@Mr.Milo: Long time no see.
Yes, I still have Heta's first foal. He's quite handsome 3 year old stallion now and going of to his first training period in fall. Little sad to see him all 'grown up' already, but also excited to see how he works under saddle.
As for your little issues with Cracker. I'm no expert on jumping but pretty much agree with others. And then the bratty behavior, seen similar before though usually the horses have tried to fall out to the inside. Honestly it just sounds like he's rebelling on going to the harder direction, but there could be underlaying reasons for it was well(sore/stiff muscles, one leg having some pain(unlikely if he has that squirming issue on straight track as well) ). If he does that next time, keep both reins on contact(if he's sneaking off shoulder first, you might need to take little with the outside rein to straighten him up) and block him with your outside leg or even use whip on the outside shoulder. Also watch out your own weight shift is not actually the cause. Then when he stops wiggling ride forward. With one case if the horse is not ridden forward enough, he starts to get all squirmy on straight track. Since it's possibly the harder direction for him, try work him little more to that direction, doing circles and other bendy lines. Figure 8s are also great to kinda 'trick' him into going to the other direction as well without actually going on the track. c; Also you could talk to his owner about you issues with him and see if they might have some tips that work well with him.
@선장 재휸: While I don't really have the DIY boarding contract of any sort, at the moment I'm pretty much caring for Heta daily bases. Basically she needs to be fed 3 times a day, stalls needs to be cleaned out once and she also needs some turn out time. Since I also pretty much take care of all the horses at the moment at the stable, it takes me minimum of 35 minutes to feed 17? of them in the day into 9 paddocks and couple stalls in total. But considering I have to do that 3 times a day, plus check, clean and fill waters, it takes a good chunk of time. Cleaning one stall takes about 10-15 minutes, more or less depending how messy/clean the horse is and how familiar I'm with their messing habbits.
How much time and days you'll need to do in sort of DIY kind of setting depends on the stable and contract. Some places will turn out and feed your horse, but you'll need to clean the stall yourself preferably every single day. While others make a shift schedule among boarders, were each do their share of mornings, days and evenings of feeding and turning out(usually the cleaning is once again done by each horse's owner). How much times the chores take depend on how many horses there are to look after, but luckily many times places that work on shift schedules aren't that big. Like the stable at my school has 5 stalls, so 5 boarders, 3 shifts per day, so 15 during the week and then weekends they rotate so that each does one per month at least. So each boarder only has 3 shifts during the week, plus cleans their own stall each day but weekends.The fun stuff of grooming and riding you can stuff into 2 hours.
So take home message: Total DIY type of boarding arrangement pretty much ties you in 365 days a year, unless you can get someone to cover for you on certain days. And as you'd possibly also need to be there several times a day to feed it may not be the best option for student. Shift based one can give you some free time, but usually you still need to clean that stall daily or get someone to clean it for you. In basic boarding place you mainly get to do the fun part of grooming and riding, so if you are tight on time(but not super tight on money) I'd suggest going for full boarding. Also remember that if the stable is not close by, take the time it takes for you to travel there also into consideration when thinking about possible boarding places.
@Luzien: No other foals unfortunately, as that one mare of L's didn't get pregnant last summer. But L is breeding that mare again this and also one other mare this year in hopes of having two foals next summer.
The poops were pretty hard and I could see lot of fiber strands from hay in them, so most likely she has been eating too much hay(seriously she tries to eat everything, sand included unfortunately). I see her very often drinking so I would not think it was only from her not drinking well, but we've been wondering is she getting enough at one drinking time. She is gaining weight and muscle nicely though, so she's getting something out fo Heta for sure...
@Verdana: Oh my your baby is already over 4 months old. Totally didn't realise it's been that long since she was born. Her eyes may stay on lighter shade of brown since horses with cream gene tend to have, not sure if the blue stays though. Would be cool if it did.
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I've been pretty busy too. First camp started on Monday and I slept Sunday-Monday and then Monday-Tuesday night over to kinda make sure everything went okay the first night. There's only 4 kids and one bigger kid, who's kinda watching over them. So pretty small group, but next week is going to be full 8 people one. Along my usual stable work I've had to help out the kids with the horses and walk them on lead line with certain horses. So my two past days have been pretty packed, along with Heta and Feykja.
Heta's now on fresh cut grass diet due her stupid filly eating too much of things that are not yet good for her.
Feykja may be smart with somethings, but when it comes to eating things she's the most fustrating foal I've ever come across. She licks stall walls, buckets, my boots, eats Heta's hay like she's older than 2 weeks, tries to eat Heta's hard feed(which I'm not letting her to eat) and worst of all she has taken liking to eating and licking sand and dirt while outside... -______- I'm very much not impressed by that. Also after the blockage episode she's had very runny poop since than. While I'm glad she's passing stuff now, it's still exactly not healthy. She's been drinking well and acting very much like herself despite the runny poop, so for now I'm not ringing up a vet just yet. If her gut doesn't settle down by the end of the week or she gets lethargic again, then I'm calling a vet. Other than that, she just needs her butt washed pretty often to prevent the skin from getting sores. Not fun stuff, but at least she's good about it most times. >_< I've also moved the salt lick so that she also has access to it in hopes of maybe getting her odd fixation to sand vanquised.
I also got to ride yesterday!
On a lesson, on a horse that kinda reminds me of Heta so I've wanted to try her out. Basically the mare had been little bratty with the kids on past lessons, so I kinda needed to set down the rules on her again and then I needed to be little leading help with her for one horse, who's pretty lazy without other horse going infront of him. She was nice horse, just as easy and simple as I thought and suprisingly light in the mouth(even though her head carriage left loads of room for improvement). Pretty darn stiff all over though and really slow in walk. She only tried to be naughty with me few times and pretty mildly really, and I think one time was partly my fault as I wasn't that clear with my turning aids. Though I was pretty 'strong'(for lack of better word) right from the beginning, so she probably got the message I wasn't letting her get away with stupid stuff. Either way it was nice and soft slide back into riding as R(who's back in business more or less after having her baby 6 months ago, yay) originally had planned to put me on little harder horse, who mainly needs to be ridden with seat(which is one of my weaknesses). Though I still think she's putting me on that horse one day... I'm just glad it wasn't yesterday as I feel I'm sore enough from this easy mare. XD All though I really thought I'd get much sorer muscles, but only my inner thighs and seat bone area(the saddle, while othervise okay, had pretty hard seat) are really feeling it, plus my back was pretty stiff in the morning. I think I'm glad I've been doing stable work past 3 weeks or so, and somewhat gotten back my muscles. lol
