By: Admin
It is now October 14. I spent that last two weeks passing out additional flyers for adoption of the Premarin foals. I have received an approximate date of arrival of my filly along with several other horses. Sometime during the last week in October is when she will arrive. In the meantime I was informed that my trip to Germany (for work) has been moved forward to the first week of November. Now this presents a problem. I cannot leave her at home to get to know the goats without me being there. What if she would come down with something after all that travel? Who would be willing to take her in without shots and untrained for a short stay while I am away? Who would be knowledgeable and spot a problem with her health should one arise? Stay calm!
I spent about 4 days calling horse people I knew and finally found an equine emergency clinic willing to keep the filly for two weeks. Great, staying at the vet's how perfect is that? As perfect as could be, but the price for the stay was pretty steep and understandably, so. I decided to continue to look and talk to more horse people and pass the word around. After a lot of no's I got a yes. A stable about 45 minutes away had just built a new barn and were moving the current horses from the old barn to the new barn and they also have adopted PMU foals in the past, so they have the space and the experience. It just so happens that some of my horse friends living in that area will be able to look in on her from time to time while I am away, which makes me feel a lot better knowing friends will visit her. I will only be gone a week, but it will seem like a year. A friend even offered to haul her from the pick up area to the stable for the cost of gas. Now, if only I knew the exact date she is to arrive. I will hopefully have a couple of days to get to know her and check her out before I leave.
While I am waiting for her to arrive I have loads of things to do. First of all it has been many years since I had a foal, so I am foal proofing everything. I have a big job of foal proofing the fence, right now there are three goats living on the premises and they have managed to do a lot of damage to the fencing. I have purchased additional items to make her feel at home. I have plenty of bandages and ointments on hand, a horse ball for her to play with and I purchased a weanling size halter for her. I have every other size halter, except the size she needs. I cleaned up an old feed dish, purchased a hay bag especially for her and almost purchased a jumping hackamore, but then I realized, she is not going to need that for a couple of years, so I opted not to do it yet. Can you tell I am getting excited? I will need to clean and scrub up my grooming tools, finish working on the fence, do a little dusting in the barn and some weed eating around the pasture to neaten it up. Then I am ready for her.
It is always good to have a plan. My plan, once I am back from my trip is to first spend a week with her at her temporary home to let her get to know me and halter training her. I also want to bring items to her that smell like the goats so she gets used to the smell before arriving home. Goats are really scary creatures to horses if they have never smelled them before. Once I bring her home I will walk her around the pasture and show her where to find water before introducing her to the goats. When goat introduction time comes I will introduce her to one goat at a time when she is ready I will introduce her to the next and so on until all three goats have been introduced. The goats are all very familiar with horses and would be all over and under her, so I do not want to scare her to death and risk injury to either filly or goats. I imagine it will be a short time before they are all sleeping snuggled up together in the barn at night. Needless to say the goats will welcome her as the new herd leader. They are lost without their previous horse herd leader and are a bit frightened without him. He was their protector and they moved with him around the pasture and curled up next to him at night.
Plans for the next couple of months in brief. She will learn all basics, grooming, hooves being picked up, walking readily with me and coming when whistled to or called and backing. I will post more as I know more about her arrival.
