Dolly AKA Pig Pen

When we got Dolly we decided that we would wait and see what name suited her before we made a final decision. Dolly was definitely in the running, and sure enough, that first day she was such a perfect little doll!  

Shiny coat, dainty little feet, that cute little head.  She was our perfect little Dolly horse and I had visions of keeping her perfectly groomed, just like Sadie.  They would both have that bright white tail, white stockings...you get the idea.

Little did I know, we should have named her Pig Pen!! She's an absolute mess and there is no keeping this one clean.  I know all horses like to roll and are hard to keep clean, but Pig Pen, er, Dolly, takes it to a whole other level!  

We decided this weekend we would attempt her first bath.  

Getting her ready for her first bath!

It was a big day, her first time in cross ties, her first purple shampoo treatment to finally get that tail white.  We couldn't wait to see our Dolly girl all cleaned up!

This was clearly her first time in cross ties, but a squirming 350 pound mini horse is still much easier to manage and clean than an 1100 pound full-size horse! Besides she looked GREAT so it was well worth it.

Since I know how fond this one is of rolling I decided to walk her around until she dried. 

We made it about 3 steps from the wash bay and as I leaned down to pick up that magical purple shampoo, Dolly threw herself on the ground right there in the barn aisle and, you guessed it, rolled!

After the first roll I accepted there was no going back.  Here's how the next 20 minutes went...

Before bath picture

After bath picture

Ok, Dolly, you win!  We'll save the purple shampoo for Sadie :)

Schumi vs The Dog Bed

Every once in a while Schumi decides he should sleep in a dog bed.   It's actually Mauzzy's, but on these nights, like tonight, Schumi will rush in and beat her to it at bedtime.  

Mauzzy LOVES her dog bed, but she never gets upset when Schumi steals it because she knows it always ends the same way...


Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3:

Dog bed: 1 Schumi: 0

Schumi ended up where he ends up every night, stretched out taking up as much room as possible on my bed!  

Our Little Construction Workers

We got Oscar and Chloe when they were just a few weeks old, we wanted our bunnies to be trusting and friendly so we have always handled them a ton and exposed them to different environments.  As a result they are extremely comfortable around people, dogs, chickens (even though the hens peck them!), horses, you name it!  

We love that our bunnies aren't afraid of anything and are so bonded to us, but that confidence can also be a bit scary since rabbits are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain!  

Dolly loves Chloe and Oscar

We've always let them run and play in controlled areas, and they absolutely love it, but as they've gotten older and faster it's a bit harder to keep them from dashing off into hiding places that rabbits are so drawn to!   Oscar disappeared under a hay pile for about 20 minutes one day and I thought he was a goner!  After moving every single bail of hay I finally found him stretched out taking a little nap under the very back pallet the hay was sitting on.  From that day forward I decided Oscar and Chloe's freedom would have to be a bit limited.

Our solution?  Bunny harnesses!

And now you understand the title of the post :)

Walking on a leash is definitely not a natural thing for rabbits.  Rabbits run in fast bursts and then stop, the bursts are also rarely in a straight line! We took some time today to get them used to the harnesses and give them a little play time.

It was a tangled mess, but the leash made it much easier to get Chloe out of her hiding place

There he goes!

Overall it was a success, poor Chloe did get her leg tangled in the leash and I think it scared me worse than it scared her.  If you've never heard a bunny cry and yipe, it's a HORRIBLE noise!  I had no idea these quiet little critters could make that much noise.  

Chloe decided maybe she should just stick close to me after the evil leash got her :)

Oscar also needed a rest after all of the excitement

It doesn't take much to wear them out so we called it a day!  

Keeping these guys controlled on a harness is definitely going to take some practice and lots of time easing them into life on a leash, but for now we are happy that we can keep track of them easier and keep them safe without having to take away their favorite pastime.

Most of us are trying to lose weight, Penny needed to gain weight!

Keeping your horse at a healthy weight can be challenging, each horse is different and many factors contribute to a horse losing or gaining weight.  It can be health related, weather, behavioral (like cribbing), change in environment...the list goes on.

We have spent the last 5 months trying to get our senior mare, Penny, back up to a healthy weight.  We still haven't been able to pinpoint what caused the sudden drop in weight, it started to happen shortly after we got her so it could have been the adjustment to the new environment (especially for a senior horse), we initially expected it was due to her stall mate, Rowdy, eating all of her food, but we separated them while eating and that still did not result in any weight gain.  

The biggest mystery was the fact that she and Rowdy were on virtually the same diet of feed in the morning along with a flake of hay, they would graze all day with more feed and hay at night.  Penny just kept getting skinnier and Rowdy just kept getting fatter!  This was our first lesson learned, each horse has different dietary needs.

We immediately began to do our homework, our first change was increasing her senior feed and getting her teeth floated.   The vet thought we were taking all the right steps and recommended we wait a bit before testing for possible health issues.

Penny getting her teeth floated

Our second lesson learned was "eyeballing" our feed, it's very easy to underestimate how much your horse needs to eat and we were way underestimating the amount of feed we were giving her.   We attended a Purina feed clinic which was extremely helpful!  Although you may spend a bit more, we are big believers in Purina feed for special needs horses.   We also purchased a feed scale the very next day!

Even with the increased senior feed we were extremely discouraged that we still weren't seeing any major change in weight.  We talked to our farrier who recommended we try Beet Pulp.  Penny is also a challenge to feed because she colics so easily, we had read that Beet Pulp was easy for horses to digest so we gave it a try. Unfortunately, she had signs of colic shortly after eating it.

Poor Penny, at her skinniest her flanks were completely sunk in and you could see every rib.  She had also put herself in quite the predicament this day! :)

We continued a slow increase of her feed and each day would stare at her for any sign of weight gain.  We had increased her senior feed to 5 pounds per day, she was receiving approximately 5 pounds of Timothy pellets and was still grazing all day.   We still just weren't seeing the results.

We had another vet out to float Sadie's teeth and she finally gave us a suggestion that would lead to the perfect combination.   She recommended we try Purina's high-fat feed, Amplify.  We started her out slow and eventually got her up to 2lbs of Amplify per day.  

About 1 week after increasing her Amplify we also increased her Timothy pellets.

SUCCESS!!   We immediately started to see the weight gain and the change in her behavior.  You can tell she feels better and has more energy.  

We are so thrilled that Penny is finally putting on weight and looking healthy.  She truly looks like a different horse, we credit this both to the change in her diet and the Missing Link supplement that has transformed her coat.  

Picture taken tonight!

Her current diet consists of the following:

5 pounds of Purina Equine Senior 

2 pounds Amplify

Approximately 10 pounds of Timothy pellets

Plus she still grazes all day

We had no idea it would take this much feed to gain her weight back, but we are so relieved to have found the right combination.   At $50+ per bag, we are hoping we can slowly reduce the Amplify and maintain her weight going forward with Senior Feed and Timothy.

Although most girls would be thrilled to lose weight as easily as Penny does, we intend to keep this girl fat and sassy from now on!

Our Circus Mini

It's been a stressful couple of weeks dealing with construction, contractors, work, etc.  Thank goodness for the barn and the animals, it's the best place to get away and take your mind off of things.

After an especially busy Monday, my Mom and I both needed a break so I suggested we go take a horsey break and teach Dolly a new trick.  You can't be around this little girl and not be smiling!

Like Sadie, Dolly is extremely willing to learn.  She is so treat motivated (like most horses!) that if you can get her to understand what you're asking, and she knows the end result is a treat, she'll do it!

We decided we wanted to teach her how to step up on something.  Even though she's a mini, it still had to be something fairly substantial.  We decided our large mounting block may do the trick.  

We started out with one of us standing behind the mounting block with a treat (of course!) while the other person tried to lead her up to the first step.  She didn't totally grasp it at first, she just kept going around it and then begging for the treat. She has the begging trick down!

She loves to beg!

I finally decided to lift her foot onto the first step, so she could see that she could stand up on it.  That did the trick!   With  just a bit more coaxing she was being led right up the steps.  

She got a little aggressive on this one stepping all the way up!

It only took a few times leading her up before she was able to do it all on her own! We then had to teach her how to safely back down the block.  We've been working on backing up, so she did this with no problem at all!

We had to take the mounting block out of her stall when we were done because she was climbing on it without any prompting.  Such a cutie, we are proud of our little "circus mini".  

Our break did the "trick" for us too, we had so much fun and it totally took our minds off of any lingering Monday stress :)