Settling In

Stitch was back to his normal self after spending his first night out with his new herd. No more baby dragons!

Tuesday gave us a change in weather and it was finally bearable to be outside. I wandered around the property with Stitch in-hand. There's not really much to do or explore out there in the winter as everything is covered in snow.

We went into the barn and he parked in the grooming stall for what is possibly his first time in cross-ties. There was a bit of fidgeting, some pawing, and screaming if I went back to my locker and went out of sight, but he didn't test the cross-ties too much.

The pawing makes me scream inside, but I'm trying to ignore it in the hopes that he stops if it doesn't get him any attention.

We did a quick walk in the arena, during which Stitch stared at himself in the mirrors at every opportunity.

This barn has the rule that you have to pick your horses feet out when leaving the arena. Standing still long enough to get all four feet done turned into a 15 minute challenge, not helped by my chatting with someone waiting for the vet with a suspected case of laminitis in her senior horse (sadly, we were right).

The next day Stitch was much more relaxed right off the bat. He walked across the field to meet me at the gate when I called him as he typically does - this field is bigger than his old one so I was happy to see that behaviour continue!

The grooming area setup.

I moved him to the grooming stall that he might be able to see me when I went down the to my locker, and he was much quieter than the day before, but it was probably because there was a horse in the stall just in front of Stitch.

The arena was free so I took him in for a lunge. It was a good challenge for him - he had to go into a new place with the expectation that he pay attention and behave nicely, he had to keep going forward while staring at himself in the mirrors, and for the first time I mostly lunged him in the center of the ring instead of using one of the ends with walls around three sides. He mostly got his trickier left lead without needing to really set him up for him,  which is definitely progress, but he struggled a bit staying on the circle.  His canter seems different every time I lunge him; this wasn't one of his strongest nights.

"Who is that gorgeous creature?"

Oh - and he nailed the hoof picking on the way out. Stood rock still. A little bit of exercise does a brain good!

Overall, I've been really happy with how he's settled into his new home. The weather was beautiful and he was out nekkid and I was happy to see lots of dried slobber marks on him, which hopefully means he's been socializing with the other boys.

New Friends

Stitch spent the first five days of living at the new place feeling pretty sad and sorry for himself in his quarantine pen. There are horses in paddocks on two side of his pen, but they are separated by a road so obviously not able to be in contact with.

He was bored and lonely. And it was far too cold for me to be able to spend much time with him when I came out in the evenings. The first night was -31C, the second -17 plus a windchill. It warmed up to a balmy -14C on his last night in there so I was able to spend a whole 45 minutes doing things with him, mostly involving shoving cookies in his mouth. He thought that was the best time ever. 

A very frosty pony.

On Monday afternoon he was declared cootie free and able to leave his jail cell. I was off work early that day, so I rushed out to the barn mid-afternoon in the hopes that I could turn him out into the pasture and have him meet his new friends while there was still some daylight. 

It started out ok - it's a decent walk from his quarantine pen on one side of the property to the pasture on the other side. Stitch walked nicely next to me, taking his new surroundings in. 

When we got to the pasture I saw that someone was out there trying to catch a horse that didn't want to be caught. I thought it would be very mean to that person to add a new horse to the mix, so we were just going to wait at the gate until the horse was caught before turning Stitch out. 

And then Stitch showed his true colours. My quiet, well-mannered 3 year old is really a baby dragon horse in disguise.

While we were waiting to go into the pasture, the horses in the surrounding pens started to get a little silly. Between the new horse and the uncatchable one, they had plenty of reasons to start getting prancy. 

I think Stitch could have managed that okay, but what did him in was the horses that got prancy behind the row of parked trailers that lined the road to the pasture. Once the first horse suddenly pranced into view in between the trailers, Stitch had feelings.

I'll give him full credit for keeping his front feet on the ground, though there were a few times he was definitely thinking about getting light in front. His go-to move was to bulge his left shoulder into me and try to scoot off, which we had a few discussions about. It's real fun having those discussions on a packed snowy road that you have no traction on!

There were so many snorts. The "oh, this is where I die" types of snorts. So,so many.

But, we got through it without me getting jumped on. The horse got caught, the silly horses got bored, and Stitch finally got to go out to meet his new friends. 

The field is all geldings, and they were a mix of "yay someone new!" and "is there something going on I should leave the hay for?". Stitch quickly figured out who wanted their own personal space (only one gelding), and within an hour of being out I saw him playing a tentative game of bitey face with someone. When I went out the next morning he was sharing one of the round bales with someone, so he seems to be well on his way to finding his place in the group.

And most importantly - there is only one new hole in his blanket that I have to repair. 

Moving Day

We've moved! Stitch is at his new home!

The TLDR version is that Stitch travelled well and mostly settled in quickly. He'll be in a quarantine pen for at least 5 days before going to the big field and meeting his new friends.

I had planned to take a bunch of pictures, but the only I one got was of Stitch in his quarantine jail cell.

Here's the full version of how the move went:

First of all, he had to have a booster shot for the strangles vaccine that the new facility requires. I had scheduled it for the day before we were moving, on Dec 31st, at noon, for which I received a confirmation email two days before the appointment.

Pony was in just before 12. At 1pm, i figured I might as well go hook up the trailer while I was waiting, and I'd shoot her a message at 1:30 if she hadn't arrived.

There was a bit of difficulty getting the trailer hitched up - the trailer was parked before the snow arrived, so it was sitting on bare ground, but the truck was on a layer of snow and ice and sat higher than it normally would. I had to crank the front of the trailer up all the way so that it would clear the ball, and even then it was a little reluctant to connect properly. But I thought it was on enough that I could pull it forward and once I straightened up it would be ok, and thankfully I was right.

After that I sent a message to the vet to confirm if we were still on for the afternoon, and quickly got a "Crap. Be there in 30." message.

Turns out she's been pretty sick and told me to stay away from her so that I didn't catch her cooties. I guess I shouldn't complain too much about the sore throat/hoarse voice/tiredness I had for a few days after Christmas.

Stitch wasn't as good for his jab this time, done on his butt. I think he was anticipating that a thermometer was going to be put where the sun doesn't shine, which he was protesting after his first jab. 

But he got done, and I spent another couple of hours packing my stuff up.

I have a lot of stuff.

Too much stuff.

I downsized somewhat after I went down to one horse this summer, but not nearly enough. That's come back to bite me in the ass now that I have to move it all.

My dad was coming with me on the day of the move, so we loaded the rest of the stuff mostly into the bed of the truck. It pretty well filled it. Plus one side of the trailer and the tack compartment. (It was mostly blankets. I didn't realize how many blankets I had out there.)

I don't know that I've ever trailered in the winter. We got lucky in that the forecast changed from an expected high of -20 C (-4 F) to a balmy -14C (6 F). Totally bearable. But it still brought on some problems.

Tire air pressure. It drops in the cold. Each tire was 8-10 psi lower than ideal. So they had to be pumped up. Note to self- buy an extension cord that will reach from the cab of the truck to the back of the trailer so that when the air compressor that says it has a full charge turns out to not have a full charge and you can still get the job done. Thankfully, I was able to grab a cord from the barn and get the tires pumped back up.

Metal contracts or expands when temperatures change. This affects things like butt and chest bars that don't have a lot of wiggle room to get into their fittings. We didn't have to actually make any adjustments, they just didn't go into place as smoothly as I would have liked.

In these temperatures, anything wet freezes quite quickly. Like poop. Or condensation. And when ice forms in, say, the hinges of the ramp, it doesn't want to close properly. It was fine when we left, so I suspect it was either moisture from the poop that happened immediately upon getting on the trailer, or just condensation from him being on there. My dad is the kind of person who is always prepared and had a Leatherman tool that had a very efficient saw type of knife that was able to chip away at the ice and we were able to put the trailer up with no issues. 

Stitch was pretty good about getting on. I wouldn't say he jumped on, but he didn't go backwards at all. There was a little bit of tap dancing while I shut everything up but he travelled well. The side roads were packed snow and bumpy, but the highways were clear and not busy. I fully expected that he was going to be a sweaty mess when we arrived but to my surprise he was nice and dry.

He went straight into his quarantine pen. There are horses visible on two sides, but they are separated by a road. He seemed to settle in fairly quickly. There was some calling and a little bit of trotting, and I had to put a halter on him to change his blanket, but he tucked into his hay right away and finished the alfalfa cubes I had put in the trailer for him that he didn't eat on the drive. 

This place takes biosecurity very serioulsy. I can't go into the barn after being out with my horse, and I'm not allowed to move his stuff into the barn until he's been cleared.  That's going to suck over the next few days as I'm going to be out in the evenings and the temperature is going to plummet. It'll be quick trips to check on his blankets and give him his pellets and not much else. The cold is supposed to end just as his quarantine is supposed to end. 

So, there's nothing exciting happening (hopefully) for a few more days, but the move is done and I can stop stressing about it.