Sunday, January 10, 2016

Happiness!

I've been out to ride the last two days, Friday and Saturday.  Friday was just a short ride and I started her back on the safe choice.  Heidi's becoming herd bound and I don't know how to change that except take her out and work with her more.  I know winter is fast approaching and I don't do much in winter.  I do need to get some winter fleece lined breeches and maybe that will help.  Some day I'll get myself all organized and going.  I'm partly thinking to getting back to western riding again, still will cost me $450 to get a western saddle to fit Heidi. I am not giving up on english I just want to go back to what I was most comfortable and keep at it and maybe that will help me?  I don't know.  I just don't know a lot of things anymore.  I know sometimes when I'm riding, I want to do better and I really want to learn and sometimes I just want to give up completely and go back to backyard pet horse.  I know Heidi's capable of so much more and she'd really do awesome with a professional trainer but I do not have the money for that.  I need to find myself some kind of a lesson instructor and take weekly or bi weekly lessons.
Willow's learning a lot, I took her to a horse show yesterday and she was so good.  One bark at a dog that was lunging at her, a lab x heeler mix.  The two Germans shepherds also growled, barked and lunged at her and those she didn't bat an eye at.  She allowed people to come up to her, and she even went over to a few strangers and let them pet her.  She didn't freak out at the horses and ponies all around either.  She was phenomenal and earned her McDonalds burger on the way home.  She's been doing so good for everything.  She will make it to off leash work this year.  I fully intend to do it.  Her full schedule for this year is to finish Beginner Novice Obedience title and go for our CD, Novice Obedience and Rally Advanced.  That's my goals for Willow.
As for bunnies.  I'm still going to keep my retirees until they pass away on their own.  But I'm waiting to hear from a breeder in western KY for a VLop buck.  I'm looking at getting Huffy from Kylie and then getting an unpedigreed broken orange or tort  buck.  While I know I've been one to say stay away from unpedigreed animals but at this point I just want a few pairs to breed for a couple litters a year, that's all.   I'll have my chin dutch pair- Athena and Hercules, the mini Lop pair(Hufflepuff and Simon) and a Vlop pair (Oasis and whatever her buck comes out as).  

Monday, January 4, 2016

Working hard

Heidi has been working hard as have I been to get her working in great shape.  Sunday I was photographer and ground crew at Tamarack while a bunch of the girls were riding.  They were jumping and doing coarses and getting their horses all working.  Sadly none of their pictures are on my laptop.  It was fun, chilly, but still I kept moving none the less. Good exercise.
Then after about 2 hours there, we packed up so Kylie, Megan and I could go over to Lucky Charm.  Megan was the coach, photographer and ground crew this time around. Luckily for her, Rayna and Heidi are both green, out of shape and big drafty girls that don't jump much at all.  Megan made us get a good workout and gave me something to work on.  Hopefully we can work some more while the temps are down, I'm such a wimp for the cold!





So we'll be working on this again some more over the next couple of weeks and I hope by February to be ready for a lesson from Shana.  I have also picked up a bag of safe choice so I can give Heidi yummies after she works so hopefully she learns to enjoy her workouts again.
Willow has lost, so far, 1.5 pounds on the Royal Canin food so I've upped it yet again.  I don't want her to drop below 27 pounds and today she was at 27.1 So we're now up to 1.5 cups of food.   Half cup am, 1 cup with 1/3 cup green beans and a spoonful of pumpkin and her oil at night.  She's much happier with more food in her belly.

Friday, January 1, 2016

The start of something fresh

Happy New Year! 
     Today being the first day of the new year I fully intend to make every little bit of this year be as awesome as possible.  Today I started the year, on lack of sleep I went up to the barn to ride.  Heidi moved to Lucky Charm two days ago, 12/30 and so far she seems to be happy and today she was eager to go out and ride.  I'm very glad she wasn't super up and was able to ride it.  She's still very stiff to one side.  After a really decently long ride, I put Heidi in the round pen.  We worked in the round pen, and I did make her do some bending as well.  Then called it a day.  It's been a day and I'm very happy and proud that she worked as well as she did.  She's quite happy in her pasture, it's good sized with fewer horses on it.  It still does have a little bit of grass in it but they are tossing hay I'm pretty sure. Either way she was happy.  

     I have swappped the bunnies today to water dishes.  It seemed like the right thing to do with the bottles going to start freezing again at night. I'd rather not bust any water bottles that I don't have two.  I only have 2 newer ones out of 6 bottles, and Kylie's got one or two new bottles out of her bunch, she's got a couple of my older ones.  The older ones will be the most likely to bust.  Now hopefully Athena has kits soon, I forgot when I bred her, and I know I bred Natalie to Willie when I bred Huffy to Butters.  I'm going to swap Connie into Kylie's cages and move Huffy over if she palpates positive so she has more room to raise her kits. Thinking.  Sherry got herself a new cage for Blue and offered me her old cage, which is a 30x30" cage .  Like my stacked cages so I went ahead and said yes please.  I know I will not get anymore rabbits myself but it would work really well for Whiskey and her kits.  it still needs everything else pan, legs what not BUT Whiskey has more room.  Whiskey lost her runt baby which was also her only broken colored kit.  To me she has two Chestnut Agouti's, once black or steel kit and four ruby eyed whites.  Still not bad at all for her first live litter.  They should be ready to go February 19th as that's the 8 week old mark and next weekend I shall sex them and find out what she's got.  
     Willow has been super hyper now that she's on a different food.  She's on a vet exclusive Royal Canine diet and it seems to be trimming the fat, upping her energy and helping her build muscle.  She's on the Weight Management- Satiety and she's doing really well.  Only thing I have noticed so far was that she's got a bit dryer stool than she used to.  I do want to work on that as she gets green beans and pumpkin on her dinner I just want to make sure she doesn't get constipated at all.  She does poop more often and everything I've read up on it says that is normal for that food.  I just hope she keeps trimming the fat and building the muscle.  We have to go back to working again soon because I do want to finish her Beginner Novice, Novice obedience titles and I do want to get Advanced Rally.  Eventually I want to try agility with her as her food is helping her build the extra muscle plus she's already really good at running and jumping.
     I'm so ready to get this year under way.  I'm looking at new jobs, an extra part time job or whatever to build some savings as well as continue my search for the right guy.