Musical Feed Tubs

Recently I rearranged the herd a little bit.  Cole my Connemara has been brought in from the west pasture now that we are nearing the end of grass growing season, and is now in a paddock in the front.  Highboy is his roommate.  They are a comical pair.  Short, squatty, overweight, white marshmallow Cole standing next to stretched out, tall, thin, narrow, bay Highboy.  Cole always wants to be in charge of the herd, but if he is in a position of power he becomes a terrible tyrant.  Highboy fortunately is over Cole in the hierarchy.  This new living situation lends itself to some hilarity, especially the first couple days they were together.

Highboy arrived in the paddock, and immediately began to herd Cole around.  If Cole stopped, Highboy would shove him with a shoulder/head/hip, and if that didn't get Cole moving again Highboy would nip him in the armpit or behind his knee.  Poor overweight Cole eventually got to the point where he would just walk slow circles around the pen, and each time they passed the big round hay bale Cole would snatch a mouthful of hay to fortify himself for the next lap.

The next tricky part was feeding Highboy his mash.  Highboy gets a large amount of mash twice daily in order for his weight to keep up with his metabolism and busy nature.  He also is not particularly food motivated.  When I dumped Highboy's mash for the first feeding in the new living quarters, he emphatically chased Cole away from the tub two or three times.  However, Cole has not achieved his pot-bellied physique by taking no for an answer.  Cole repetitively asked, "Please?  How about now?  Or now?  Please?"  Highboy gave up relatively quickly and allowed Cole to share the mash.

Unfortunately sharing with Cole is a little like sharing with a vacuum cleaner.  He just sort of yawns and the food is gone.  I could see that Highboy wasn't going to get nearly enough of his own mash, and Cole was going to nab most of the meal, which he definitely did not need.

I took Cole out of the paddock and turned him out with Dewey (who eats his food with gusto and was done).  The two of them then proceeded to "neener-neener" Highboy over the fence.  They ran laps around the outside while Highboy leaped around inside, demanding that they come back here and finish what they started!  Highboy still wasn't eating because he was so involved with the game of Neener-neener.

Next I set up a tying area in the loafing shed inside the paddock with Cole and Highboy.  I have to tie Cole carefully, because he is absolutely brilliant about getting loose, especially when motivated by mash.  The clip on the lead rope must be a bull snap, a puzzling piece of metal that many humans can barely operate.  If I use a regular snap Cole can undo it by grasping it with his lips and flicking it open with his tongue.  I've watched him do it.  I also have to use a rope halter tied securely on his face, because he knows exactly how much pressure to apply to get a breakaway halter to tear, and he is able to finagle his way out of a regular leather halter by rubbing a taut lead rope over the crown piece, thus lifting the halter off over his ears without ever undoing a buckle.

Once Cole was securely fastened in the loafing shed, I fed Highboy his mash again.  It worked for a little while, until Highboy got bored with his mash and left it to go pester Tied Cole while he couldn't get away.  We'll see what I come up with tomorrow.