horse rescue – Michele Ballantyne

Horsey emergency at 3am!

Cheryl came into my room at 3am this morning saying something was wrong with Mairsiedotes. She was stuck under the stall wall between her stall and Honey’s and couldn’t get out.

I knew there was a gap there of about a foot high but I didn’t think any of the horses would get stuck there considering so many of the horse stalls I have seen are made of bars which do not go all the way to the floor.

I pulled on my robe and warm jacket over my thin pj’s and pulled on my boots and followed Cheryl out into the night.

Mairsiedotes was laying calmly there, belly toward Honey’s stall, all legs under the bottom wall board between the stalls, her front legs almost all the way under. Cheryl went to her head and continued calming her while I went into Honey’s stall and attempted to bend Mairsiedots’ front legs and get them on her side of the wall.

That wasn’t going to work. Next, I got a long 2×10 and placed the flat part under her front feet, thinking she might be able to push herself back and out from under the wall.

That didn’t work either. Then I got the cinch from a saddle to put under her front girth just behind her front legs. My robe and bulky jacket were getting in the way so I peeled them off and dropped them out of the way. I had a couple lead ropes to clip onto the ends of the cinch for when we were ready to pull. Then I squatted down and began working that cinch under her front legs.

I felt Mairsiedotes mouth on my backside as I was kneeling and bending to reach under her legs with the cinch. “Don’t let her bite me, Cheryl!” I said quickly, coming upright, remembering her old habit of nipping when we first started messing with cleaning her feet.

“Oh, OK!” Cheryl said as she held Mairsiedotes head securely.

I don’t know if Mairsiedotes was intending any harm or not. Most likely she was just curious about what I was doing, but I was not taking any chances.

I got the cinch under her front legs near her belly, clipped the lead ropes to the ends of the cinch, and Cheryl and I backed up and pulled. “HEAVE! HEAVE! HEAVE!” Mairsiedotes was out from under the wall.

She sprang to her feet and moved nervously around, as if she were still a bit panicky. We gave all the horses some alfalfa treats because, after all, they all went through quite a trauma!

This morning when Cheryl got up, Mairsiedotes was all loves and hugs and kisses to her. She was obviously giving Cheryl big horsey thank you’s in the best way she knew how.

Mairsiedotes Gets Some Much Needed Rest

Mustang rescue project, My Horses

When we brought Honey and Bae home, we kept them separate from Mairsiedotes because we were not sure how well they would get along, and Mairsiedotes, being only a year old, is much smaller than the older horses. So we alternated which horses stayed in the corral and which stayed in the pasture. This allowed them to interact through the fence without the risk of fighting. After a while we saw the horses would prefer to stand by each other by the fence in the hot summer sun than stand in the shade away from each other, so we put them together and watched them all move to the shade.

Thepecking order was established, of course, with Honey as top mare, Mairsiedotes as second, and Bae on the bottom. Things were all right though, until we stopped letting them into the pasture due to rain and mud. We kept the horses in the corral because the corral has a base of hog fuel and fir shavings to keep their feet out of the mud. And we want to keep them out of the small pasture to keep the small pasture from becoming a mud pit. Unfortunately, the small corral was not big enough for the three of them to abide peaceably together and Mairsiedotes was getting the brunt of Honey’s nips and kicks.

Knowing this problem cannot continue, Cheryl and I finished Mairsiedotes stall today so she could rest without fear tonight.

Cheryl said Mairsiedotes laid down (in her stall) for the first time since the pasture became off limits. Then when she was done resting, she stood up and went near the other horses who were both standing near her stall wall. They wanted to be near each other, and could interact over the short wall, but Mairsiedotes could feel safe from Honey’s picking on her.

Our Mustang Rescue Project : Part 9 – She is So Smart!

Mustang rescue project

This morning, Cheryl went out to check on Princess Mairsiedotes, and found her in the gated stall, the stall she is not supposed to go into. The stall that holds all the hay, grain in a closed barrel, tack, etc. She looked up from munching on the open bale of hay as if to say, “Good Morning”.

Cheryl led her out of the stall and shut the latch. The next time she looked over, Mairsiedotes had unlatched the stall and was inside eating the hay again. Cheryl led her out again and shut the latch, this time putting a wire through the lock hole and twisting it so she couldn’t get in again. Cheryl admitted to me that she couldn’t help being proud of how smart Mairsiedotes is.

Later, at dusk, I took Mairsiedotes out of the corral to let her graze on some nice grass in the yard. She loved that! When it started getting too dark, I put her back in her open stall with some hay, and turned to go out of the corral. I had forgotten to shut the gate though, and Princess Mairsiedotes was out of her stall and around me before I knew what was happening.

I hurried after her, but the faster I hurried, the faster she went. I had flashbacks of when my shetland pony got loose in the alfalfa field one day and didn’t want to be caught. I had visions of my neighbors and what they would say if I couldn’t catch her, and her galavanting around the neighborhood, through their flowerbeds. Fortunately, she allowed me to catch up to her when I walked slowly. I put the lead rope around her neck and coaxed her back into the corral and Cheryl shut the gate.

This horse is no dummy! One look at her and anyone can see her intelligence.

Mairsiedotes keeping her eye on me the day Denise brought her to her new home.

Our Mustang Rescue Project : Part 7 – She’s Here!

Mustang rescue project, Uncategorized

We were working up to the last minute on the stall door when Mairsiedotes arrived at about 3 pm today. Denise unloaded her from the trailer.

She seemed curious about everything, sniffing and looking around as Denise led her to our back yard. Once in the corral, Denise had Cheryl lead her around a bit and gave them a chance to get used to each other in Mairsiedotes’s new surroundings.

Mairsiedotes seemed satisfied and began grazing. I brought in a spray hose to spray away some cement dust, and that was interesting to her. She came closer and watched and then I sprayed in other areas because she liked the wet grass for grazing.