The Farrier Is NOT Your Friend

When the farrier comes, run. 

Whether your feet are getting trimmed, hammered, or burned, the first thing you should do is run when you know that the farrier is there for you. 

If you are in the pasture, be prepared for two things: your owner coming to bring you to the farrier or the farrier himself coming to catch you.

Now, when your owner comes to catch you for this dirty job and does not bring food, we recommend performing the pasture chase (as explained in an earlier blog post). If there is a bucket of feed swinging from your owner’s hand, stop what you are doing and go eat the feed--even if it means having your hooves messed with. 

If the farrier comes to catch you, we very highly recommend performing the pasture chase, whether feed is in the picture or not. 

Eventually, humans usually do win and will capture you. When this happens, you have two choices: standing perfectly still while the farrier does his work (meaning that it will be over quickly) or not standing still even for a second (meaning that it will take twice, if not three times as long, but the farrier will wish he was never born). 

If you choose to stand like an angel and let the farrier mess with your hooves, our only piece of advice is, well, to stand there perfectly still. 

Caddy demonstrates how to stand like an angel to get it over with quickly.

If you choose to hop all over the place making it extremely difficult and stressful for the farrier, we have one good piece of advice: You don’t need all four legs to move. If the farrier is holding one of them, by all means hop around on the other three! 

That's our two bits!

Water Wars

We horses need water to live. Obviously. There are three kinds of water and three things we can drink water out of. Today we will be going over the pros and cons of each.

Kinds of water: The first kind of water is the water that comes directly from creeks, rivers, etc. This water is preferred by most horses but does have a serious draw back. Sometimes the water can get polluted or tainted by something that will give us a nasty stomach-ache.

The second kind of water is the more chemically tasting water. Although we are not sure where this water comes from, we know that it is clean and refreshing. The odd taste is the only draw back to this water. If you do not like the taste of your water, refuse to drink for a while. When your human finds out, they will most likely put delicious flavors in the water.

The third and final kind of water is the kind that humans call “well” water. This water is very refreshing and tastes like just plain water. This water, like the more chemically tasting water, is usually clean and dirt free.

Kinds of things to drink water out of: The first thing you can drink out of is the creek, river, etc. itself. While the water is always full and fresh, sometimes it can be difficult to get to. Often small creeks are lower than the ground you are on, making you climb down a small drop to get to them.

The second kind of thing you can drink water out of is a bucket. Buckets come in all shapes and sizes. It could be a tub out in your pasture or a smaller bucket in your stall. Buckets and tubs have a few downfalls. One, they are not constantly full. They run out eventually and you are left with nothing until your human fills it back up. Two, they can get very, very dirty if not regularly cleaned. Dirt, slime, or poop can get stuck to the sides, making the water inside taste nasty.

Caddy takes a sip of water from a small bucket.

The third thing you can drink water out of is an automatic water fountain. While these all operate differently, the basic gist of the water fountain is this: They fill up with clean water when you put your mouth near or on them. Then when you are done, the water you didn’t drink is whisked away elsewhere so it doesn't become dirty or nasty. Although automatic water fountains are not very common, these water holders are very highly rated with only two small drawbacks. Sometimes horses find it challenging to operate these fountains, and some horses are even afraid of them.

Razzle drinks from an automatic water fountain.

Caddy's favorite combo is well water from a fountain, while Razzle prefers creek water from the creek. What's your favorite water/container combo?

That’s our two bits!