First up I would like to introduce you all to Freya. She is a 3 month old Belgian Malinois. Yes they are the German Shepherd like dogs, favoured by the Navy Seals for their ability to climb (cat-like) up a two-storey building!! While we cannot replace Scrumpy we also could not live without a dog in our lives.
As a puppy she is hard work at the moment!!!! But very lovable. And oddly very cat like! She arches her back up while doing her morning yoga stretches. She washes her face like a cat, walks like a cat, and already jumps like a cat! I think we may have bought a cat! Although going on her legs and feet, she is a large cat (black panther springs to mind).
With this distraction, I have managed very little with the horses! Charlie has a cough, so I had the vet out, after trying Cough Mixture, Honey, Thyme and Garlic. The vet thinks its the dust and pollen so he's having a 10 day course of Liquid Ventipulmin and the Vet Special remedy (which I won't give away here) and it seems to be working. The Vet also thinks I'm mad...probably.
In case she was early, I had Charlie in the school making a video about worming. We then built a tyre pedestal and played with that. Then we went for a hand graze on the verge......Every time I sat down I was attacked by ants. So I started to crawl around on hands and knees, just following Charlie as he grazed, like you do. AND THAT'S WHEN THE VET ARRIVED!!!
Anyway at last the rain has arrived. Hopefully the grass will begin to grow again. It's certainly made it easier to push fence posts in. And so we have begun a track system for the big horses. We are also using strip grazing. So they have their water butts at the end nearest the gate with a long narrow track leading down the hill, round the corner and up the other side, to where we are moving the fence back every day so as the new grass is exposed, the longer they have to travel for water. It's a useful system for natives, making them walk further, and therefore keeping them fitter and leaner!
Yep, and first to the weather report, which is not news as its already happened!!! Its been Wild and Windy. First we had Storm Freya, now its Storm Gareth.....although if there was a gap between them I missed it! It was so strong yesterday it moved the tractor!!
Bad Hair Day for Charlie!
And now onto the more interesting subject.....Weird Worms! So on Sunday Jo found some worms in Daisys droppings. We don't have worms. We poo pick daily, and the only time we have ever had worms is when Molly first arrived. I wasn't there, so Jo saved 3 for me to look at (like you do haha). My first thought was Earth Worms......Except they weren't red. And all 3 were a bit different.
With all our years experience Jo and I have seen most horse worms....but not these! Ask Google. The nearest image comparison was Round Worms....except they are normally only found in youngsters, and at 19 Daisy is hardly young!!
In the interest of science, we collected some Earth Worms from the muck heap. I wondered if Earth Worms went white when they died. So I popped them into a jar of water....mostly to stop them wriggling away, but also to see if they drowned and therefore lost their colour. You know if you chop a worm in half you just end up with 2 worms? Well they can also live in water! They must be a form of zombie!
So we put them with the dead worms from Daisys droppings and quickly photographed them, before they started eating them. Just in case you are slightly interested, we them released them into the wild, totally un-harmed!
Still baffled we phoned the Vets, who asked us to email the pics through. Result? A bunch of equally baffled vets! The older Vets asked the younger Vets, who may still have some memory of Uni and an encyclopedic memory of Worms. No-one knew what they were, and we all came to the conclusion that they were indeed some Mutant Albino strain of Earth Worm! As it was raining, they had moved up into the droppings, but as at this point they were mutant zombie worms, they did not scuttle back down a hole the minute the droppings were moved. Why only Daisys Droppings? Answers on a postcard please! I think its because she has EMS, and therefore more insulin in her droppings, but the Vet suggested it was just because they were bigger, therefore warmer.
Luckily for you dear Reader, I have already deleted the pics from my phone!!!
Remember I entered an On-Line Horse Show last month? I didn't realise they existed, but the Top Barn Challenge has enlightened me. So I entered a pic of Charlie in The Muckiest Pony class. To my delight he came 2nd out of about 20 entries, and I am absurdly proud of his first rosette!!!
Sadly the Top Barn 12 Week Challenge is coming to an end. We are now on Week 10. Its been a brilliantly inspiring group, with the most encouraging group of horsey people I have ever come across. People have faced their fears head on, and worked in some appalling weather, to get their hours in. No one on the group will ever say again, "Its too cold, wet, dark, muddy, windy, snowy" etc. So in the spirit of the Challenge, I ignored Storm Gareth with his 50mph winds and worked Charlie with a hoop yesterday (well ok....its a piece of hose-pipe taped up). We had a blast!! Storm? Pffff!!
This may or may not be a link to the video!!!!
https://youtu.be/OfJDvlz2aN0
