special

Now more than ever, i remember why i fell in love, with training wild horses. They never cease to amaze you, and not in a bad way.The little Chesnut patient, is one very special horse. In fact hes amazing. Its not just me who thinks this, everyone who encounters him is blown away by his relaxed attitude. At first i was willing to write it off, as the usal calm, stoic, wild horse temperament, and the fact he was sick, but now i really do think this boy is a very special soul.

So monday, he arrived at dark, with a huge head wound. Tuesday morning, he was haltered for the first time, and by the afternoon he was tucked up in new stables and had his first injection. Since then, he has been put out to paddock, had his first bath, handled, and met new people, and made his fist cow freind. Yet he still the sweet friendly little man, he was when we first started handling him, theres is now very little behaviour wise, to distinguish him from a normal yearling, yet he has been through far more, in a far shorter amount if time, than most yearlings ever will.

It also has been a huge learning experiance for me. Because while there have been a lot of things the same as the last wild lot, there is also a few things that are differant, and have already changed my stereotypes i had set of the wild horses. Not just the physical differance, where all the horses from this muster appear in cood body weight and condition, they also have good feet, where my last mustered lot did not. But the differance in indivdual horse temperments. The wild mare to this day, does not like her nose being touched, she tolerates it but it bnothers her. Now the little chestnut, hes busy sniffing everyone and everything, although part of this may be him compensating for not having vision in one eye. A good freind, who helped me with the wild mare and stallion, came over today, and both her and her partner, were able to give this little guy a scratch on the face, same deal with anyone who comes to see him. If anything you will have to watch that this guy doesnt start nipping, which i dont think the last two ever even tried.

I always try to start any horse i work with, in a way that will make them happy and encourage them to be comfortable around people. I dont think i can take all the credit here though, this little horse is just incredibly trusting. It really breaks your heart looking at his smashed up face, knowing all he's gone through, yet he still seems happy to be around you and is trusting of people. It sucks he's hurt, i felt so mean today washing his head, as i know it would have hurt him, yet he handled it well. No horse like there head being washed, this little thing has a huge, open puss filled wound on his, has never seen a hose befoere, and this evening within minutes he was tolerating me squirting water directly into the wound. He actually tried drinking out of the hose to start with.On a side note, im glad i have a strong stomach and have seen worse injuries in Egypt, becasue everytime he'd shake his head, pussy goo went flying and i just felt it splattering all over me. Needless to say i tried to keep my mouth shut, and sunglasses on while washing him. Ahh the glamourous parts of the job...

The rest of the boys are still down in the stockyards, they all eat out of your hand and drink from a bucket i hold for them. I could not pick favorites amoung them, they are all so differant and their personalities are starting to show. Theres the calm laid back guy, the intelligent one, that once it feels safe is the first one to come see you, one that completly thinks with its stomach, and tries constantly to sneak food through the rails when your trying to feed his freinds. Then theres the scared one, darts in grabs a mouthful of feed, then hides in the corner to finsih it, if any are going to be hard it will be him, because i can see he's so easily frightened, and would be the type that could go into full on flight mode, it you rush him to much.

Im just so happy to be working with wild horses again, it is definitely one of the coolest experiacne and no matter how long you have been around horses there's is still more to learn form them.

one down five to go

I dont know where to begin...What a day. im not really sure how i want to write this post either. Do i just want to documnet what happeneed,do i want talk about my thoughts on the wild horses, my philosphies.Or do i want to explain my training techniques step by step, how it all works? As to the last, i probably dont, mainly because i write it one way, and some else interprets it differantly, my training techniques work for me, because i have been doing this sort of training for years, i do not want some else trying to follow my advice and it going all wrong...Well, one thing i am decided on, is the that the sweetest wild horse definetly got off the truck at my place.

The little chesnut, is now tucked away in my barn, with his head in the hay bin. He has proved to be the easiets horse i've worked with yet. However being sick, and unable to see out of one eye, probably makes my job a bit easier.The poor little guy's eye had swollen completly shut overnight. At 7am he was walking around the yard picked on by the other horse in ihs pen and bumping into the wall on his blindside. Bad.

Then by 10am when a freind showed up to help me, the eye was oozing big lumps of puss. Worse. with a wound oozing and eyes oozzing my origianl plan of letting him settle in and hope the swelling would go down naturally, wasnt going to work.So my wild horse training kicked up a gear.

I dont do anything magical when training horses, its just timing, and knowing when you ask and when to back off. so with the help if a freind, we got the little guy, in one corner of the pen alone, started by just scratching his neck, then slipped a halter on. the whole time he was sniffing my hands, and watching me. I have a little habbit as well, i always talk when i work with horses, mumbling, usaly nonsense, in a low tone. It seems to work for me, better than being quiet and the suddenly saying something and startling the horses. So i scratched my sick wee freind, mumbled a bit of nothing, and suddenly we had a haltered, not so wild horse..

Sadly through the whole process, i could smell the rotting flesh from the wound on his head, a putrid stink, that im well to used to from recent trips overeseas. every time he licked his little lips and chewed, showing he was thinking, a horrible squelching sound came from the the open gash on his head.

So now he was haltered it was just a matter of teaching him to move off from pressure on the lead rope,rewarding every step he took in the right direction. then we just led the wee boy home, following behind my old arab gelding, we walked the 600m to the barn, which meant walking along the road, through the neighbors property filled with peacocks and assorted birds, crossing a creek, and finally arriving at the barn. Just like it amazed me two years ago, so it did again today. The little wild horse horse just accepted it all, never spooking, or acting in any way wild, just calmly walking along behind me. Remember this is a horse that is not only straight from muster but functioning on 50% of his normal vision, behaving better than a lot of our domestic horses ever would.

Im lucky i have great vets nearby,that know me well, i gave them a call explained the situation, and the state of my little wild stallion. They happily agreed to prepare a antibiotic injection, that they could supervise me giving to the little colt. Perfect, ive had enough practice in the past, and more recently in Egypt, jabbing animals with needles that i was happy to do it, with a vet watching. More importantly even though the wee man had behaved impecably, i was much happier with me handling him, than asking a vet to administer a drug to a horse that four or five days ago was runing wild.

Coming back to the barn with my big syringe and needle, i found my boy standing in the middle of the stable head down sleeping. This is where i felt like the big bad wolf, not only was i going to wake him up, from much needed sleep, i was going to jab him with a needle, on his first day being handled by people. But you know what,better to get a jab,than lose an eye to infection. I walked in scratched his neck, mumbled some more, jabbed the needle in, squeezed with all my might, to get the medicine through and into in his neck muscle, he stood there the whole time quietly. miracle, Poor boy.

Now we just wait and see, fingers crossed theres no eye damage, but cant tell, until swelling goes down and we can actually see his eye agian.All things considerd this day actually went well, hopefully the rest of the wild boys will be as easy as this sweet one.

Just some quick pics, chestnut peering through the stockyard, and then about to receive an injection from me in the stable

The horses are here.

Well the next lot of of wild horses have finally arrived, just as the last light was fading from the sky the truck pulled up. Firstly the positive, it is a far healthier looking bunch than last time. Every horse is in good condition, no ribs showing. Which is I guess, a sign that the management program of the horses is working. There are some really handsome looking colts in there to. One especially caught my eye a nice big bay with a few white socks, a big horse to. The bad news however is that one horse, a very cute little chesnut, isn't in good shape. With one eye completly swollen shut ad massive swelling above th eye socket, superficial wounnds all over the top of it's head, and while all the others came off the truck in reasonably calm way, this one was panting, and an hour later was still blowing hard, and looked to be coming down with colic. All bad signs. Hopefully it pulls through the night, and is fine, I've seem horses recover from much worse, while i was working in Egypt, so I'm hopeful it may be ok. Head trauma however is never good. At the moment I'm also two short on the number I thought I was getting....lost in transit perhaps, who knows maybe it will show up tommorow. This caused a wee bit of bother, amoung the people who had turned up to see there wild horses arrive, and the ones interested in looking to help sponsor the ones I am taking, as suddenly there wasn't enough horses to go around. Dramas, I don't what happened, or where the two horses ended up, I do know that the people who organise the muster and the rehoming of the horses, are doing very good work under the circumstances,work incredibly hard, long hours, and mistakes can happen. Was not much fun trying to defend myself against angry potential owners though, ugh a problem to sort out tomorrow though.

Here it goes again

Wild horses due to arrive tomorrow afternoon! Let the wild horse project begin....again !

Also just so I can keep people more up to date I've decided to create a Facebook page, if you have a Facebook account please like my page! the more likes, the more awareness I can hopefully raise about these amazing horses the better it is for them,

The stallion

So I did the photos about the mare a couple of posts back, well now it's the stallions turn. I think if anything his transformation was even more dramatic, as he really did look terrible when I got him.... Oh and there is one last photo of the wild mare I forgot to put in last time.

Kaimanawa muster

Well the horses are being mustered, the photos are all over Facebook, a truck will be pulling up to my yards any day now, and offloading my newest batch of wild horses.

In excited, this is going to be a even bigger adventure than last time. Mainly due to the fact that the numbers of horses arriving are far greater than las time.

However I'm going to admit there just wee edge of panic behind my excitement. Six wild horses is a lot, seeing as its just me, I don't have an arena,or round pen and I'm self employed and work alone. This is going to be a big job, for obe little girl,especially in winter,on top of all the other horses I have to work each day.a big, big job.
I'm a big believer in everything working it self out and hopefully it will for this. I managed to get a set of portable yards, just in time, as my stockyards currently would n't even hold the new arrivals!

I do feel more confident, knowing I've already succeeded in turning wild horses around. Lucky I did a blog because I can look back on my notes from last time, and make sure I don't forget anything useful over the last two years..

The journey thus far

So I thought I'd put up some photos, and bring everyone up to date. It been two years since last muster, and I'm about to start the whole process over again. So what was the journey like last time? What did the horses look like then versus now?

Well this is the mare from last muster, arriving wild, first handling, foaling, weaning, breaking in and then the show ring. This mare is pretty special, and she still has more to come, but it will always be one of my most significant memories, of her laying down at my feet and giving birth, just months after arriving from the wild.

P.s im sorry these photos are on no particular order, I'm still struggling with iPad illiteracy and missing my archaic brick laptop...