Trail Area

 Dove, now 4 1/2 months old

I love the fall. Usually crisp, cool days. Our fall has been beautiful, and at times, even a little warm. I’ll take these days, of sun and warmth, yet cool enough at the end of the day to enjoy that cup of coffee by the back door. Lounging on the lawn chairs, watching the horses in their pen, birds lightly chirping, maybe a soft breeze. Very relaxing!

Fawn, now 4 months old

I’ve moved the horses around to different lots. The 2 mares and 2 foals are in the lot beside the pigs. They sure loved that! The foals are so inquisitive. The other horses went to the large lot, 6 of mine and 4 boarders. Duke is by himself.
 

This week, I put one of the boarder horses into the lot with the mares and foals.

I knew he would leave the babies alone, and I was hoping the mares would leave him alone. This is an older gelding, a little bit of a hard keeper, and he needs the extra grain. The large lot of horses always push him away from his grain, since he eats slower than molasses in January (and I tried pouring molasses in January, outside, and it is very slow!)

Now, I can feed the mares and foals and the older gelding twice a day, giving the gelding twice what he normally would eat, and giving the mares and foals their normal amount. I can already see the difference in the gelding in just 1 week. At weaning time, he will stay with the foals, along with one other older mare, and they will get the extra nutrition during the winter months that they need to either grow, as in the case of the foals, or to gain weight and maintain, the 2 older horses.

I’ve gotten off track. Well, kind of. Since the mares and babies are in this lot, they have access to my small trail area. A brushy area earlier this spring, but we took the time to cut out all the down brush. Then the larger lot were in this area, off an on for about a months. They cleaned up the area, downing some brush, and eating whatever grass was in there.

Now, the mares and foals get the use of the area. The area will teach the babies about learning to walk and trot over logs and move through brush.

At times, they can see each other through the wider areas and at other times, they are hidden from view. They are learning to not go crazy because they can’t see each other, but they can hear each other.

They sure are getting used to moving around trees and through brush.

And they are learning how to get over logs and brush, while maintaining cadence and gracefulness. And they are learning to not be scared of the different noises.