Moole School

School is perpetually in session for my horde of mooles. They're all in various stages of growing up and coming along in their training. In terms of general baby goals for their ages, they are all fully on track to becoming solid citizens, with a few quirks here and there and things to always be worked on. 

Uma:

Uma is the same age as Pax, so now approaching 17 months. She is still TINY but filling out in her body. She's got that donkey haybelly which, as far as I can tell, is nearly impossible to get rid of on some of them. She came with it, and it looks much better but it's still there. Clean fecals, regular deworming, you can see her coat is good and shiny... she's just... full of hay. I asked the owner of the mini moole that comes to the driving competitions, because he also has a huge gut, and she said that even though he gets a tiny ration and heavy work literally 6 days a week, he just has it and that's that. Boo. 

She has really started to mentally mature a lot more over the course of her yearling year. She is still weird about a lot of things, like you can't just walk up to her in the pasture, nor can you put your hands on her body unless she is tied up, but I think that will continue to get better as it generally has been (slowly). Baby mooles are kind of like horrible obnoxious teenagers. You think baby horses are bad, try dealing with all of their crap but with a donkey brain in there!

Things she does well: halter, lead, tie, wear a flymask, flyspray, stand for hoofcare, stand more or less still to be brushed off, sort of stand for mane clipping, wearing boots

Things she does not do well: body clipping, trailering (haven't tried!), bathing (she likes water but not being sprayed with the hose yet), and not very fond of general touches from people if she wasn't expecting them - just needs more work on that!

Zu:

This little dude is continuing to impress me. It just goes to show that it is SO IMPORTANT to get your hands on these guys as soon as they are born. It makes ALL the difference. He has no meanness in him whatsoever and he loves people and attention. It is very rare to get that sweet adorable temperament in a zebroid, and it has to be cultivated. He's a testament to his breeder's program. 

He's a million times easier than all of the mules, which is really saying something. It's all because of his early formative training - they were all feral or mishandled, and he was neither. He was handled straight away as a baby, and it makes a difference.

Things he does well: Easy to catch, halters, leads, ties, trailers (although he has not been in my trailer), clipping, grooming, flymask, wears harness, wears bridle (but still learning about the bit), lunges in harness, starting to long line and learn about steering, ponies, wears boots and wraps, stands for hoofcare

Things he does not do well: Not a fan of baths (although he loves water), or flyspray (but he tolerates it), needs to be a little more secure by himself (the world is scary when you're alone without your herd!) 

Lendri:

I long lined Lendri off the property for the first time ever the other day, and nobody died! She actually surprised me with how good she was. She has technically been hitched once, but I feel that she needs to be much steadier in the long lines before we hitch again. There is so much that can go wrong when hitching a greenie so the more I can do on the ground the better. I still am not compeltely convinced that she is going to make a perfect driving moole - she is still so reactive to things sometimes - but I am going to give it the full benefit of my time, because she has come SO far and I'm not ready to give it up just yet. 

Things she does well: Easy to catch (runs over!), halters, leads, ties, trailers, mane and body clipping, grooming, flymask, wears harness and bridle, lunges in harness and sidereins, stands for hoofcare, flyspray, long lines, ponies, wears boots and wraps, has been hitched once without issue

Things she does not do well: Hates baths! Tolerates it but is pretty sure I am spraying her with acid. Still can be quite reactive and flinchy to basically anything that touches her that she is not sure about. 

Sriracha:

I ordered a new bit for Sriracha - it's a little butterfly mullen mouth driving bit that is mini sized. I should be able to use it on Lendri as well, as it is a 3.75" (standard mini size is 3.5"). For comparison, Lendri can go either in the 3.5" or the 4" that I use for Zu, but she does seem to prefer the 4", which is a single jointed sweet iron snaffle. I don't know that Zu will fit into it, but I might try it on him for giggles. I haven't tried the bridle on her since the last time when she stuck her tongue over it and cut it - it was only her second time wearing a bridle and I didn't want to repeat the incident until I switched bits. 

Things she does well: Halters, leads, ties, trailers, mane clipping, grooming, flymask, wears harness, learning to lunge in harness, stands for hoofcare, flyspray, happy to go out alone and do things, wears front boots

Things she does not do well: Not a fan of baths, still sligtly funny about her tail and back legs being handled (although getting better every time), having difficulty accepting the bit and bridle. She's only been not-feral for a few months so it's pretty good, all of it!

Tried the (sans bit, sans adjustment) blinkered bridle on Zu... as you can see he really cares. He was looking around for a minute though going, uhhh I can't see?

How not to wear your flymask

Hot Hot Heat

As other Texas bloggers have recently been writing about, it's hot. Like, really hot. Like really REALLY REALLY HOT in Texas right now. I'm starting to think Dylan torqued his leg just because he wanted a summer break from the heat. Can't really fault that logic. 

His leg is looking good and he seems quite sound. The leg isn't as *perfectly* tight as the other one, but it may never be exactly the same. He goes back on Friday for a two-week checkup ultrasound and lameness evaluation. Dr. H was pretty optimistic that he would be back to work within pretty short order, so I am hoping we get some good news. He's been completely out of wraps for about a week - it's SO HOT right now that I felt like wrapping was just keeping excess heat in, and not helping anything. He still gets poulticed and coldhosed, and during the day has been back in his fly leggings (because he is a man baby and bug bites make him chew on his poor widdle leggies). I've been thinking I should get him a pair of Equisleeves, which are less hot and bulky than standard quilts and have the dual purpose of not letting the bugs bother him. Anyone use them and like them? I've never used a pair before. 

The temporarily out of commision fatties club

O's kind of getting a belly on her isn't she! Well, it could be just fat... but.... we'll say it's a wee baby bump. Her udders are changing too, which I find super interesting. Her baby is about the size of a kitten right now, so certainly not very big yet. She's completely peaceful and zenned out with her pregnancy hormones - she's such a nice, quiet, sensible mare when she's not in heat! I miss working her, but she gets groomed and doted on every day which she finds quite agreeable. 

In the meantime while I wait for Dylan to heal up, and despite the heat, there are a bunch of wee babes and youngsters to be worked!

Lendri's first ponying

Love/hate relationship. Lendri loves P, and P hates her. 

Good baby!

P is not sure when she got signed up for resident baby-dragger, but she is pretty certain that she did not authorize that assignment. Luckily, the more she gets ridden the better she is, so even though she tends to gripe about it when we first get going, once she is out on the trail she is all ears forward and marching onward. Her soundness actually feels better now that she is starting to be ridden more often - she may have just needed to grease her joints up and get moving, since she is the one who basically parks herself at the haybag and never EVER leaves. She is that lazy slob that eats twice as much as anyone else, poops twice as much, and walks 5 feet to her pooping spot, 5 feet to the water trough, and 5 feet back to the haybag. She never goes ANYWHERE else. So I don't feel too bad putting her back to light trail work, because she needs to move way more than she does!

She really is a great pony horse. She gets on with anyone, drags them when they don't want to go, doesn't get upset if they do something silly, and just keeps marching along no matter what happens. She also stands parked immobile, which is immeasurably useful, especially when teaching babies about standing still. Pax is probably the least wiggly baby I've ever met, which is nice. She stands still for everything, including standing whenever we stop while out ponying. Pax gets better every time we pony, although I did start putting a rope halter on her to remind her about her manners. She about pulled my arm out of my socket when she tried dragging us all a few pony sessions ago.

And Lendri is now starting to pony too! She went for her first ponying lesson yesterday and did very well. I originally put the Be Nice halter on her, anticipating some trouble, but it actually caused more problems (i.e. her putting on the brakes and refusing to move) that I took it off and just used her regular halter. She surprised me with how well she can keep up with Pmare! She is a FAT little sausage so ponying is really a good thing for her - gets her exercised!



And Sriracha is still the Valedictorian of the mooles. She is so incredibly smart! Not having any prior handling has actually been the biggest benefit of all - she's just this totally open book, waiting to be written in. She's learning at such a high rate of speed that it just floors me every time I work with her. And I don't work with her every day either - every day, she gets a cookie and gets petted a bit and talked to, but certainly not pulled out of the field and worked with. Whenever she does get worked with, if something makes her unsure, she might wiggle and flinch, but as soon as she realizes whatever it is isn't going to hurt her, she is immediately fine. Today she let me pick out her hind feet for the first time, and it was SO worth it to wait for her to come around for that. I tossed a saddle pad on and off her a few times, which she was a bit flinchy about, but then on a whim I decided to show her the harness and see how she reacted.

In about 2 minutes, she was wearing it fully girthed, crupper and breeching included, like she had been doing it her entire life. As is usual with her, she was super squinchy when I pulled up her tail - which I had never touched before - but she was completely fine with it once she realized it was all right. I've been lunging Lendri in harness for months now and I STILL have trouble getting her crupper on, every time. (Admittedly I'm 100% sure Lendri was abused.)

Piece of cake. I honestly think she won't be all that hard to teach to drive. I've had my lingering doubts about whether or not Lendri will ever really be a driving candidate or not, but I have no doubts about Sriracha.


Now we just have to get Dylan well... if I can find him under all the dirt that is....

Baby Horse School

Having several young horses/mules at a time makes for hilarious fun times. I currently have two yearlings (Pax and Uma) and one two year old (Sriracha), and maaaaay be adding a new secret two year old to the herd sometime in the near future... but more on that later!

I'm of course in no way a trainer (like, not at ALL), but I'm pretty decent at putting a good solid foundation on the babies, at least on the ground. They have a checklist of "stuff" they learn in their yearling, two year old, and three year old years and I'm always trying to finesse this to make it the most well-rounded and low-stress experience that I can for them. I've worked with many youngsters over the years but Pax is my first homebred, and as such I've really had the chance to play with this and customize it. I'm currently trying to sort through the list of things I want all of my babies to be doing well in their first years. Pax had a grand head start over the mooles because she is bred from solid-minded stock and I started working with her from the very moment she was born, but it has been a bit trickier with the other two. They are mules so they are just different, plus they had had zero interaction with humans when I first got them. I'm certainly not perfect - in fact I think I may have really missed the boat on working with Pax's ears properly! - so I'm going to keep trying to improve it with every babe I work with.

The one thing the mules have that Pax has much less of is a healthy respect for human space. If the mules are frightened of something they tend to spook away from me, even if they are between the scary thing and myself. Pax's first instinct is to leap into my arms every time something worries her or she gets a bit fractious, which is both annoying and potentially dangerous. She has gotten VASTLY better about this as she mentally matures, but it's something that makes training goals completely different for them all. The mules need to constantly be reminded that my touch is a good thing, and Pax needs to be reminded that sometimes my touch means get the hell out of my space you giant terrible monster. 

Bathtime!

Maximum Derp

In general, I expect all of my babies to be able to do these things at these stages of life (if all goes well):


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yearling Year:

Halter and lead

Be easy to catch in the field

Tie

 Trailer

Stand for hoofcare

Clippers

Flyspray

Bathing

Basic groundwork

Being ponied or led out for trail rides/off property

General despooking - tarps, balloons, umbrellas, bags, etc

Not kill anybody during vetwork

Maybe they can go to a local show or two if they are mentally ready for it, but I'm just not in a hurry like that. Why do it? They need to learn how to be solid citizens, but they're just babies. It will come. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Year Old Year:

Continue with all the things they learned as yearlings, plus:

Wearing a saddle or harness

Wearing a bridle with bit (especially for in hand showing)

Some in hand shows 

More off-property adventures, either in hand or ponying

Tiny Mule Specific: Learning the basics of lunging and roundpenning

I'm not adverse in their two year old year to learn the *very* basics of lunging and roundpenning - i.e. go and whoa - but it is an awful lot of stress on those very fragile joints. Better to do things like go be ponied and get lots of miles in just seeing stuff. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three Year Old Year:

Continue with all the things they learned as two year olds, plus:

Learning how to lunge/roundpen more in-depth (but still, keeping circling to a minimum)

Long lining/ground driving

Riding Specific: Basic backing (sitting on them, steering, stop and go, don't kill anybody)

Driving Specific: Learning about draft shafts, dragging a tire or small sled, basic hitching

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four Year Old Year:

Continue with all the things they learned as two year olds, plus:

Miles and miles of trails! Lots and lots and lots of walking and exposure to terrain and sights

Walk/trot/canter and basic contact - general green beans riding and driving

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Into their five year old year and beyond, they then go into their specific show careers and learn about jumping, more in depth driving, or whatever it is that they are destined for. I think a lot of them are still mentally and physically immature at 5, but at 6 and 7 they start to put their grown up pants on and then they are more capable of getting down to real business and heavy work. 

The side eye is strong with this family

Pax comes by her personality honestly

I like this schedule. I like it mostly because I don't have any serious time constraints (as in, I don't have to have horses prepped for X competition at X age). I also like it equally because even if my babies are doing really well mentally, having a schedule like this makes me go, "Okay I know she seems completely ready to do something like learn about lunging, but I have no need to push that until she is this age." It holds me accountable for the babies and their soundness. I think people get a little crazy about some of the things they want young horses to be capable of doing as tiny babies. I'm not a fan of futurities, the FEI young dressage horse tests, or the USEA's young event horse program. (I do like the Future Event Horse program though, and do intend on doing that with Pax). I can't see any reason that a five year old horse should be jumping Training level equivalent type jumps. I also don't see why a six year old needs to be doing collection of any sort. Their skeleton isn't even done fusing at that age. It might be my unique perspective, but seeing as many horses as I do, I can't tell you how many poor broken down critters I come across that would probably still be sound and working today had they not be pushed heavily when they were babies. Why are we all in such a rush to cripple our horses? What's the big hurry here?

Anyway. Rant over.

I like being methodical about putting the building blocks together, and I don't like to leave gaps or holes. I like to lay the foundation carefully and then layer on top of it, piece by piece. But I'm always open to added information or new ideas, if you have any! See anything you would add in there? 

She is starting to look so grown up all of a sudden!

Sriracha learning about wearing boots and bells

Spoiled moole

Learning how to whoa

I swear these mules come with a pre-installed whoa button. I have no idea how they pick it up so fast.
Sriracha did her first ever "lunging" session the other day, and she did quite well. She is the resident two year old, so she is ready to start learning about some lunging, walking around the neighborhood, and despooking. Since she is still learning all of the basic stuff that she missed as a yearling, she's not quite ready for things like bridling and wearing a harness, but she'll get there. She's a smart little devil.

Video: Sriracha Progress

Working with a completely feral, completely unhandled mini moole is kind of my jam right now. I LOVE working with these little guys, and while I'm not saying I'm ANYWHERE near being a specialized moole trainer or anything like that, if three of them in a row count then I'm at least halfway decent at it. I can't say I would be as good with a larger moole, or an abused moole, but as for these ones with basically no human experience at all and nothing to taint them... they're super fun. I think Lendri was mishandled some, and Uma certainly has not ever forgotten the fact that her first interaction with a human was when one forcibly cornered her and picked her up and removed her from her mother, but Sriracha just plain never had been touched before. Her curiosity and sensibility make working with her fairly straightforward - as soon as she realizes that something she is overreacting about is not going to hurt her, she immediately settles down, and then comes forward to check it out. 

In this video you'll see four different points of progress, all in 2-8x speed in order to make things less boring. There's a lot of boring stuff that goes on in the start, like standing around and waiting for her to engage, or petting, or just touching her with a long stick. I used a glove attached to the end of a dressage whip in order to get close enough to touch her without scaring her, but as you can see at first she was pretty averse to even just that. I never got it on video, but she flipped over the first time I got anywhere near her legs. From the stick and glove, I moved to just petting her, and then moved to brushing her with a medium bristled brush - enough stiffness to feel good without being too scratchy. Eventually, I was able to get where I could touch the tops of her front legs without her totally losing it, then the lower legs, and then finally the feet. It was worth taking my time for this. She needed her feet done when I first got her, but turning her out onto my abrasive terrain helped to take some of the excess off, and it was SO worth it to wait until she was ready to have the excess nippered off on her own terms rather than force her and frighten her early on. I am now able to touch her back legs, and it shouldn't be long before I can trim them too.

If you have the question of "why is she tied and not loose in a roundpen," the only answer I can really offer is that mules are not horses. Ever see someone roundpenning a donkey? Nope. As far as I can tell, you just throw all of that stuff out the window when you're working with hybrids. I broke her to lead and tie the very first day I had her and I think that's the most important thing you can do with a mule or donkey, teach them to lead. Since she was already broke to tie - you'll see her hit the end of the rope but stop - that is where I chose to work her. She is VERY strong for her size and this way,  she had a confine to work within that she understood without ever learning that she could pull away from me. I'm not a mule trainer so I have no idea if this works for other people, but so far it has worked for me. But I would not work a horse this way!

Sriracha leads, ties, trailers, bathes, picks up her front feet, flysprays, and wears a mask. I still need to be slow and methodical with her, but every time that I am, it builds just a little more trust. It is completely worth it to take my time.

She's doing so well!

Moole Progress

Despite the steamy heat we've been having lately, the mooles are all doing extremely well. They all seem to like the heat, even going so far as to lay out and sunbathe in the 100 degree afternoons, when the horses are standing in the shade sweating. Surely it's the donkey in them... it makes them more heat tolerant!

Wee baby Uma is starting to have *more* mature days than immature days. She is the same age as Pax, so she still has lots of tiny moole fits and doesn't have much attention span yet. But, she is starting to mature slowly, and some days it surprises me with how many things she is good with. The rest of the days, she still pitches giant moole fits, but... ah well. She will get there, she is just a yearling after all. You think yearling horses are bad... yearling mooles are like dealing with rancid little tweens. She recently got her very first bath (ever!), and she was surprisngly great with it. She wears boots and bells for fun, and she let me roach her mane with the clippers recently. A few months ago I tried to body clip her and she absolutely FLIPPED out, so this is a big deal. To go from totally freaking out to being quite fine about her mane being clipped in just a single session is pretty good!

Lendri had been doing a lot less these days, mostly because it's a million degrees out and I have been prioritizing for the horses who are in work. I did find a pony size cart recently that I bartered out work for though! I will need to switch out the shafts I think, as it does appear that mini size shafts were put on a pony size body. The best thing about the cart is the fact that it has a GREAT set of steel wheels. If nothing else, the wheels are worth the entire purchase! 

Hey look, I found a flymask that fits me!

Grooming with Pax

Lendri meets her doom

Sriracha on top, Uma on the bottom. You can see their size difference, although Uma is catching up!

Sriracha all shed out!

All of the mooles got haircuts. It's traditional turnout for mules and donkeys to be roached for shows, so I decided to give everybody the roach to see how it looks. They look adorable! I love it. The foofy manes and mohawks are equally as adorable though... basically everything about them is adorable. How can I pick just one look! 

Fully roached but still hairy eared! 

I've had Sriracha now for two months, and she is looking fantastic. She is a lovely mule, intelligent and willing to learn, fast losing her suspicion and more willing to try for me every time I work with her. She is gleaming and shiny. She bathes, clips, leads, ties, trailers, and wears her flymask. She is getting better and better about grooming and flyspray. and she picks up her front feet and even let me nip off the excess. She is letting me touch her hind legs now too, so it won't be long before I can do them as well. 

Looking so good! 

Looking like a proper show mule! Almost anyway!

Picking up feet

She is coming along so well. I just love her! She really was a lucky find. 

Mule Monday: Mooles Bein' Mooles

In this week's edition of Mule Mondays...

Photo dump of mooles just bein' mooles!

Sriracha looking adorable in her tiny flymask

She is now letting me brush her whole body, putting on her mask, flyspraying her (not very happily but she does it), and she also let me touch both front legs and even pick them up briefly. Good thing, so we can fix those feet soon!

Uma does not like being a growed up moole doing growed up things

Wild little mooles, and a wild Pax, enjoying our rugged Texas terrain!

Mule Mondays: Out

In today's edition of Mule Mondays....

Uma was passed out cold this morning, wallering around in the mud like a pig. With her head like that and everything. It was very, um... special. 

So Many Vet Visits...

I don't even want to look at my vet bill from this past month. Or well, I have looked at it, the first half anyway... we're just not going to talk about it. I've been for breedings, preg checks, heartbeat checks, an eye ulcer... ah well, you do what you have to do!

I'm disappointed to report that that P is not pregnant. I didn't think she was - Dylan has been hanging around a lot near the corner of the fence and talking to her these past few days, so I felt that she was probably about to come back into heat. I wasn't wrong. We checked her on Monday for a 13 day preg check, and found a cyst that we thought could possibly be a pregnancy. We checked her again today, and found nothing to report except a follicle that is approaching breedable size. I left her at the vet again for the weekend ($$$$), and we will try again. 

O, being a younger mare with fresh semen from a stallion right at hand was easy to get pregnant. P, not so much. We have a lot of factors working against us this year. She turns 20 this month. She has a lot of new cysts in her uterus. And we are using frozen, which has a limited supply and not fantastic motility. It's decent enough, for frozen, but it's not very good. The motility of good frozen is probably about 30-35% and we definitely don't even have that. When we bred her with fresh, we had about 95% motility. She took so easily and carried with no issues whatsoever, so I figured the frozen was worth a shot. But there is a very real possibility that we will not get her pregnant this year. We have a few more breeding doses left, I can't remember what Dr. H said but it's a few. But, a few is not a lot. We are working against the clock too, as I don't want her to be bred too late in the year and have to suffer miserably into the heat of summer with a pregnancy, not to mention a neonate in the 100 degree weather. Should we not get her pregnant with the frozen, as per our contract I do have a live foal guarantee to the farm's other active stallion. He's a decent enough stallion but he's just not what I want. 

If anybody can get her pregnant, my vets can. But there's a very real possibility that it can't be done at all. Time will tell.

Sigh.

Ah well, at least today when I took P back to the vet, I took Sriracha along too to check her ulcer. She has completely impressed everyone with her behavior, myself included. She led right out of her paddock, loaded right onto the trailer with no fuss at all, walked off like a lady and stood tied alone while P was getting checked, went into the foal stocks fine, let the vet poke around, and stood fine for it all. The eye has done great all week, and I could no longer see any kind of blemish. When we stained the eye, there was nothing in there whatsoever. Hooray! No more 2x daily eye meds and no more tiny pen. She was ready to go out with the others. 

Naturally, the mules and Pax went bananas over this tiny new friend out loose with them, even though they have all met her and spent time with her. None of the others cared, but the littles and Pax all went rampaging around together for quite a long time. 

Uma and Pax... new team? 

Taken yesterday - I had her up to work on handling. The other mules were super excited about this

Pax looking mighty fine and grown up

Mules on the rampage!! Pax is an honorary mule due to her giant ears. 

If you're wondering if my filly can move - yes, yes she can. 

And so can my moole!!

As usual, it always amazes me how dull looking the coats of new equines are when they come to my farm. Not to brag, but I'm pretty good at making my critters all shiny and glossy. Even Uma, who is the last to shed, is this incredibly rich red underneath her wooly winter wear. (I did try to bodyclip her when I bodyclipped Lendri, but there was a lot of rearing and flailing and eventually I just said nevermind!) Sriracha will be glossy soon enough though. 

I left the drag rope on her for a few hours, just to make sure I could still catch her. She came right to me when I went in there, and I switched her out from the drag rope to a short catch rope about 4-5" long. It's actually a sheep lead that I cut - they are a loop, so I cut them to knock out the risk of catching a leg, and then put a few turns of duct tape or vetwrap around them to close the ends back together again. I stuck one on Uma too, because sometimes when you go to catch her, she freaks. I do leave halters on my little mules, put on tight enough that nothing can snag them. I would not ever do that with a horse, save for Dylan who wears a breakaway leather halter for both his safety and for the safety of anyone that has to handle him. But mules are kind of on a completely different level! I do a lot of things for them that I would not do with my horses, and vice versa. 

So, at least we had one bit of good news today at the vet. Now if only we could get the other pregnant...