So as i sit here writing this from my boyfriends house in the city. I wonder how my little wild things are doing? It is going to be like a little test to see how they do without human contact for a few days. Will they revert back now that they're feeling better? The worm flow as definitely stopped. The grey girl is an eating machine and seems to have almost doubled the size of her belly since worming (on nothing but hay i might add), it may be time to start watching her weight. They boy to is looking better, no more pot belly, and definitely looking much more full of life.



It a 3 hour drive to the city, so i had plenty of time to think on the drive down. A few people i have talked to over the past days, have asked me about the worming of the horses. Asking if i had to twitch them? did it take a man to hold them while i administered the medicine? were they scared of me after? No, no and no. Horses are pretty simple creatures, i think really they only become fearful of what humans (usually inadvertently) teach them to be afraid of. The wild ones had never been wormed before, they didn't know what a tube of worm medicine was, or to be afraid of it, having had no prior experience. They're not afraid of it now. It is how humans as their trainers react that teaches a horse what it should be afraid of.



So to worm them i just got the tube, and first just rubbed it over their body and face. When they were happy with the bright green tube touching them. i put the tube in there mouth and took it out a gain as soon as they accepted it. did this a couple of times and then as just squirted the medicine down there throats. No problem, no reaction at all accept to swallow the paste in their mouth. then went back to rubbing the green tube all over there face. So that there last experience with it wasn't associated with getting fowl tasting paste in their mouth. If i had just walked up shoved a tube full of foul tasting paste down there throats and left again then yes, next time they probably wouldn't have fond memories of the worming experience for next time.

I had a Friend who wanted to worm her weanling. So the first thing she did was put a twitch on it. A twitch if you don't know is usually a loop of string attached to a stick. The string is then twisted around the horses upper lip. Its painful with idea that the horse will stand still as to stop the twitch from inflicting more pain. she did this every time she wormed her horse until after about 6 months she couldn't get near it when she was holding the tube of worming paste. All the horse had remembered was that when that tube of worm er was around, his lip got twisted in a painful way. So in his mind he wouldn't let anyone with that tell tale little tube near him because he associated it with pain . So he reared,kicked, ran or did anything he could to get away from the person come to worm him. The sad thing was is that she would never had these trouble if she just taken the time to make it a good experience in the first place. Even sadder the girl couldn't work out why her horse had such an aversion to being wormed....

I have a about a million examples of people doing things like this....If you just take the time to teach them things are'nt scary then horse wont ever find them frightening.....its only ever what we teach them