Scotti is just fine from his choke incident a while back, and yesterday was the big day — he was weaned. We weaned him and the Arab filly we have from Sno County (Ariel) at the same time and also brought Kayo, Julie’s colt, here as well, so they could all be weaning buddies together.
I really thought Scotti would be the easiest because he is so confident and Hope really doesn’t have much interest in him, but we put all three babies in the paddock with the 12x24 shelter and he flipped out as soon as Hope was on the other side of the fence from him and went through the hot tape. We fixed it, put him back, and he went through it again, breaking it in several places the second time. We finally had to put him in a stall after Julie loaded Hope and Kayo’s dam up (Hope was completely calm, never called once to Scotti, Cricket on the other hand was trying to tear apart the trailer). He was pretty frantic for about a half hour but then he settled. Kayo was really very laid back and only called a couple of times, and Ariel had the easiest separation since her dam was just in the adjacent paddock and she could still touch noses with her. Within an hour it was all calm and Scotti was back with the two other babies.
It was interesting because immediately the babies started establishing dominance. My two had been together for months and knew each other but without their dams suddenly they were being nasty to each other and both vying for top position (and both chasing poor Kayo around). They worked it out though and soon all was quiet, until dark fell. Then Scotti saw the cow in my neighbors pasture and was convinced that she was his mother and started calling at her, that went on for about a half hour. At this point it was getting dark and I was bringing in the rest of the horses. All of a sudden, Kayo, who had been so quiet, went crazy and ran through the fence. I caught him, fixed the fence, put him back in and fed them, and he settled down, but this morning he was out and had actually broken through a couple fences and was in one of the far pastures with Benny, whom he had taken with him through one of the fences. The rest of the horses had stayed put though even with part of their fence down. Hot tape is great because it is safe, but it sucks because it breaks easy! Anyway, I repaired the fences, put him back in with the other two and all is calm again. Hopefully it will stay that way. They’ll get some turnout today at least in the arena and that will hopefully let them burn off some steam!
Next up: gelding surgery for Scotti and Kayo. We will probably wait a few weeks to a month before we hit them with that.
