Thursday, 24 May 2018

An Unhappy Camper

I hope Phantom enjoyed her birthday on Monday. Fun times are over.

On Wednesday Phantom went to Fat Camp (aka the Diet Pen). The other campers are horses that cannot be on a round bale, either due to respiratory concerns or weight. It is the only group turnout area that doesn't get a round bale, and the only other option would be a small pen by herself, which is not an ideal option (I hate having to deal with an overly energetic idiot of a horse).

Phantom was a very unhappy camper.

For the most part the other campers kept to themselves. It was a hot day (29 C in May - crazy warm up here), so most of the horses didn't have too much energy.
Phantom in the front, the others not caring about her in the distance.
Phantom paced the fenceline for pretty well 2 hours straight. Walk, trot, and canter. Constantly moving.

I intentionally changed her turnout a few hours before dinner time, in the hopes that come dinner time the group would have themselves started to be sorted out. But she barely spent any time socializing with the others. I stuck around for quite a while (and patched up a blanket I've had to do for a while and then picked a wheelbarrow of poo from her new paddock) and she was just starting to relax a bit when it was chores time. I offered to feed that group so that I could make sure that she was fed far away from everyone else.

I think I felt almost as stressed as she did. I hate seeing my horses that upset. It's the kind of thing that I believe is for the best for her, as she seems to cough every summer now, and she really needs to lose weight, but is hard to watch as a pony mom. I'm sure it will all be sorted out in a week or two but until then there's stress on everyone.
My car said 32 C (89.6 F) when I left the barn, and took quite a while to drop down to 30. This is dead of summer temperatures for us, and it's supposed to be here for a few more days. I think we've only had 2 days of rain since the snow melted so everything is super dry. There are fire bans almost everywhere in the province. 
Surprisingly, Cisco was pretty chill about his sister wigging out. He initially stood along his fenceline, watching her, but quiet. Then he wandered off with his buddy Tsunami, and left Phantom on her own to stress. I actually thought that he would take the separation worse than she would, but apparently I was wrong.

I'm not planning on heading back out to the barn until Saturday evening due to my work schedule, unless I get a message that the cut on her leg she got this afternoon is actually a puncture and her leg has blown up. So I'm hoping to see a much more relaxed horse when I head back out. Fingers crossed!

6 comments:

  1. Switching up living arrangements is always stressful, even when it's for their own good! Hopefully when you get there Saturday she'll be all settled in ☺️

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    1. I got a picture from the barn owner this evening with Phantom eating dinner along the fenceline with another horse. So it looks like she's doing okay!

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  2. Fingers crossed Phantom has settled down some

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  3. It's very stressful to watch them be stressed. Could she have a roundtable with a slow feed net on it?

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    1. If I put her in a small pen by herself I would happily rig up some sort of slow feeder system. But she's a turd when in a small pen. So that's definitely not my first option.

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