Food Fight

Murray eats a lot of grain. Well, I give him a lot of grain, how much he actually eats is debatable. Anyone who's watched him dig-in to his dinner knows that much of feed ends up on the ground. It gets there in one of two ways:

First, Murray is fussy. He gets a variety of grains-- high fat/high fibre pellets to keep his weight up, beet pulp to keep his weight up, sweet feed to make it all more appetizing, plus a vitamin supplement, a hoof supplement, corn oil and a dollop of molasses. Murray likes some aspects of his meal better than others. So, he sifts through his feed and eats his favourite parts first. This process of selection generally entails him tossing half his grain on the ground.

Secondly, Murray's mom must never have told him not to chew with his mouth open. Unlike most horses, when Murray's eating, food is not the only thing on his mind. He tends to want to look out the window, to check on Maggie, to see what we're doing. This means he snatches a few bites of grain, then lifts his head from his tub to look around. Sometimes he'll even walk around his stall with his mouth full. Inevitably, as he chews, much of what's in his mouth falls on the ground and ends up scattered amongst his bedding. And yes, he does have his teeth checked regularly-- there's nothing wrong with them, he's just sloppy.

Sunday July 10th
7pm
Tonight, Dave offers to feed the horses while I muck the stalls. I happen to be in Murray's stall when Dave brings in his prepared buckets of grain. He empties the buckets into the narrow tub in the corner of Murray's stall-- the less-appealing beet pulp first, then grain on top.
As I empty a pitchfork full of manure into the wheelbarrow, I hear Dave exclaim: "Wow, that's a huge mouthful of grain". I turn to see what he's talking about. I miss Murray's "big bite", but what I see next makes me double over with laughter.

Dave is standing to the left of Murray, about a foot from his neck. He's still holding the empty buckets out in front of him. He leans forward and peers into Murray's feed tub. Murray, clearly unhappy with what's at the top of his pile of grain, shoves his head in his bucket up to his eyeballs. He tilts his nose to the right, then violently shoves it back to the left. Grain, and wet beet pulp, fly through the air. Some of it lands directly on Dave, but most miraculously manages to fall into the buckets in his outstretched arms.

Two stalls over, Maggie is startled by my screech of laughter. She lets out a high-pitched shriek of her own. That, in turn, distracts Murray and his head, complete with a mouth stuffed with grain, shoots up out of his tub. He turns to the left to see what's happening. Forgetting his food, his jaws go slack, and without missing a beat, Dave reaches out with his bucket to catch the grain falling from Murray's overflowing muzzle. I am now laughing so hard that I have to lean on my pitchfork for support.

During the rest of Murray's meal, Dave stands in his stall. Every time Murray lifts his head, Dave follows his movement with his bucket, and manages to catch most of the falling feed. When Murray's just about finished, Dave empties his buckets back into his feed tub. It's probably the closest Murray has ever come to actually eating an entire meal.

Getting Rid of the Evidence

The evidence of Maggie's ill-fated leap over the paddock gate is slowly disappearing. The scars on the fence (the splintered posts, and kicked-down boards)have all been repaired-- thanks to Dave and his dad Fred, who was in town this past weekend. His jaw dropped when he saw how much damage Maggie had actually done, especially to the otherwise sturdy metal gate. He and Dave lifted the gate from its hinges, laid it on the driveway, placed two boards on it, and drove the truck over it in an attempt to straighten it's warped, bent, twisted frame. It's not perfect, but it is usable again.

The scars on Maggie's body aren't so easy to erase...though she is improving. On Saturday, Maggie trotted for the first time. Well, perhaps "trot" is a bit of an overstatement. I was throwing a fresh flake of hay into her paddock, and instead of the toe-dragging shuffle she has been using, she gingerly jogged about 5 steps toward the pile. She was very lame, but I still consider it a small step forward on the road to recovery.

Her cuts and scrapes are healing well, but her stifles are still puffy and sore. She pins her ears, swishes her tail, and spins her head toward me violently when I try and touch her left stifle-- very out-of-character for this laid-back, "laissez-faire" girl.

Unfortunately, as a side-effect of her lack of exercise, and of my sympathy toward her, I'm pretty sure Maggie's full-figure is expanding once again. I've tried cutting back her grain, but even when I'm riding her six days a week, she only gets a handful of sweet-feed plus vitamins. If I give her anything less, she won't get anything at all, and then I'll have a cranky, door-banging, tantrum-throwing, head-tossing mare on my hands.

But worse than the grain, is the belly-fattening hay. Murray and Maggie are in separate paddocks now, (until Maggie is once again able to defend herself against Murray's constant harassment). I thought this arrangement would be a perfect opportunity to offer skinny Murray all-the-hay-he-can-eat, while keeping Maggie's hay consumption to a minimum. I'm trying, but Murray eats so slowly, and Maggie devours her smaller portions so quickly, that she ends up standing at the fence watching him eat. Then, every time I step out of the house (or even if she sees me through the window) she looks longingly at me and bats her long black eyelashes, and I think about how helpless I felt watching and listening to her gasp for breath while stuck on the fence, and I cave. I open a bail, and I toss her another flake--which she of course devours at hot-dog-eating-contest speed. Then the coy, pleading looks start again.