hoffywhf
- Sep 16, 2010
- 2 min read

Deer, Squirrels, Cribbing Collars, Construction Progress

I think I mentioned that the horse dentist has been out a couple of times recently. It was Ogie’s turn to be done last week and I removed his cribbing collar when it was his turn to have his teeth floated. After he was ready to go back outside I started to put his miracle collar back and on and then I thought, what the heck, I’ll try one more time to leave it off.

Ogie has lived with us for a few years and his person told us when he came that he was a very devoted cribber. Ogie definitely lived up to that description! However, as long as he had his miracle collar on he didn’t even attempt to crib. I tried a few times during his first year to take off the collar but literally the second I would take it off he would walk over to the nearest solid object (the fence, a bucket, the run-in shed – anything would do) and start cribbing. And he would stand there for hours and crib and crib and crib. As soon as you put the collar back on he would stop and not even try again. So I gave up on Ogie ever going without his collar.

Ogie grazing last week

In other news I’ve had my share of wildlife interactions the last few days. Almost every afternoon this week I’ve seen the same three deer grazing in the pasture that borders the pond. The deer are not nervous about the horses at all, and for that matter the horses aren’t nervous about the deer either. They all graze quietly.

As I was leaning against the fence while the horses were eating I watched this squirrel confidently walk up to the little trough, climb up the side and hang over the edge and help himself to a drink. Then he quietly walked away under the fence line and climbed back up his tree. I don’t know if he didn’t notice me standing a few feet away (I wasn’t moving and was being quiet just enjoying a few minutes of down time) or if he didn’t care about my presence.

Speaking of water if someone could send some rain our way that would be nice. We have not had measurable precipitation in a full month. The pastures were holding up surprisingly well but finally the green is fading and the brown is starting to show up. I’m not sure why it suddenly just decided to stop raining and I would really appreciate it if it would start again! The funny part is the new farm has had plenty of rain, in fact it poured rain there for awhile today.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend, as always Jason and I will be busy!

Updated picture of the barn with the run-in to the right; the exterior just needs to have the doors and the shutters hung.