Happy first birthday Titch! Measuring time!

Titch's big day rightly had to be overshadowed by my son's 17th (Ahh, they share the same birthday!), so apologies for the lateness of this post.

Not much has been happening in Titch's world apart from growing and eating.  In fact he has been left to fester a bit as I broke my collarbone 3 months ago.  It is still not healed and can at times be very painful.  So I have elected not to take Titch out on his in-hand walks. He comes to call for his breakfast and tea, so I had no need to keep putting the headcollar on him.  HOWEVER, that was a mistake as he has regressed and thinks the headcollar is going to kill him again. Cue more headcollar training. He grudgingly and somewhat mistrustfully allows it near his head if he can be tempted by a polo now.

I only realised this when I tried to get a fly rug on him as he is being bothered by midges. That was an unreasonable request in his eyes, so I thought I would put a headcollar on and get him used to a rug again, bit by bit, which is when I found I couldn't get the headcollar near him.

Apart from that I wanted to measure him to see how much too small for me he might turn out. Another reason this post is a bit tardy is that I wanted to deliver to you all the supposedly definitive 'year old' measurements that predict his adult height. So we have done a bit more work on the headcollar and today I managed to catch him and do the measurements.

Using the string test measuring from point of elbow to ergot + point of elbow to the ground, it predicts that he will grow to 15hh. Yay! I am happy with that, especially if he turns out to be in any way chunky.  However he has gone all lean and foal like again at the moment, definitely bottom high (the bottom always grows before the front end, in fits and starts, till they stop growing).

Using the middle of the knee to coronet band method, I found the results on the same day to be too changeable, depending on how he was standing, so I'll jettison that method.

His current height is 13.2hh at the withers and 13.3hh at the bum.

It is now early June and he is still loosing baby fluff, but I think he is going to be quite sleek once it all goes.

I am having to treat him for lice again. I am hoping this is the last lot of treatment as he is starting to hate being sprayed, but I suspect, unless I shave off his mane they are going to keep coming back. Yuck!

Here are a couple of photos.

Head looks big here because of all the beard!

Looking a bit more in proportion but still foal like.