Post by daisyhill on Dec 11, 2017 22:13:06 GMT -5
Well, I thought maybe I should post about this, in case it proves educational in some way.
We can't quite bear to actually eat our dear April (I've posted about her before--she became ketotic, then I accidentally let her get too fat, she didn't breed back, and has been growing steadily porkier by the day).
We decided to try very hard to slim her down so she might have another chance. We hope we are doing the right thing for her. I read about feeding older oxen, and the struggle to keep them slim, and have based her ration on the tidbits of information I gleaned from this reading.
We put her in a nice paddock with the three horses--they are getting along well, but April is on the bottom of the totem pole for meals, and they do make her exercise more than she would be likely to on her own. She is greedy and pushy when among her own kind, and will hog more than her share of hay, so being low in status is being good for her. At feeding time, she gets her own little pile of hay, and the horses don't bother her as they are busy with their own. She inhales hers to chew later, but there is no chance that she can steal any from the horses--they won't let her.
I worry about her--she looks terrible with her grotesquely fat rump and empty rumen--but she seems to be doing well. The horses do not pick on her or keep her away from the water, and I see her lying down and chewing her cud. They have been together for almost a month now. I need to put the weight tape on her to chart her progress, but so far, so good. She is her usual friendly, cheerful self. I had to do a little fence work in their paddock, and she "helped" me with her usual enthusiasm, breathing down my neck while I worked. I daresay she hoped I had a bale or two of hay in my back pocket.
The other day the boys were feeding the horses, and April was busy poking around in the little spinney at the bottom of the hill and didn't notice that it was meal time. One nephew told Sketchy (he's a hackney pony, around 20 years old), to go get April, and to his surprise, Sketchy obeyed him right away, trotted down and herded April back up to be fed!
We can't quite bear to actually eat our dear April (I've posted about her before--she became ketotic, then I accidentally let her get too fat, she didn't breed back, and has been growing steadily porkier by the day).
We decided to try very hard to slim her down so she might have another chance. We hope we are doing the right thing for her. I read about feeding older oxen, and the struggle to keep them slim, and have based her ration on the tidbits of information I gleaned from this reading.
We put her in a nice paddock with the three horses--they are getting along well, but April is on the bottom of the totem pole for meals, and they do make her exercise more than she would be likely to on her own. She is greedy and pushy when among her own kind, and will hog more than her share of hay, so being low in status is being good for her. At feeding time, she gets her own little pile of hay, and the horses don't bother her as they are busy with their own. She inhales hers to chew later, but there is no chance that she can steal any from the horses--they won't let her.
I worry about her--she looks terrible with her grotesquely fat rump and empty rumen--but she seems to be doing well. The horses do not pick on her or keep her away from the water, and I see her lying down and chewing her cud. They have been together for almost a month now. I need to put the weight tape on her to chart her progress, but so far, so good. She is her usual friendly, cheerful self. I had to do a little fence work in their paddock, and she "helped" me with her usual enthusiasm, breathing down my neck while I worked. I daresay she hoped I had a bale or two of hay in my back pocket.
The other day the boys were feeding the horses, and April was busy poking around in the little spinney at the bottom of the hill and didn't notice that it was meal time. One nephew told Sketchy (he's a hackney pony, around 20 years old), to go get April, and to his surprise, Sketchy obeyed him right away, trotted down and herded April back up to be fed!