DIY Horse Care

I had two happy greetings today when I arrived at the barn.  The first one is Liam and his friend Finch came right over to me when I called looking for carrots and mints.

Finch is on the left, Liam is on the right.

 

 

The second happy greeting was to find Liam's empty food dish!!! I know, not exciting for all, but it had me jumping up and down today.

 

 

Licked clean food dish!

 

Not only am I a DIY rider, but I do DIY horse care too.  That means I am on my own making my own decisions on horse care for Liam.  I don't have an in-house trainer to turn to, but I do have some great friends that give great advise, and I constantly refer to the COTH forum for wisdom, but ultimately it is up to me. I guess this is true for all horse owners, but I feel particularly on my own.

 

At this point you are probably wondering, why is this crazy person happy about an empty food dish?  Well, Liam decided over the weekend that he no longer wants to eat all of his feed.  He was leaving about 1/2 to 1 pound of food at the bottom of his dish and refusing to eat it.  As the nervous horse owner that I am, I am thinking about every possibility.  Is he sick, does he have ulcers, is there something wrong with his teeth, is it a bad bag of feed, and so on???  I decided to wait it out a couple of days and see if he starts eating again.  Yesterday, I found the same, about 1/2 to 1 pound of food remaining in his dish.  I started frantically looking up new feed options today on my lunch break at work and decided if I go to the barn today and find feed remaining in his dish I am going to the feed store tomorrow and getting him different feed.  Behold, empty food dish when I arrived at the barn and a crazy girl jumping up and down in the mud yelling out "woohoo"!!!

 

On the riding front Liam has been good the last 2 rides.  I think we are back to normal Liam behavior.  Yesterday we worked on long and low and today we worked on collection and extension.  Tomorrow is Liam's favorite, not, lateral work.