More Body Clipping, De-worming

Spring is always a busy time around the farm.  Our most favorite day of the year (not) is spring vaccination day.  Thankfully that day is already done and crossed off the list.  We also have our first cutting of hay done and in one of the hay barns.  Another big job checked off.  I kicked off spring body clipping with Lily a few weeks ago.  We've been on a roll lately with spring projects. 

This week we've already crossed a few more things off the to-do list.  I body clipped Chili and I have to say he turned out well.  That is kind of a miracle given that the entire time I was clipping him he was fidgeting, twitching his skin, stomping his legs at flies that I never actually saw myself, and generally made it hard.  He does this to me every year.  Lily stands like a rock for me and Cuffie does as well, but Chili is sneaky.  He never does anything blatantly rude, and he intersperses the twitching and stomping with periods of standing still.  I think what makes Chili something of a challenge to clip is that he gets wrinkly skin.  When I am running the clippers on him his skin tends to want to form a wrinkle instead of just staying tight. So I'm constantly trying to use one hand to stretch out his skin while clipping with the other hand.  

I was so happy to be finished with Chili's clip job and to be done wrestling with his wrinkly skin and fidgeting I forgot to take an after picture.  This is the before picture of Chili post-bath and ready for clipping.  I prefer to clip wet horses.  I find it easier and there is a lot less hair flying around in the air.

We also de-wormed all of the horses a few days ago.  I have posted before about my de-worming method. Instead of chasing everyone down and getting paste wormer all over me I simply put the wormer in their feed.  It works really well for us.  All of the horses eat soaked feed in a feedbag at every meal and this makes it really easy to hide stuff in their food.  The soaked feed part is key because the feed is mush, if the feed were dry I don't know that this approach would work as well.  They can't push the unwanted parts of their food around, they can't walk away from it since it is in a feedbag, nor can they fling the unwanted parts out like they can with a bucket.  I get everyone's feed ready, then squirt the paste into the feed, mix well, and serve.  No chasing the runners, no getting covered in horse slobber and paste wormer, no wondering if everyone swallowed all of it.  

I always have a couple of extra tubes of wormer on hand in case someone does object to their wormer laced feed.  Occasionally it happens but I consider a couple of tubes of wasted de-wormer as a high value tradeoff compared to having to chase everyone down individually and get covered in a lovely mix of horse slobber and dewormer.  Plus you know that every bit of the wormer went down the hatch and was not spit out.

I have a couple more body clipping sessions that need to be done and we will be starting on dentals and having everyone's teeth floated in the next couple of weeks.  No rest for the weary around here!

________________________________

Traveller and a very relaxed Calimba

Lily and Maisie

happy grazers; Lightening, Walden, Fabrizzio, O'Reilly, Lucky and Thor

B-Rad, Alex and Darby

Silver and Titan

Largo

Norman and Cuffie hanging out