Knocked over

The weather has certainly taken a turn for winter. The field is turning into mud, it’s getting colder, P1 and P2 are in rugs and BG has been soaked a couple of nights. I am pleased to say that she has not been shivering again, so the beginning’s of her winter coat is doing its job. BG has also been keen to see us, although still not 100% sure of having her head collar on. The other day she had a thorn stuck slightly in her cheek, so that might have been the reason that night. At the moment I only have to grab her food bowl and leave the shelter with it for a second and she clicks that she won’t eat until she has her head collar on, and second time is perfect.

I had a good check over the top of her neck behind her ears to see if there was anything there bothering her that could account for her throwing her head back recently. Her coat is beautifully soft there, but I didn’t find anything. Last night I had another feel and there was something in her coat, but it felt like it could just be mud. It was too dark to look properly and doesn’t seem to bother her the rest of the time, so I have left it to check when I am up there in the light.

Yesterday P2 had to be shut in the shelter as his owner believes he has mud fever and she wanted him out of the mud. He was back out by the time we went to give BG her tea. What I didn’t realise was the remains of his hay net was still up, so BG spotted that as she walked in. Why have your head collar on for your tea when you can eat hay and not have it on? I took the hay net down, so only the scraps on the floor remained. I couldn’t put the head collar on in the hay corner as it made her nervous, but if I went to her normal corner she would just go back to eating the hay scraps. So I asked my husband to stand in the hay corner so she couldn’t eat and might actually be tempted by her tea.

It was too scary with two people in there though. BG didn’t know who to watch and who to turn her bottom on. She swung it round on me and I wasn’t quite quick enough and got knocked. In a way I am pleased that we made contact. She didn’t kick me, and if she was too I think that would be the situation she would kick out, with me being where she felt her back end should be and me having the scary head collar. So I am pleased that kind of confirmed my belief that BG won’t kick me. (I’m sure she might in a really bad situation if she got upset enough, but I am confident it would be a last, last resort for her).

She had her head collar on and her tea after we removed her food and gave her a minute to calm down before trying again.