Muzzled

At our old place, there wasn’t enough pasture to really feed the horses, so we supplemented with hay all year.   I dreamed of pastures big enough to feed them all summer.

Well, I got them.  And this is also what I got:

Not even I can deny that mare is fat.

Poor Hudson, who loves grass better than anything in the world, is now coping with a grazing muzzle.  

The choice was grazing muzzle or dry lot (or let her eat until she explodes, which really wasn’t an option).  I don’t like  those options, but I decided that at least a muzzle would allow her to be with the other horses in the grass she so loves.  And, as I learned by observing her yesterday, the muzzle also gave her a puzzle to solve.

The others could not BELIEVE it! Now they could tease her and not get bitten!

For the first few hours of wearing it, she tried to eat, gave up, tried to rub it off, gave up, then stood and moped.  She even went to the dry lot to stand and mope, followed, by my surprise, by DeCato and Stormkite, who stood and moped with her in the dry lot while I was riding Starlight, even though they both had unencumbered access to the pasture grass.

She also followed me around hopefully, letting me know that this thing on her face was preventing her from eating gobs of grass, knowing that I always tried to help her in the past.  This time, she was on her own, though.  For a while, she took to just standing nearby and staring at me, her hurt brown eyes boring holes in the back of my head as my hubby and I worked on some fence posts.

Eventually, she decided she would just have to eat with the thing on, and at last, she started to understand how to use it.   When we got back from dinner last night, I found her in the dark pasture and heard a surprising amount of munching from that muzzle.   I took it off for a few minutes, just to give her a few real mouthsful, but as I watch this morning, she is making due with the muzzle in the pasture. 

Next up for her:  Weight loss boot camp!