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Fields
We've borrowed a field (the one above The Horse Next Door's, for those who've visited) from the people at the top of the hill. We're going to put the boys in it for a few months over the summer: our field gets to recover and grow tasty grass to last them through the winter, and they get their field mown down a bit, hopefully with added knocking over of hummocks and anthills. (This is astonishingly nice of them, and so different to certain other neighbours we could mention. We've made them promise to tell us if the water bill is significant, as it's on a different meter to the house. And we did get a new gate put in.)
Yesterday was the first day that they were up there. They spent the first half hour or so running up and down along the fence line, as Bugs and The Horse Next Door tried to figure out a way to get to each other and have a spat. (We had anticipated this, based on how they behave if we lead Bugs past his field, and, as it's barbed wire, ran electric tape all the way around a couple of feet in from the fence line to stop them from being able to get up to enough rough housing to catch themselves on the wire.) After that, they settled down to being annoyed that they couldn't stuff themselves silly: the grass is pretty long, so we'd put their grazing muzzles on.
This morning, there was a distinct scarcity of poo in their stables, so they obviously didn't get enough to eat through their muzzles, so on the way back from Jo's walk I took them off to let them eat at will. I suspect that that's going to turn out to be too much time without them, but I am somewhat influenced by the thought of having to climb the hill an extra time to take them off in the late afternoon.... We'll keep an eye on their weights, and I've moved GB's next blood test forward to next week so that I can keep an eye on his sugar levels.
The field is closer to the woods, so there are more horse flies, but I don't think it's going to be too much of a problem (although one of the buggers got me while I was putting Gb's headcollar on this evening). I'm slightly concerned about the water situation: the owners patched up the leaky trough so that it could be turned back on, but this evening GB started towards his dinner but then changed his mind and had a long drink first instead. I'm slightly worried that Bugs isn't letting him at the trough (there are two in our field), but if that is the case then I'm afraid that they'll have to work it out, because they'll only be able to get to one of our troughs for most of the winter.
Yesterday was the first day that they were up there. They spent the first half hour or so running up and down along the fence line, as Bugs and The Horse Next Door tried to figure out a way to get to each other and have a spat. (We had anticipated this, based on how they behave if we lead Bugs past his field, and, as it's barbed wire, ran electric tape all the way around a couple of feet in from the fence line to stop them from being able to get up to enough rough housing to catch themselves on the wire.) After that, they settled down to being annoyed that they couldn't stuff themselves silly: the grass is pretty long, so we'd put their grazing muzzles on.
This morning, there was a distinct scarcity of poo in their stables, so they obviously didn't get enough to eat through their muzzles, so on the way back from Jo's walk I took them off to let them eat at will. I suspect that that's going to turn out to be too much time without them, but I am somewhat influenced by the thought of having to climb the hill an extra time to take them off in the late afternoon.... We'll keep an eye on their weights, and I've moved GB's next blood test forward to next week so that I can keep an eye on his sugar levels.
The field is closer to the woods, so there are more horse flies, but I don't think it's going to be too much of a problem (although one of the buggers got me while I was putting Gb's headcollar on this evening). I'm slightly concerned about the water situation: the owners patched up the leaky trough so that it could be turned back on, but this evening GB started towards his dinner but then changed his mind and had a long drink first instead. I'm slightly worried that Bugs isn't letting him at the trough (there are two in our field), but if that is the case then I'm afraid that they'll have to work it out, because they'll only be able to get to one of our troughs for most of the winter.