. Also, all photos taken from google stock images using "hunter eq". (trying to adult here and cover my bases in case anyone gets a little overly sensitive about things)

Srsly, no

First off, it was a drag for me to watch. There is a reason I don't do hunters and that is because its not exciting to ME. Cookie cutter rounds don't capture my attention at all. That being said..I was appalled that this was a winning round. Most likely because I do NOT compete in hunters and have no clue anymore what is considered good, but I thought the round was pretty bad. Just my opinion though.
Her horse looked asleep (apparently preferred?), she was getting tossed out of her saddle on every landing and her jumping ahead was very consistent. Just the facts there.

HOW is this winning?

Seriously, hunters, enlighten me? What in the hunter world do you strive for in a winning round these days? Was this a class not based on EQ and merely the horses' form? (If that was the case...theres a lot to be desired in that horse, for me at least.) I actually don't know if the Hunter Spectacular had to do with EQ or not.

On the other side of this, HOW is this considering winning riding in EQUITATION? WHY are judges rewarding this?

A winning round

Jumping ahead is not only ugly, but INEFFECTIVE. In fact, can hinder the horse rather than help. It is 100% possible to release from the SHOULDERS and elbows than to throw yourself up the neck to get a release. I'm not just pointing out this young lady and her round either. I see it EVERYWHERE in the hunter ring. I also DO see some good riding out there, I just haven't seen a WINNING ride (as of late) be one of those. Thats my entire point here.

Seriously, just read the damn Blogpost. Much better at forming coherent, smart sounding sentences than I.

That being said, I do not consider myself an expert by any means. Not even close. But that doesn't mean I can't strive for perfection and perfection to me is riding that is not only effective but also looks beautiful.

So what do you guys think? Who and what determines what is correct and what isn't? Is it science and biomechanics or is it judges and what they're looking for in a winning ride? Who sets the standards? What are your opinions/experiences?

**edit

It was pointed out that the differences across the realm of hunters can't quite be compared in this post because breed shows are wholly different from eq or even the COTH video show. That being said, even though I used stock photos, I've seen that "look" everywhere, not just breed shows. I tried to pick a variety of photos, not just your typical QHs.Sure the QHs are different from others but the general low head, on the forehand way of going seems to be a trend across all boards. Especially when I showed. From 4H to B shows, I saw this look being emulated. That being said, I havent shown hunters or been "in the scene" for years so take that with a grain of salt. 

In addition, the entire post was more about the effectiveness of rider positioning in jumping even though I discussed my dislike of the hunter look briefly. All across the board, jumping ahead seems to be the standard practice and even accepted. Especially if it's not an eq class as one commenter mentioned. That's insane to me! Wouldn't we all want to ride effectively and out of the horses' way?

Just my opinion. 

Dear God

This is not your standard "complain about the weather post".

This is a "holy shit I might ACTUALLY freeze to death" post. 

I don't know how any of you are faring (I hope most of blogging friends are NOT in the northeast) with this bout of winter fuckery, but I think I'm dying. I cannot get warm, which is never a problem. As The Boy, I am constantly sweating. Its gross.

 Last winter wasn't even this brutal though. It was bad, and got really annoying, but not this cooooollllld. I don't live in Canada for a reason, but jesus Ohio, why?! TIME TO FLOCK SOUTH.

I'm hoping everyone is well, posting of all kinds seems to have slowed. For me, I know its because I'm not riding (*sobs*), but I enjoy the commenting, posting and reading even through the lulls. come back to me everyone! Where are you? Are you alive?! TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PONES.

To my best recollection I do not remember a winter this spastic or frigid. In one day this month the temp fluctuated 40*. FORTY. I also do not remember, in my brief existence, a base temperature of less than -8. Seen windchills of like -20 but not real temps. Thursday is going to be unbearable. They say it's a record low high. If that makes sense. And yay MORE snow on the weekend just in time for the monday morning commute (which in case youre wondering, is AWFUL in this type of condensation).

like....wut are dis

 If you don't hear from me by Saturday assume death. 

The horses seem fine though, despite my constant worrying that I will come out to find horsesicles. They've had all the hay they can eat and they seem quite warm in their double layered blankies. My sweet marshmallows! 

nomnomnom

Horse care is not easy in the crazy cold, and deep down it's truly miserable, but really I don't mind it. Chopping frozen ice, lugging water, tossing hay, shoveling frozen shit, changing blankets and frozen fingers is as normal to me as brushing my teeth. But it goes without saying frozen barn doors are a PiTA.

What about you guys? How are y'all faring (to those in TX, GA & FL I DONT CARE GO AWAY

TOABH: Blog Hop

I'm always late to the party with these blog hops, but they're so fun I can't not participate!

The Owls Approve topic of the day:

Idiosyncrasies.
       What personality quirks does your pony have? What makes them special?

This is a fun one for me because I am confident that I have one of the quirkiest OTTBs on the planet. Yankee is a giant ham and everyone falls in love instantly. I'm not just saying that because he's mine...he really is a gem & a ladykiller.

Besides being super sexy, Yankee has 2 things that make him stand out from the crowd.

For one, his tongue is always out. Especially if there is a camera around. He can do it on command, he can waggle it, he does it for fun and he does it when he's begging for treats.

"Treats go here"

Absolute fav of all time

"Oh are you taking a photo?"

I have about 200 hundred pics of The Pants and his ADORABLE tongue. Its seriously the cutest & whenever he sees a camera he poses for you. He has ALWAYS done this, but over the years he learned that humans love it and he does it for attention now more than anything else.

Secondly, this horse naps. Hard. Everyday.

Yankee never misses a nap. Usually he naps from 11-1 or around there, but I'm not exaggerating. This horse NAPS. Most horses might lay down every once in a while, but not Yankee. He has a schedule and he sticks to it. On so many occasions I've caught him sleeping, so I also have several hundred pics of him napping.

I wish I had time to upload more, because they are all adorable. My favorite is one from when he was on stall rest with an abscess and he's all wrapped and nomming on alfalfa while laying down. So cute.

The girls in Kansas have sent me SO many snaps of him sleeping. It melts my heart to know that he still does it like clockwork. Sleepy baby.

Bacardi is interesting because his "quirks" could be seen as vices but they definitely make him stand out. I'm hoping once he grows and our bond becomes stronger his personality will show more, but right now he's pretty closed up emotionally.

His quirks are more behaviors than adorable and cute, and focus hard on food. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that I got him underweight or what but he is seriously food aggressive towards other horses. Luckily, I'm the bringer of food so he doesn't harass me, but if he thinks another horse is even looking at him he flips out.

Generally, I try to feed him first so he's distracted. All the horses are separated from each other around feeding time but he will try to break the door down to murder horses near him. I know this is actually a common thing among horses, but he level of anger is astonishing & unique. Even when I'm mixing grain he will rear and flip his head around and lunge/try to climb the door if another horse is around. To mitigate I pre-mix grain so all I have to do is dump his first, then dump Lilly's.

Secondly, WHILE he's eating he paws the air. I know several horses who do this but again, his degree of weirdness with this habit is what sets him apart. He starts by pawing in front and will progress throughout the meal to holding his leg up and jerking it backwards. B usually will do it the entire meal too. Its the strangest thing.

Lilly is so chill that she basically doesn't have a personality. I'm not sure if I find that cute or disconcerting. I think maybe she's been there done that so long that she's so over everything & everyone and their shit.

She always lets you know with her RBF. Perhaps thats her quirk....she's just so over all the peasants around her.

She also knows her job. Quite well. And if you try to tell her otherwise she's like

On the trail, shes like a well trained freight train. She always has a mission and she sticks to it. I think I've actually seen her give me an eye roll or a mental finger flip off. It grows on you.

Rather odd bunch of horsebeasts I have here.