Daisy has settled in just fine, we'll probably let her out tomorrow. Frijolita visits with her quite often thru the fence, so maybe they will be friends.
We tried putting Rocky in with BlackJack & Cisco to eat. It didn't work very well, even though we put an extra feeding bunk in, so they couldn't keep him away from the hay. He was upset at not being with Lucy, Buster & Frijolita. He couldn't take time out from running the fence & yelling to do something as unimportant as eating. BlackJack & Cisco thought that was great, they ate everything he didn't. So after that one abortive attempt at changing, we put him back out with his "herd". We will just have to watch to keep him from scarfing up all his feed & running the other 3 off of theirs.
Now that John is back we are trying the new idea of doing all the hay in one run instead of two. It's working out pretty good, still have a few glitches to fix, but all in all I think it will get the hay handed out quicker. Quicker seems to be very important to all of them. Except Daisy, she's is a well mannered lady, & doesn't rush you when you come in with feed or hay. Her Mom said she had never had hay pellets before, but it didn't take her long to decide they are pretty good.
I do see a problem when she starts going out of the pen. She isn't use to eating her hay until it's gone. She likes to eat a little & come back during the day to finish it. That isn't going to work with this bunch of "pen" runners. They all know who leaves hay, who drops hay & don't pick it up & who they can run off of "found" hay. At first we will probably only let her out during the day, & leave her in her pen at night with the majority of her hay for the day. That way she can eat at her leisure. If she figures out that she needs to eat hay when it's available, then we can let her out at night too.
We tried putting Rocky in with BlackJack & Cisco to eat. It didn't work very well, even though we put an extra feeding bunk in, so they couldn't keep him away from the hay. He was upset at not being with Lucy, Buster & Frijolita. He couldn't take time out from running the fence & yelling to do something as unimportant as eating. BlackJack & Cisco thought that was great, they ate everything he didn't. So after that one abortive attempt at changing, we put him back out with his "herd". We will just have to watch to keep him from scarfing up all his feed & running the other 3 off of theirs.
Now that John is back we are trying the new idea of doing all the hay in one run instead of two. It's working out pretty good, still have a few glitches to fix, but all in all I think it will get the hay handed out quicker. Quicker seems to be very important to all of them. Except Daisy, she's is a well mannered lady, & doesn't rush you when you come in with feed or hay. Her Mom said she had never had hay pellets before, but it didn't take her long to decide they are pretty good.
I do see a problem when she starts going out of the pen. She isn't use to eating her hay until it's gone. She likes to eat a little & come back during the day to finish it. That isn't going to work with this bunch of "pen" runners. They all know who leaves hay, who drops hay & don't pick it up & who they can run off of "found" hay. At first we will probably only let her out during the day, & leave her in her pen at night with the majority of her hay for the day. That way she can eat at her leisure. If she figures out that she needs to eat hay when it's available, then we can let her out at night too.
No comments:
Post a Comment