I want to take you to a hay bar

I shall resist all puns, but oh – what a big fat fuss! We know Fraser is quite change averse, and we knew the new hay bar was always going to be a challenge, but what a challenge it was.

Brought Fraser is from the field as usual; walking across the yard he spied the monstrosity in his stable (fair enough, it is bright purple…) and stopped to have a snort. Eventually plucked up enough courage to approach his door and be tied up. When ready to go in, opened his door and led him in when “WTF IS THAT IN THE CORNER OF MY STABLE?!” *SNORT SNORT BACK AWAY* Eventually Nina pulled small handfuls of hay out of the top, to show the big gallah what was in there, and he stood eating at arm’s length. I had no idea a horse could do such a good impression of a giraffe! He is so special…

Fraser and Mac really do seem to have established a bond. Fraser really trusts Mac, and it is so funny when we are both standing outside the stable. Fraser glares at me then smiles at Mac. I might start spitting in his dinner…

Spig's eye view, or should that be ears..?

Click photos to enlarge.




The speck in the sky in the middle photo is a Chinook helicopter. It appeared to spot the hi-viz and circle round the horses :)

If at first you don't succeed...

The first time Nina rode Fraser out alone, he whinnied the entire time and was very tense. That would be around six months ago. This morning, as Mac is tied up with the bathroom refurbishment (plumber coming tomorrow so no slacking!), it was Nina ride the fuzzy one or nothing at all. She decided to see how he was going up the road again, and he was much better. He whinnied a bit, but she actually got him over the bridge. He started to get a bit silly just before it, so she rode him over and waited until he had calmed down before heading back. He was fine with that, but got in a total lather (literally!) when Nina rode Toffee out. Not sure Corbett is actually achieving anything in the babysitting stakes.

Toffee is a class act

I went for a walk this afternoon with my neighbour (and her toddler, baby in pushchair and both our dogs). As we were on the way back Nina headed out up the track on Toffee, and from where we were we could see them at a standstill. As we have a water leak, and there was a large hole in the track with a man in it and two vans parked alongside (on the track, not in the hole), we assumed that this was the issue. No. She walked past the man in the hole, the man on the track and the two vans with no hesitation. The problem? A child's toy puschair left at the side of the track near our neighbour's house. She really is a very special pony :)

Harmony!

Enjoying a mild winter morning and some company. Who would have thought...

Can't remember last update

Half horse half human:



All these vet visits are blurring into one now, but he came again yesterday. Eye is progressing well but still oozing, so more Baytril. Toffee is sound on two Danilons a day, so we are cutting down to one per day and he will assess her again a week on Friday. The weather has been so mild that Fraser was out last night without a rug! Corbett has grown an enormous amount of lagging already, and Toffee has been clipped so had a lightweight rug on. We are very much enjoying the dry weather, which is in total contrast to last year's underwater autumn.

Welcome back Mr Vet!

The vet came again on Monday, and prescribed Baytril for Toff's eye, which is swollen underneath. He picked the scab off the wound on the outer eyelid, and the next day a large amount of pus came out. Nina also asked him to look at her back legs, as she has trouble picking up her nearside hind (can't seem to put weight on the offside one). He trotted her up, did a flexion test on the dodgy leg, and said she was 1-2/10 lame before flexion, 2-3/10 after. He gave her Danilon for her eye, and said he would look at her legs again when he came back on Friday.

Today is Friday, so the vet came again. He sedated Toffee so he could flush her eye out, so trotting up was out of the question. He will do that on Wednesday, when he comes back to see her eye. Again. He flushed it out with several syringes of diluted Hibiscrub, and she is currently swaying and snoring as the sedation wears off.

We also asked him to look at Fraser. Fraser was bought as a sofa/hack, but if Toffee is going to be on long-term sick leave we thought it was worth finding out what he was capable of. The answer is: what he was bought for; hacking and a little bit of jumping. Nina feels he is a bit on the large side for her anyway (although he is certainly no more than 16.3hh, possibly a shade under)but he feels quite gangly to ride!

Poorly Toff!

Toffee has been fine with having eye drops put in her eye three times a day, so it was a shock this morning to find her eye was much more swollen and she wouldn't let anyone near it. Vet coming out again later.

Update: Vet has been; cornea has healed perfectly but she now has a nasty infection in her conjunctiva. Vet took a swab, gave her a massive antiobiotic injection and has left us with two bottles of Baytril. *gulp* Coming back on Monday. Toffee confined to barracks bar two hours a day. Double gulp!

Random photos

This is how they quite often stand now, having a siesta :)

Toffee heart emergency vet

Of course it was a bad move planning a trip to the Chinese buffet yesterday evening... Nina brought Toffee in from the field and noticed her right eye was bleeding quite significantly, as well as pouring with tears. Her knee was bright red where she had obviously rubbed her eye on it, and she was waving her head around. Nina rang the emergency vet (hurrah!), who agreed to come out. Having seen the damage she had done to herself (how remains a total mystery), he said it was just as well Nina had insisted he came out, as if it had been left until this morning it would have been a lot more serious. As it is, we are waiting for the vet to come again this morning, and Toffee may have to be admitted to have a contact lens fitted to allow the eyball to heal underneath it. As well as a fairly deep laceration to the lower lid, she has scratched the cornea in two places and cut her conjunctiva. Toffee responds amazingly well to being twitched, so the vet was able to treat her eye and inject her with no other form of sedation. She seems fine in herself, but her eye looks like nothing on earth...

Update: Monday morning; same vet (senior partner) came out, said eye is healing better than he had anticipated. Toffee has to have two sachets of anti-inflammatory every morning (not Bute, something else) and eye drops three times a day. He is coming back in 48 hours to check again. Vet thinks the cat may be the culprit...

Eventful weekend

Saturday was a glorious day, so Nina and Mac took the horses for another quite long hack. Sunday was a shorter hack, as we were expecting a visit from one of Fraser's former owners, Alison. She and her husband Roger arrived and made a fuss of Fraser, saying he looked well and was lucky to have ended up with us. Which was nice, as I know Alison was particularly fond of him. She brought some photos, videos and background info, which was interesting. One of the photos shows Fraser holding a rope in his mouth, so some things never change!

A Horse in a Million!

Quote from Nina yesterday: “Fraser is worth his weight in platinum”.

Yesterday, Mac and Nina took the horses for a long hack – the longest Mac and Fraser have ever been on together. Fraser proved himself to be a bit of a star, because the first obstacle they came across was a large, very loud field irrigator, which they had to walk round three sides of to get past. Fraser snorted and glared, but Mac encouraged him past it and Toffee reluctantly followed. There is no way Nina would have got Toffee past it without Fraser’s lead! It is the noise as much as anything. Next obstacle was a bridge over a ditch with a twelve inch drop down on to it, with a hedge opposite with a small hole in it. Once again, more snorting but Fraser trusted Mac enough to go ahead. Fraser did spook at something at one point, leaping in the air so Mac slipped sideways and lost a stirrup, but Fraser never takes advantage, and stood stock still so Mac could sort himself out. All in all, a total star! Nina also said that Mac is really riding Fraser now. They do seem to be forming a pretty good partnership, and I think Mac is rather fond of the big lump…

Corbett had his first tetanus vaccination on Friday, and Clare the vet said to hold him still as in her experience, Shetlands usually go up when you put the needle in. And guess what? He went up! Unimpressed pony. She confirmed that he is totally wrongly built to ever do ridden work, as are most miniatures. She also confirmed that he is a tad on the portly side, and has to wear his grazing muzzle, and could do with more exercise. So, twice this weekend Mac and I have taken him for a drag – sorry, walk – which he clearly dislikes intensely. Well yes, Corbett, we would all prefer to be curled up on the sofa with a nice mug of tea and an episode of Come Dine With Me, but life isn’t like that.

Toffee had her fur clipped yesterday, and looks very smart. I hate it though because then she has to be rugged, which she takes almost as dim a view of as Corbett does of being walked! And of course it means it will now rain. Still, at least we got the wood preservative on the field shelter (and all over most of me, but that is inevitable).

More from the oversized chair or Corbett

Outrageous!!! I cannot express my disgust in strong enough terms. Since I arrived at my new home, from time to time the other herd members are taken out of the field and they are absent for a while. They either leave on foot, or in a shed on round things pulled by another shed on round things. Obviously, when this occurs, it is my job to stay at home and guard the field. This I do by eating as much of it as I can.

However, last night I was forced to leave the premises! I was not amused. The regular biped and the stout biped fitted a new thing to my head, which was supposed to give them a bit of control when leading me - a device called a halter. It was very smart and I quite liked it. What I didn't like was walking. Although it was quite good fun to persist in walking behind the stout biped, rather than where she wanted, which was at her side. This paid off big time when the large bouncy creature at the house on the way made a loud noise, a sort of 'woof', and I was able to use this as an excuse to ram the SB as hard as I could and try and send her into the ditch. Sadly she recovered her composure with nothing more than a few loud words, and the hell of exercise continued. I did quite enjoy watching the fast sheds on the long black flat bit, which we could watch from quite high up. I had never seen such a sight before! Eventually the other two herd members and the bipeds went ahead of us (well, they just stopped stopping so we could catch up), and we turned round and went home. How utterly pointless was that?! Sheesh...

The regular biped made this picture; I think she looks very funny, as does the BHM!

While Nina was on holiday...

...Corbett made a record of events, known as Corbett's commentary.

Corbett’s Commentary

Being quite young and small, not to mention struggling with the complexities of a keyboard, this might not be in a strictly logical order. I shall start with the excitement of this morning. (Sunday).

The largest herd member, the one the bipeds know as Fraser, has been very irritable lately. He has been kicking at his tummy, biting himself and demanding endless scratches under his back leg. Last night, when the stout biped came to lead him in, he was dancing and kicking out – she looked quite worried. The forgetful biped (he forgot my muzzle this morning, but the stout biped reminded him – curses!) put some nice smelly stuff on the bossy herd member’s feet, but declined to do Fraser’s.

Talking of the bossy one, she was in a right grouchy mood when the bipeds came to get us in last night (Saturday). Chased the largest one right back into the top field, with strict order for him to stay there! Anyway, I digress. I really should have an oversized armchair for this, shouldn’t I?

Back to this morning. Fraser was still kicking, demanding scratches etc. Yesterday evening the stout biped had boiled up a kettle (I am not exactly sure what this means, but I heard her talking about it) and washed under the LHM’s back legs. This morning, she boiled up another one (apparently) and came out of the shed with an extra layer of skin on her hand. This hand she dipped into the bucket of warm water, then shoved it into the LHM’s willy bag. Eeek! I nearly passed out. However, he was in ecstasy, and nearly fell over on top of her, being so keen to lift a leg off the ground and aid the entire process. The forgetful biped (FB) sort of propped the LHM up, and this went on for a while, until quite a lot of black muck had been removed from the LHM’s nether regions. I swear he positively skipped into his stable! He looked so relaxed afterwards, maybe I should give it a go some time.

Meanwhile, the bossy herd member (BHM) has come into season again, which might explain her grumpiness. She is fine with the FB though, although she grumbles at the SB a bit. Still, these bipeds seem to be doing pretty much the same job as the regular biped, in that we all seem to be fed, watered and groomed – even if they do take ten times as long to do it! I am shamelessly exploiting my cuteness, and can pretty well do as I wish it seems. Mwah ha ha!


Monday:

It was very windy last night, so the larger herd members had their strange coloured skins on. I am not sure they needed them, as it wasn’t actually that cold, but they were a lot less grumpy this morning, so maybe they are just not as tough as I am. I am not sure who, what or where ‘fuck’ is, but that is what they were as grouchy as last night, according to the forgetful biped. Mind you, both the bipeds were busy forgetting this morning, and the fly spray was only remembered at the last minute! Tee hee. Well, it’s not my job to help them, is it?

Friday:

Well, that week went quickly! I was having a quiet lie-down in the sun at lunchtime, just in front of my shed, when the front of the house opened a bit and one of the bipeds called the other one over to say how cute I looked, lying down in the sun. Which woke me up. Great! As usual, the BHM was standing in my shed watching over me, with the LHM standing to one side – he knows his place! A beautiful sunny day. This week has not gone too badly at all. The bipeds have managed to get all the chores done, and meals, grooming and water have been provided, so I cannot complain. The two other herd members have enjoyed their wee break from work, and evidently made some sort of pact to eat as much of that strange preserved grass as they could. Yesterday evening the FB filled some holey bags with the stuff, and left two of them outside the barn. The LHM saw them from inside his stable, and grew a lot taller and started snorting at them! What an utter buffoon. The FB moved them to the yard, so the LHM retreated to the back of his stable. There is no hope… The bipeds both think my shed needs some ‘preservative’ on it before the winter, and apparently the SB and the absent one are going to deal with that. No doubt it will be fun licking it off as fast as they are painting it on!

Saturday:

Foot man came today – and said I was way too fat, had put on loads of weight and am heading towards laminitis. The bipeds expressed a solution of leaving my muzzle on ALL THE TIME, which is appalling! Still, it might be better than being very poorly. The foot man didn’t trim my feet, because they don't need doing. *smug* Oh we did have a laugh last night – well, early this morning. The moving shed thing came down the gravely thing when it was dark, and we were all asleep, and its bright eyes made the field seem like it was morning. The FB must have indeed thought it was, because he came out with a barrow and some dried grass! The BHM sorted out who was to have which pile, and then the bipeds turned the night back on. All very strange…

We (well, the bipeds) have been extremely lucky with the weather over the last few days, and have not had to contend with mud, rain, rugs etc etc. It was very windy to start with, but generally, has been a very good week for looking after us herd members.

Fraser's highly successful full brother

He is obviously a lot heavier than Fraser, but has similar ears! :D (Click on picture to view full size).

Some photos taken today

Yesterday afternoon Mac, Nina and Sophie went for a hack and had quite a long canter across the stubble! Fraser has a long stride and covers the ground quite fast; Mac found it quite exhilerating. We think Fraser enjoyed himself :)

Citin!

Just got off the phone to Fraser's breeder. Apparently, he is a full brother to Masterful, owned by Jethro, who is a very successful horse. http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/competitionnews/387/264217.html
Fraser was shown as a foal, and was always placed or won. His dam is grey and his sire bay. The dam has quite a lot of warmblood and the sire is a full TB. Fraser is more thoroughbred like than his brother, who is grey. Even as a youngster he didn't have a very strong movement and was a bit short behind. I am promised some photos (can't wait!) and really hope to hear from any of his other owners.

Schooling and hack

No yee-haaing despite the stubble, as Nina has a dodgy hat (result of a crashing fall into a jump stand on Sunday) and Fraser is not particularly fit. And he is a tad lazy. And we are still awaiting the farmer's permission. Didn't stop the wretched dog running off again though. *bang*

Is it a large turd? No, it's...

...Corbett, lying down asleep! I came home one morning and could only see two of the herd of three - Fraser standing up, and Toffee lying down. There was a small dark hump near the hedge, in the shade, which I thought was a large poo until its little head popped up! Sadly, no photo, but it was a very sweet sight - the two of them lying down together.

Do you think we should put this on Fraser's stable door...?


I love this photo, because it shows how much more confident I have become about handling such a huge beast, it shows how easy he is to handle and it shows how colour co-ordinated it is essential to be. Every horse's overreach boots should match their owner's clothing.

In the words of Freddie Mercury...

...It Finally Happened! :D

Hack yesterday evening

Corbett news

Corbett has discovered that if he scratches his bum on the water tub, he can wash his tail and fill the tub with hair at the same time! Clever boy. On Sunday morning and last night Mac and I were putting rubber mats in the field shelter, helped by Corbett. I don’t know how we could have managed without him. At this rate this will soon be his only job, as he no longer seems to stop Fraser getting very loud and active when Toffee goes out and leaves him behind. *sigh* He is very bold though, and gave one of the old stable mats a good exploring.

Corbett was getting pretty portly, and we worried that despite being young, he would get fat and be prone to laminitis, the grass here being very rich at the moment. Nina ordered a Dinky muzzle for him (same as Toffee has), and he accepted it straight away. No problems at all!

Fraser news

Time for an update before Ben nags me again :p Well, Saturday was a big day for Fraser, and Sunday was a big day for Mac. Sophie rode Fraser out on a hack on Saturday with Nina and Toffee, and he was as good as gold. You would never think he hadn’t been out since 19th June! When they got back, Mac walked him round for a bit to get the feel of him again. On Sunday Mac finally hacked again, first time in over two month as he was injured previously to Fraser. What a pair… Anyway, the new saddle made a huge difference, and Mac likes the seat saver. It was a warm but dull day, even though the photos make it look like autumn!