As I said, it was needle and deworming day yesterday, April 1. We took them in one at a time. Socks was first. My mom gave her the needle (the first time my mom's ever given a needle) and though Socks gave me a "What the heck are you doing to me" look, she didn't move. She's good for needles. She was not so good for the dewormer.
I can't blame her, it was apple flavoured, reeked of apples and if there is one thing my horse hates more than anything in the world, it's apples. She lifted her head up and wouldn't bring it down for the world. It was time to bribe her. I fed her a handful of treats and while she was busy chewing, stuch the tube in and squeezed. She was not pleased. I know they say it's bad to do that, since there's a chance it'll make her stop eating the treats but that's not a problem with Socks. She's kind of a pig. Half an hour later when I fed her another handful she smelled my hand suspiciously and then devoured the treats in half a second.
Jimmy came next. He was great for the needle. Not so great for the dewormer. Despite the fact that we play with his mouth all the time, stick our fingers in the corner, it's completely different with the dewormer. We decided to give him time to cool off before he became too worked up so we tied him in a stall and went to get Artemis.
After we finished with her we went back to Jimmy. We took him out of the stall and I held him while my mom held the dewormer out to him. He kept smelling it and pushing it with his noise, and then, to our surprise, bit down on it. Unfortunantly neither of us were ready so he let go before my mom was ready to squeeze it in. Luckily, five minutes later he bit down on it again and she was ready. He didn't jerk back as she squeezed it in, he just stood there and waited until we were done. Apparently he will do these things, if we let him do it on his agenda.
After that we brushed them. Artemis lost an entire other horse in fur. I wish I had gotten a picture. I can't properly describe how much hair was coming off of her. I've never seen a horse lose that much, and the best part, she's still insanely fluffy. You can't really tell how much hair she's lost.
I'm just very happy with how the deworming went, I couldn't have asked for it to be better, especially Jimmy. Hopefully it continues on like this.
2 comments:
I'm glad everything went well. Some horses just need to do things on their own terms. Our horses are all good for worming because we dip it in molasses, so they think it's a treat!
Needles, though, are another thing entirely! My old horse Hootie will bite anyone with a needle unless you are paying complete attention. Last time he did it to the vet when he was getting blood drawn for his coggins, who was not impressed!
Sounds like you had a good deworming day for once! I find it so funny that Socks hates apples.
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