More Loading Practice

Still resisting the urge to put a rug on him, but don't want to spoil him...

Over the last few days I have been taking Titch for walks with our dogs and on his own, and getting him happy about loading onto the trailer. He has been really happy to load with all doors open.  He always has his breakfast in there. Yesterday I closed the back door up and he was fine. Today I put his 'travel boots' on, closed the front divider, loaded him and closed the back door.  He managed to turn himself around in that space to look backwards.  He couldn't work out how to turn around again and any other horse would have panicked, but I managed to fling the rope from his head collar over his head and lead him to a bit where there was more space and turned him around.  Phew! Once he was facing forward again I closed the front door too and he was fine, but I immediately went around and opened it again and unloaded him, whereupon he ate grass.  Good boy!

First time standing in trailer with both front and back doors closed and front partition in place

I did a bit of rug training with him in the field, but I think the fact that he had so much space to escape worked against me. I circled him many times dragging a rug on the ground.  At first he turned away from me, but when he realised I was just circling him he settled...until I got a bit nearer.  So I repeated the circling until he was ignoring me and eating grass again. When I went to lift the rug up even slightly towards his shoulder though he moved away, so I changed it to just my hand stroking his shoulder - fine with that. Here I ran out of time.  So at least I had ended on a good note.  Maybe I need to go back to touching him with smaller pieces of material in the stable till he is soooo bored of it, then try again in a bigger space.

Ugly Duckling

Today I have one very wet foalio. I am daring myself every day to ignore the careful thoroughbred owner's inner voice that says 'rug them up to the eyeballs'.  I am assured by my native pony-owning friends and the vet that I don't want Titch to get too comfortably warm under a rug as he would stop using his food energy intake to keep himself warm, meaning he could get fat and that could be ruinous to the growth plates in his legs, potentially causing lameness in years to come.  Better to keep him slightly lean to try to even out his growth spurts. But the mother in me wants to wrap him up in a duffel coat!!

At nearly 5 months, his bottom is measuring 12.2hh and his whithers probably only 11.3hh!  He looks a bit wet and wonky at the moment.

Titch looking fat and fluffy before this wet weather

Bit bum high and wet!

Titch's fluff all wetted down - he looks slimmer now.

That fluff makes a useful thatch to keep the undercoat dry

Trailer Trash

...Or to be more precise 'trailer angel'.

Having been over the pallet bridge a few times yesterday, I decided that the bridge was too slippery this morning after the frost and may put Titchy off climbing onto things that were not the floor he was used to, so this morning I found a different 'bridge'.  It was the one attached to the back of the trailer, ie the actual back door of the trailer undone! Titch thought it was a lot less slippery than the pallet thingy. He sniffed it, tested it with one front hoof and then realised it was fine and climbed straight up, got a mouthful of food and then realised he had to go in a bit further to get another gobful of food, so followed me straight in to the trailer.

I am starting to pinch myself - why is he being so easy?  What happens to horses to stop them being trusting, as Titch seems to be at this stage, but less trusting as they get older? Is it a developmental process, like when dogs turn 1 year old and suddenly decide not to like all dogs they met as a puppy and start to distrust other dogs approaching them?  Is it something to do with sexual maturity? I'll keep you posted on that one.  In the meantime here is Titch's first trailer photo...

Prepare to Mobilise

Running with the motto 'failing to plan is planning to fail' I drew up a plan to get Titch on the trailer eventually, because in Spring he might like to go to a pony party!  I know he walks across plastic sheet fine already, so today I fed him from a makeshift 'bridge' - a very sturdy pallet with the slats very close together so his little trotters can't go through the gaps. He sniffed it, then ate a handful of breakfast placed on it, then tentatively followed his bucket of food over it a few times, finally earning lots of 'good boy!'s from me when he was happy to stand with his front feet still on the pallet, for which he got the bonus of being able to finish his breakfast right there and then, without having to perform any more.  I will do this for the next few days until he is reliably at ease walking over it both width ways and long ways and then see if it will translate to the trailer ramp, touching with his nose, being fed from it, touching it with his feet, standing front feet still on it, standing all 4 feet still on it and then progressing inside, where he will find all sorts of food.

I hope the ground will harden off a bit after all the rain we have had in the last week, or at least enough for me to park the trailer in the field as a kind of field shelter, cum food station, and only when he is happy using it off his own bat can I then lead him on, hitch up the trailer to the car and start mini journeys around the garage and back.

This could take a few weeks...Although this evening he managed to eat his tea with his boots on (more than I was allowed to do as a child!).

After tea mum put some boots on me and they made my back legs not pick-up-able from the ground. But after a few tries I made all four of my legs work again.

In my head I have a lovely memory of Spice and Elly and I at a show in the pouring rain.  We were giggling to ourselves because we had set up our chairs in the trailer to have our picnic with a calm as normal Spice, out of the rain and rather smug that we hadn't had to fork out on a proper lorry in order to get somewhere dry to sit down! Spice the wonder horse loved having us in her makeshift stable with her, especially as she could scrounge some of my trademark healthy picnic carrot sticks off us!

A Day at the Pony Sale

This is a video of the exact sale I bought Titch from.  This was, I think, the youngest (short, curly mane) and most vociferous of the foals that day, quite confident, roaming about in the shed yelling (for his Mumma?), not huddling in a corner.  It moves nicely! Very flashy! Cute! One of the more expensive foals that day.

A typical group of Quantock hill foals, though in 2012 there were a few different colours as well, dun, palomino, skewbald too

Predicting Foal's fully Grown Height

The suspense is killing me already! Only because I really hope this lovely little chap will grow to be a bit bigger than Spice so I can sort of get away with riding him.  Whilst I'm not averse to a bit of pony squishing, being not quite 10 stone (and 5'9") I do get a bit conscious of looking like a Mexican riding a donkey.

How Titch may look when loaded with me and my hip flask in a few years time!

I am taking bets as to his final measurements but you will have to wait till he is about 5 for the final measurements.

His breeder thought he would make 14hh.  I hope he is wrong.

Here are a couple of methods I found on t'internet...

Method 1 - measure middle of knee to coronary band. Every 1/4 " you measure corresponds to 1" of full grown height - This method will make Titch 14.2hh


Method 2 (which should be done at a year) - measure elbow to fetlock, keep tape at elbow and swing other end of tape up to predict wither height.



Method 2 put Titch at 14.3hh from his 5 month measurements. I hope this method works. I will re-do it when he is 1 year old.

Method 3 (Read more:http://ihdg.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ght09&action=display&thread=102019&page=1#ixzz2B5484iKy)
'In the book 'Horse Nutrition and Feeding' by Sarah Pilliner there is a table of percentages of height at 6 months, 12 months and 18 months to adult height. Sadly it doesn't mention cobs! however according to this TBs and Arabs have attained 84% of mature height at 6 months, Anglo-arabs 83%, and Shetlands 86%.

At the time I read this, I had a 6 month old Sec D colt standing 13 hands - I worked out using 85%, I think, that he'd make 15.2hh which was exactly right, as it turned out.

So, if 12 hands is 85%..... I make that 14.1...?'

I'll try this in a month's time.


What I do know from measuring Titch this morning is that he has 7" bone, ie circumference of leg beneath front knee - a good stocky kind of breed like Irish Draught should have about 9" of bone. If Titch is already 7" at just 5 months I wonder if this will change as he grows up...?  How stocky and hairy will he be?

After our measuring session and the usual morning routine I took Titch for another walk up to the end of the lane and back, then thought I would offer him the opportunity to check out the hose on our return, like you do.  He sniffed it - totally ok. I turned the water on and that made the hose even more appealing!  Now any of my other horses, including Spice the wonder horse would avoid a hose if at all possible and preferably trot off in the other direction, but our little Titch thought he would quite like drinking from that hose! No not scared, not even a teeny bit, just very thirsty and loves hoses.  I did wash off his feet once he was fully bevved up and that was fine too, but I will leave washing him off totally until we get some lovely warm days next summer.

See, how can S.A.D get you as November begins, when one has so much to look forward to?

Summer Sheet and Velcro

Having left Titch alone for a few days (apart from usual brush, pick out feet, electric toothbrush rub all over body, 'tie' him up, then lead him in or take him out to field), today seemed like a good time to pick it up again. I did the usual routine and then developed the tea towel and/or white plastic feed bag on the back to include having a folded up summer sheet on his back.  He had reverted a little to not remembering that it is all right to be touched anywhere on his body with anything, so I went back a step and just rubbed him all over with the summer sheet folded smaller and incrementally made it bigger and more flappy and made it move more expressively as it laid on his back.  

I am so pleased I didn't notice that he has a bit of white in his left eye when I bought him, else I might not have.  some people think it is connected with wicked horses, but now I see it just helps him express his feelings.  I normally start on his left side and the white in this eye makes it soooo expressive (for which I mean cute!).  I can tell immediately what he thinks of whatever I am touching his body with.  He has a kind of Princess Diana look to this eye when he looks shyly up through his eye lashes because he is a bit unsure. This informs me to go a bit more quietly or back a stage till he is happier.  Anyway, I took it gently and before long he was quite happy to plod around the stable after me with the summer sheet on.

I seized the moment and put on some old fetlock boots as they are small, but with the added extra of velcro.  I have had a horse that was scared of the sound of velcro, so therefore Titch will get to know it very well!

I can stand on a plastic bag - easy!

Yes, it is a bit more rustly when it moves, but I'm a big boy and I'm fine with it now.

And now I can wear a summer sheet - errr, but it's not summer anymore mum.

What are these things? Velcro, you say?  What's that then?

Unfortunately my camera phone is not as good as my SLR, but it is what I usually have to hand, so apologies for the poor quality and distortion that makes him look even more fugly than he really is!!