Updates 10/26

Here's an update copied from my main blog:

"Pandora is still doing very well. Her weight-gain has kind of stalled a bit -- grr -- but I think it's because the barn owner ran out of orchard grass and switched to (not the nicest) grass hay. It's a constant battle - that horse could probably put down 3x as much hay as she's getting, and she's getting like 8 flakes a day. I realize the barn owner can't afford to feed her as much as she can eat, which would probably amount to a bale of hay per day. So we added some beet pulp to get some more fiber into her.

At this point I'm considering just buying some of our own hay. Unfortunately that would add up really fast. But if I have to do it, I have to do it. What would be nice is if we could arrange for her and McKinna to be in a paddock (there's a big one out front that's got jumps in it now) with round bales that we pay for, but unfortunately McKinna would probably become a big fatty on that much hay. Not to mention that I think most of the paddocked horses come in during the winter anyway.

Sigh.

I know we can put more weight on by adding more concentrates like grain, or adding alfalfa or oil. But it's very very hard for me to do that when I know that she needs more hay and would put more weight on if she had as much as she could eat.

I should figure out if it would be more cost-effective to feed her lots of beet pulp, or to just buy hay. Is beet pulp comparable to hay in terms of fiber benefits? I know a lot of people feed it as main fiber source to older horses without much in the way of teeth. I could go to hay cubes, but I imagine that would be more expensive than hay itself.

Argh. Okay, maybe I will just talk to the barn owner. I know she will suggest adding more beet pulp, but Pandora finishes her hay within a couple hours of feeding time, and that's just not good enough for me. When she was getting 3 flakes of orchard grass, they were BIG flakes and they took her a long time to work through. Plus it was super nice green stuff."

That's basically all I've been up to with her. I haven't been riding much because I want the chiropractor to come out first -- he's going to be out on Tuesday, so it's not that much longer to wait. In the interim we've been round-penning her quite a lot, which has been very good for her. This way we can do a lot of canter work, which she needs. As she warms up she really moves out nicely, and it seems like she can canter forever without getting sweaty. Typical TB blood, I suppose.

After she's adjusted, I'm going to start riding her fairly intensively -- we need to get a lot of training and schooling done over the winter so we can hit spring and summer shows with a bang. Once she's built up a little more fitness I'll start taking her to the Friday lessons for Pony Club. She's just not fit enough for a 2-hour lesson right now, but once she's adjusted I will feel comfortable asking her to work harder and longer to improve her fitness.

She's still as polite and sweet-natured as ever. Pokes her head out her stall window whenever you walk by, always happy to come out of her stall or out of the pasture or wherever you want to go. I've noticed that she doesn't take a sore step on gravel at all anymore, so her trim seems to be holding up super well. She's still a little tender riding over gravel but judging by her improvement in walking over it, I think that may go away with time.

Overall things are going well, if a little slowly. But we have all winter to work hard, so another few days won't hurt anything.