Typical

So I am very out of date, I have a half written update of BG over Christmas time that I will have to post at a later date.

The general update is that BG is doing well. It hasn’t been as cold as I had thought it would be, so they are only getting hay in the evenings at the moment. It is very, very wet instead and BG can normally be found covered in mud and with a wet belly where she’s been lying down. No recent shivering incidents though, in fact one morning I got worried because I think she was over-heating in her big woolly coat, but I think they had all been running round just before I got there.

Because of all the rain the field is just puddle after puddle, and the entrance to the field shelter is the biggest puddle of all, I’ve lost my welly in the mud there once. P2 was being kept in at night and when we opened the door in the morning to come out he would just stand there and survey the mud, not quite knowing whether to risk it or not. On the mornings he did leave the shelter reasonably quickly we put BG in there for her breakfast, so we could put the head collar on her. She had recently become very tentative about walking through the boggy entrance, and would take a while walking around it to find the best way in and out. Last night she was very particular about finding the right route and at one point looked like she might even forgo her food to avoid the mud.

So we have eventually penned off a bit in the field to feed her in there, hopefully it will help the entrance recover as well. The reason we need to pen it off is not to stop P1 or P2 trying to eat her food as they are both very good, but so that BG doesn’t run off immediately after eating. Plus, I want to be able to put her head collar on in there. That isn’t the biggest problem though, if I succeed it getting it on her catching her again to take it off is the bit that really upsets her if she can escape to the rest of the field instead.

This morning was the first morning we used the pen. I thought, if she refuses to have her head collar on then I would take her food into the shelter instead and catch her in there. I don’t have time before work to put up with her stubbornness in the field.

So I got her breakfast ready and walked across the field and what did she do? Walked straight in to the field shelter no hesitation! Then she had the cheek to look out the door at me as if to say ‘I’m here, what are you doing’ as I walked around the side of the shelter to her new pen.

Luckily she picked up what was going on quite quickly and followed me round, and wasn’t even worried about the electric tape that was the sides of the pen. I held out her head collar and she popped her nose in then pulled back out of it. Try again, second time perfect! So that went a lot better than I thought it would. She even stood patiently whilst I moved the strap up over her neck so I could buckle it on a higher setting.

I think it helped that she was feeling very hungry this morning. As I walked across the field with her food initially she was almost running rings in front of me trying to dip her nose in the corner of the bowl as I carried it.