Not grulla, a plain-vanilla buckskin, as you can see. Big barrel on him, huh? Like my TB Ben, he takes a 52-inch girth in an English saddle, even though he’s a hand shorter than Ben’s 16.1. (And Ben is a very rotund-ribbed TB, not at all weedy.)
The thumb’s much much better today. Only hurts when I bump the shredded-skin part.
Thanks. I meant to answer this one earlier. My current horse, a mellow TB, gets mouthy if handfed, so I’m always careful with him, since I can’t be sure at a boarding barn that everyone will do the “treats only in his bucket, please” thing.
My old QH (4/3/82 - 9/16/05, RIP) was wonderful about handfeeding. Never got pushy, no matter how much he got. Little kids could offer him carrot pieces and he’d delicately lip them out of the tiny digits clutching them without harming so much as a fingernail.
Snerk – oh, he had one handfeeding quirk that always cracked up people: If you offered him a whole carrot, he’d grab hold of the first couple of inches with his front teeth, then pause and stare at you, waiting for you to break the carrot for him. Snap! Chomp chomp chomp. Swallow. Take hold further up carrot. Stare at human. Et cetera.
Update, please – has she foaled yet? Did she manage to drop it while you weren’t looking? 
Despite the name… Madame… I think.
Anywho, I’ve only had one feeding encounter with a horse. It was at a party that was put on by the person that was house sitting for the rural family. It was a blast. But they had a stable with a horse. It had some oats in a barrel sitting nearby. After working up the nerve to pet him/her, I thought I might feed it some oats out of my palm. I know this works fine for dogs, but after seeing this horse’s chompers, I decided that it would have to go without. I was drunk so I don’t remember if others decided to try it or not, but it seemed like a mistake to me.
My best wishes to you and your thumb ETF.
Correct.
If you’re too blitzed to be sure where your fingers are, yeh, not so good an idea.
Rule of (not losing your) thumb for feeding horses, ponies, donkeys and such: Hold the treat on your open palm, fingers together straight out and level with the palm, thumb neatly tucked against the edge of your hand. Basically you don’t want any stray digit bits sticking out. Don’t flinch and yank your hand away when you feel the semi-prehensile lips wriggling as they check out, seize, and inhale the treat. If you give goodies this way you are highly unlikely to suffer an unfortunate encounter with Mr. Incisors.
No, not yet. And no Valentine Baby. We had one last year born on St Patrick’s Day which opened lots of new name ideas, so I thought a Valentine baby would be fun. I think we are due for a bit of a temperature increase this weekend, so maybe the foal will come then.
While we wait, here are some pictures of last year’s babies enjoying their first snow this year…
http://i15.tinypic.com/2hdtmk4.jpg
http://i12.tinypic.com/2ewgjyu.jpg
http://i5.tinypic.com/2i903zs.jpg
http://i16.tinypic.com/30kr7s6.jpg
SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!!
I especially like the lovely head shot of the two foals playing at face-fighting. Such a strange game that is, but horses do love it, don’t they? Sure is rough on their halters, though.
My parents had a half-Arabian mare who used to pick the peaches off the tree next to the corral. She’d eat the flesh, then neatly and delicately spit the pit out. It was pretty funny to watch her.
Robin