Another trip back up the motorway yesterday. Time to check my ponies at Hook again. I was pleased to see that they were not at the gate when I arrived although Jack neighed to me and they all came up in a leisurely optimistic sort of way once they saw me. I got them in so that I could check for hoof abscesses.
I ran an experiment to see if Patsy, who used to be terrified of high sided buckets, would be prepared to eat hay out of an old garden bag if they ever needed to be given supplementary feed in the snow. Although she leant forward and then jumped back at first contact, she was soon happy to put her head inside to reach for some hay; I knew the others would be fine. I've seen Nelly standing under the prongs of a telehandler to steal hay from a neighbouring Commoner and lived in dread that one day the hydraulics would fail!
After their break, the ponies all wandered along to the water trough, little used now that there is so much standing water on the ground.
