Animal Handling II

I have no horsey news to share but I still have animal stories!!! I am in Animal Handling II which is the class required of all freshman entering the Pre-Vet program here at Findlay. I am handling food animals. This means I work with pigs, sheep, goats, llamas, beef and dairy cattle, donkeys, and poultry. So far I have worked with piglets, lambs, sheep, goats, kids, and calves.

We began working with the sheep. The first thing I learned how to do was throw down a sheep or flipping sheep as we call it. It wasn't easy to catch the sheep because they are bound to their flock. But once you catch them you begin the process of, to put it quite frankly, sitting them on their butt. We started off with the small ewes. They only weighed about 100 pounds. Once we flipped them we trimmed their feet. Randy would be proud, I am an excellent hoof trimmer. LOL. The following week we moved onto another pen with much bigger ewes. They were about 250 pounds. And yes this girl can throw a 250 pound ewe no problemo. We did the same thing as we did with the smaller sheep.

Next we worked with piglets. There were 13 sows in the barn all who would farrow (give birth) in the next two months. The farrowing room has six pens and is kept at 80 degrees all the time. We each took a piglet and gave it two injections, clipped its needle teeth, docked its tail, notched its ears (this tells the farmer what litter the pig came from and which pig it is in the litter), and castrated the males. Just gonna let you know pigs smell. And a room kept at 80 degrees plus the pig smell is not nice. It sticks with you even after you shower and scrub your skin raw. It's worse than sheep smell.

We moved on to lambs because the ewes were lambing. We gave them injections for vitamin e and selenium deficiencies and tetanus shots. We also ear tagged. Gotta tell you that ear tagger is huge. I had to use two hands. hahaha I was the first in my class to volunteer to dock a lambs tail. Yes my face did get a little red because I was concentrating so much. But I did it!!!! Did my second tail docking yesterday. It was one big tail I'll tell you that. Dr. Kerns was yelling, "You go girl, you go girl!" LOL I got it done. This girl is beastly.

Working with the calves was fun too. We have about 18 bucket calves (the drink milk from buckets). All of them are dairy cows. We have holsteins, jerseys, and ayrshires. They are very cute but they spread disease called kryptosporidiosis so we have to be very careful when handling them and make sure we wash our hands afterwards. Anyways. We halter broke all the calves. They are so funny because they have never walked outside of their calf pen before so they fall down alot. We learned how to tie them using a "proper" safety release knot. And I learned how to do a butterfly knot. I'll explain when I get home. Need to demonstrate. We also learned the reef which is a rope we knot around the calves body and tighten causing them to lay down so we can restrain them for procedures. It's great fun. Wish it worked on people. We gave injections, tatooed, ear tagged, implanted (synthetic hormones that make the calf grow faster), and practiced the reef on them. Great fun.

That's all we've done for now. Next week we are gonna be finishing up the second set of piglets and castrating them. Then we will move on to castrating the dairy calves and dehorning them. Thought everyone would like to hear what I had been up to. I promise I will have lots of stories to tell when I come home. :)

My obsession

How many times do people ask you in a really absurd and rude way, "Why do you like horses?" You give them the same answer. Then they're like, "That sounds really easy, doesn't the horse do all the work?" But they're not really asking you, but rather accusing you of being a non-athletic, addicted, same old same old horse lover. And really isn't that what we are? (except for the non-athletic part). Not that it's boring to love horses, because we all love them in different ways. We are 100% addicted and in love with horses and everything about them. We all love different horses and we all can't stand being away from them. I mean isn't it crazy what we'll do for our dearest "pets" in the whole world?

Again, horses are just a bit different, don't you see by now that they're not just a pet, not just an animal, but a true friend. I've said in many other posts that they are a majestic and unique animal. They have they're own personalities, just like us humans. I'm not saying that they are like humans because they are different in many good ways. But honestly, do you every realize how many times we say (in baby voices), "He says, 'what's that'," or, "He says, can I have some too?," or, "He says, 'I love you too'!" Honestly, we are actually talking for our dear ponies because we understand what they say. We think and we might know exactly what he's saying and we talk for him. We say that to whomever is there with us. We truly understand what they are saying because we know and love them in such a special way. Just like when we have are closest friend, we can understand what they are thinking just by their body language or facial expression! Horses aren't any different, right? But they are different. They are the same as our closest friend because they are one of our dear friends or boyfriends (Clara & Oli)! But they are also different because even if we tell them an insult about someone or something, or we tell them our saddest meanest story of some sort, anything we tell them seems to just sink into they're sweat little/big hearts and they don't judge us, laugh at us, or say something hurtful; no, they just listen. It feels like they are that comforting mother-like, actually father-like figure. Such love as that between a horse and his rider will never be broken, or at least in my life it won't. I want to gallop off into the sunset, just my pony and me!

Too bad I can't ride, too bad I can't always be at the barn longing to take on new challenges and start doing exciting things with my dear friend and all my dear friends. I'll always know that my special pony, my special companion, my special go to person/pony, my partner in crime, and my true friend will always be there for me, even in my heart I know that he is always listening, especially if I have carrots!

Info...please!

How are you all doing? I need information! (clara and rachel get that a lot).

I am sad because cold weather is coming upon us! O ya, and my ankle has been killing me because I can feel the screws, the doc said this might happen and the uncomfortable feeling will never go away, which means another little surgery...gross huh?

Anyway, I don't have any horsey news (obviously) but hay (get it) I am always thinking about ponies and my dearest barn friends!

So, to conclude: most of you can depict my boredom from this post... so please please please give me some nice juicy stories about your darling equestrian lives!

This fall weather is so amazing. The fall always gives me a feeling of contentment thinking of the golden sunset as I gallop through lusciously colorful leaves that gently fall to the ground!

I hope you all are enjoying your riding time...

Imagine if one day the things you thanked God for that day became what you actually had...

Hay Queen of the Year Award

Rachel gets the Hay Queen of the Year award (soon as I figure out what that is!). She has gone on EVERY load of hay this season and helped load, unload, count, stack, tie down, feed out....anything hay related, even wearing it and sitting higher on top of it! THANK YOU! Today she was sitting atop the highest stack up on the one ton and waving the Queen wave like she was in a parade...gotta love it!

Where oh where has the Funny Boy gone?

Ok, so this must be the week for missing ponies....I have also had an episode of "where oh where" not counting Clara's....first it was Julio and Toby, who must have just been taking their sweet time from way down in the dark. But then when everyone was munching away, Humor - who is usually 3rd or 4th in - was still nowhere to be seen and I set out to look....as I rounded the corner through the gate I heard the nickers. And once again he had locked himself in the ring and couldn't get out. As if breaking and entering isn't enough, he gets himself locked in, too....I let him out, he went cantering to the barn, and I checked out the fence. Pretty obvious where he had broken in - middle tape busted on the far side, but nothing else disturbed, so he apparently got in between the top and bottom tapes and then couldn't figure out how to get out. Sigh....

Regionals!!!!!

Yesterday was Regionals for Quiz Bowl! NH came in third overall and Kendall from NH came first individually!!! It was a stressful yet fun competition. Just to let you know if the placings had been done points wise, NH would have cleaned house!!! Now we just have to prove ourselves at Nationals!!

My Day at the Barn

Since Therese has been dieing to hear about what has been going on at the barn (WE MISS U THERESE <3) I decided it was time for me to start blogging again. My day at the barn started out pretty ordinary, I got to the barn did some poop and other chores then I called the boys in for lunch. Well, that turned into a bigger ordeal than I thought it would. I called and called and nobody came. UH OH!! Then Sharkey came nickering around the corner. Ok found one pony. Then a minute later Humor came trotting up. But where is Jazzy? I called and called and called and he still didn't come. In the mean time Oliver thought it would be fun to run around and buck like a maniac(silly pony) Julio just looked at him like he was crazy. Why should you expend energy when you could be eating grass? Well I started to get concerned about Jazzy because he hadn't come up yet, so I walked out to the corner and called again and sure enough he was allllllll the way down in the lower pasture! When he finally heard me he came running up the hill bucking to his hearts desire. Sigh all of the boys are happily eating. Well, after the boys were fed I went for a ride with Rachel and Nick in the ring on Oliver. We had our moments but it was a very good and successful ride by the time we were done. After I was done with Oliver I brought Humor in. I had just enough time to do a little something with him. I decided that a 15 minute lunging session would do him good. Well he was AMAZING!!! I lunged him with sidereins for the first time ever and he loved it. He was a very good boy. Lovely trots and gorgeous collected canters all with his head down, back up, and tracking like no other. It was a great day at the barn!
P.S. Is that good enough for your Therese? HAHAHA

Exciting day tomorrow

I can't wait for a day full of horses tomorrow! UNH was awesome last year, so I'm hoping it's as great as it was then. I want to take some pictures, but usually my camera won't turn on... We'll see what happens.

I got my cast taken off yesterday and now I have a walking boot! Woohoo! I can put some weight on it, finally. It is such a relief to give my arms a little break from all that crutching! Tomorrow will be much easier to move around without getting exhausted so quickly... See you all tomorrow, bright and early!