Fences, Dizziness, and Beet Pulp

I was so excited when I woke up and felt better today!  I've been trying to ride for the last 3-4 days...  Monday, there wasn't any school, but I started to get sick and before I had a chance to even think about riding, Marri called to tell me Flash had barreled through the fence as she was coming to feed, letting both him and Snickers out, and she couldn't catch either of them.  After she got off the phone with me, she caught Flash but Snickers kept running for a long time afterward.  She said he's very stand-off ish. Yup, that's my horse!  We did talk about getting some training to help him with that.  I'll have to look into it, because I know he can be a pain to catch.  We don't even need to revisit our roping incident from last Spring...

Anyway, Marri showed me how to fix the fence.  It wasn't difficult at all, but I just couldn't get it hot! It was on, but I just couldn't seem to get confirmation that it was working even when I grabbed it. I went back out that evening when Marri was there, but by that time I was starting to feel pretty sick.  She did confirm the fence was working - so I was pretty proud of myself for fixing the fence, but I just need to figure out how to test it lol.  My problem was that I wasn't putting the second end on the ground haha.  Oh well - lesson learned!  I moved the ponies from the small pens they'd been in all day back to their big pen, and got some satisfaction when Flash got a good shock - I knew he wouldn't be testing it again soon!

I couldn't sleep at all Monday night because my headache got so bad and I was so stuffy, and then I ended up calling in sick.  My butt was confined to the couch the rest of the day :(  I wanted to see my ponies so bad!  But Trevor said no :(

So today, I was so excited when I woke up feeling almost normal!  I went to work and was great for the first half of the day, but then started feeling dizzy and it hasn't really let up since.  Since I was having trouble just getting through P.E., I figured riding probably wasn't a good idea.  Instead, I ran a few errands (bought more beet pulp), then rested for an hour at home, and finally went and fed all the horses just before dark.  Thinking about how I wanted to put more pictures and posts on here, I took a few pictures by the light of my headlights and that were much better with the help of iPhoto ;)

Flash making a mess eating his beet pulp

Snickers

Snickers drinking down to his beet pulp - he loves it!

Flash making more messes

Flash's mess.  He spills so much because he shoves his face into the mash and splashes it around!

To the hay...

More of Flash's mess frozen on the gate

Mmmm alfalfa!

Snickers stealing from Flash's bucket

Beet pulp

This thread challenged my previous thoughts about beet pulp and encouraged me to learn more in order to back my point of view - and I did feel that my research ultimately did support my points as well as enlightened me a little more about beet pulp:

Horse not Drinking

and related...

Different types of beet pulp?

Soaking beet pulp...

To keep my boy hydrated, I give him soaked beet pulp. I havent been able to lately, but I'm starting back up again, especially with the cold weather and needing to make sure they get enough water. I board, so I decided to put it in my largest water bucket, add water and soak it in the morning, then take it out to him and my other horse in the afternoon. Around 8 this morning is the first time I did it - put about 5 coffee cans of beet pulp pellets (total for both horses) in the bucket (which made for about 2 inches deep of pellets), added 2 coffee cans of triple crown, and then added warm water in the tub for soaking. I checked it periodically to see if there were any hard pellets and added water accordingly. It's just past 11 now, and this is the monster I found in my tub.

I think I'll cut the recipe in half from now on...

Read more: http://www.horseforum.com/endurance-riding/soaking-beet-pulp-147612/#ixzz2J3KQRo34