Our Gang 2017

Well injections safely over for another year for 3 of them, took them down to the yard, feet dried out and sprayed, Charlie gave the new Vet a run for her money as we expected but the Shetlands were little angels about the whole thing, new vet was okay, she is a horse owner and rider herself so talks the language of us normal owners not just vet speak - looks like she will be our account Vet now the other has left , we will see her again in January for Gems booster.
None of them bothered by the shooting or wind , Gems second experience of the beaters next to her field and this type no dramatics at all. All the snow/ice has melted so the fields are just a soggy mess now.
 
We now have rock hard fields and a big freeze in place - not good for little hooves. have a small delivery of Veteran Haylage in at the weekend, so Tess & Gem have had haylage in the field for a couple of days - first day Gem dashed between piles pushing Tess off but more settled yesterday - its Tess that needs it to keep weight on and she really can't be arsed to argue with Gem over food, think Gem has realised that she wasn't really getting any by running back and forth so not in her interests to keep pushing as its the same whichever she goes to.
we separate to bucket feed as Tess gets twice as much as Gem and I have now started putting her rapeseed oil in it to help with the weight, only a couple of days but she's a bit more spritely already, Gem definitely does not need oil in her feed.
We are thinking of moving Nuts in with the other girls at the weekend after farrier leaving just the boys on the bottom winter field - its got nothing in it but happy to put hay down for the boys adlib, that should give Tess a break as Gem won't know who to bother first and Nuts is canny enough to keep out of trouble, she just gets on with it she has no aspirations to be top of the pile.
 
The big freeze continues here, Gem is still on an asbo and adding to her list of destruction is 2 water buckets in the field, she has kicked the hell out of them trying to break the ice! have ordered 2 HD recycled rubber troughs for them , not due for a few days so will have to put another trug in which she will no doubt destroy within 24 hours to add that to her list. meanwhile they are coping okay with the ground conditions - farrier may say different when he comes at the weekend, both boys have a history of feet bruising following their lammi recovery.
 
Well it is day 6 of putting oil in Tess's feed and she has much more energy and is showing more interest in being top dog over Gem again, Gem over past 24 hours has become more submissive to her and has now taken to sharing the haylage with her when invited in by Tess, a good gloup of cheap supermarket rapeseed oil twice a day - I should have remembered that from previous years, its also one of the thing we cannot give to the boys - they go hyper. Keen frost again this morning and cold wind but at least its dry so far.
 
another frozen weekend, Farrier came on Saturday and following a discussion we decided not to trim the boys - the worry being the hard ground, he checked their feet , although some growth which he would normally have balanced off it would have meant compromising the sole and they are both notorious for sole bruising - he is going to come some point next week, we are off on leave anyway , the forecast is better so we would prefer to get them done and have the soles harden off for a few days on softer ground - not had this in the mix for a few years.
the fields are rock hard and no defrosting at all over the weekend, hay and haylage going out - Nuts is in with the girls now leaving the boys on their own.
 
the big freeze is still on - although the forecast is for warmer weather - not as cold during the day today so fingers crossed when I go to the field tonight I will not have to skate up and down the hill- saying that we will no doubt be back to days of Mud, as least when its frozen its clean.
 
Well we are defrosting big time, although will take a few days for the ponds to defrost and the ice rinks in the lower paddocks - even more interesting to skate around on now there is water on top - last night/this morning we have Fog, real Pea Soup weather, feeding up last night was interesting, Tess and Gem and boys waiting , fed and no problem. Nuts on the other hand we suspect is slightly deaf, blind and not all with us in the mind - she just does her own thing in her own happy carefree way, 15 minutes of shouting inbetween feeding the rest of them, walking round attempting to shine a light in 3 acres to find her resulted in nothing, I turned round to stack the buckets looked up and she came sauntering through the fog without a care in the world, she then decided she wanted to feed in the catching area away from the others - ate half her feed then stood at the gate waiting to go back into the field, a quick check over and scratch and then sauntered off back through the fog! Tess & Gem stood watching as though saying WTF was that! She is so quirky and loving.
 
Well Christmas over and everything much the same here.
Wehave had rain and plenty of it. Frost due overnight so ice arena tomorrow. Ponies okay
Gem has added time to her asbo yet another session of breaking through electric this time into the caching areach 3 acres of grass and she wants that 12 square foot
We think its boredom. Pain in the arse.
 
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