Monday, April 29, 2013

Hoss Tradin'

It's just a few more days until Meg and I head back down to Arizona...me to hit a couple more rodeos and Megan to start her job.

The plan was for Megan to take Dollar/Buddy (still calling him both names - LOL) to the ranch with her....Buuutttt....

While Buddy continues to improve...


He's gaining weight, slowly...but steadily...


Man...is he digging the getting to go out to pasture thing. LOL. If this horse ever got to graze in a big pasture in his life, it had to have been a long time ago. I had Meg hand-graze him for a few days and he did understand that...but when we turned him out to pasture with Rip the first time...He had NO CLUE how to graze on his own. He studied Rip for a long time, sniffed around at the grass that Rip was eating and loped circles around and around the big blue horse trying to entice him to run and play. Rip won...pretty soon Buddy settled down and learned to just enjoy eating his fill of green, spring grass. Now, he eagerly anticipates his turn-out time.

Meg has been riding the horse some. He can't take much. He is still very weak. But we can't really leave him until he gets all of his weight back either. This guy is one HOT potato. He prances and he dances and he jigs. Just teaching him to w.a.l.k. has been a major thing. He's getting it. He's slowly learning to just relax and walk forward. The better he feels, the quieter he gets. I'd say a lot of his hot, goofy behavior has to do with ulcers. I know the horse had to have been suffering from some pretty severe gastric ulcers. That is a huge problem in starved horses. I put him on a little bit of Moon's ulcer meds and noticed an improvement in his appetite almost immediately. When we brought him home, he pretty much just ate the leaves out of the alfalfa/grass mix hay and left the rest. Now he is cleaning up everything we put in front of him.

He's just is not strong enough yet to go work as a ranch horse, even as a fence/water tank checker....And the horse DOES NOT like cattle. We kind of knew that from when he was staying at the Carol's in AZ. He did not like their feeder steer. That hasn't changed because whenever he has to walk past the neighbor's cattle...he gets 'wiggy'. So I was a little worried about Meg riding him out on that big ranch all by herself.

So I told Meg that if she wanted to leave Buddy here for the summer, she could take Frosty and use him on the ranch.

I think it'll be better for BOTH horses AND Meg. Meg needs a horse that can hold up to daily riding in big country and that she can take to the ropings she will have to work. Frosty is over his cow-phobias and would actually benefit from having that kind of job. Buddy won't hold up to it, nor do I think he would like it much. Buddy can hang here, get strong. I'll continue working with him, see what I think of him and Megan can turn Frosty into a bona-fide ranch/rope horse.


4 comments:

Cut-N-Jump said...

Cool beans! It sounds like he is settling into things pretty well & handling it all in stride. You'll find his niche and I can't wait to hear what it is and how he really excels at it.

Crystal said...

Sounds like its a good plan, maybe you can turn him into a barrel horse, he should have some run in him :).....after he is stronger of course.

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

That's kind of what I'm thinking Crystal. I'm going to start patterning him as soon as I get back from Arizona and start hauling him to some of the barrel racings to see how he handles all of the commotion. He has all of the speed he would ever need to be a barrel horse and is made well enough that when he gets muscle back, he should be able to rate and turn. Getting his mind right is probably going to take the most work.

Unknown said...

Between Bugs on a diet and Buddy picking up weight, you are really specializing in turning these horses around! Looking forward to more news on him soon!