Mixing It Up

Sorry no pictures... my bad! Today I let Seth and Abner out of their small pen and into the arena with "my" herd. The back of our place is mostly a big arena, on the left (east) side is a long narrow pen (where the boys were staying) and on the right (west) side is a smaller "paddock" which has the individual pens or stalls, where the "big" herd eats their dinner, on the north side of that. Since Fred, the rescue donkey who is adopted but boarded here, is on a strict NO ALFALFA diet, and I procrastinated too long getting hay last fall and was forced to purchase a mix that includes alfalfa, I have been keeping Fred in the small paddock, along with Trooper for a babysitter - ahem, I mean company - because alone, Fred tries to break through the fence. My girls - Paint Mare, Katie, Luna and Skeye - get breakfast in the arena.

So first I opened the gate between the paddock and the arena. The girls immediately think "woo hoo dinner" and into the paddock they go, and heading for their stalls. The "boys" - Fred and Trooper - immediately EXIT the paddock simply because they are not usually allowed in the arena so of course that is right where they want to be. From time to time if someone is around during the day that gate does get opened after breakfast has been consumed so they know very well that the "other boys" - Seth and Abner - are in the east side pen...

Then I went to open the gate from the east side pen into the arena.

Abner was first. There was no hesitation, no doubt, that gate was open and he was going exploring! And surprisingly, to me, Fred did not bother him! However Trooper was dead set on showing Abner that HE was the boss!!!

In the meantime I go around behind Seth and begin shooing him toward the gate. Seth is not so sure about this change. He walked up to the gate and stopped. There is a low bar tied to the fence to keep the minis from going UNDER the gate which they could otherwise easily do, and it's not easy to remove, but it's so low I didn't think they would have a problem hopping it, and Abner didn't even blink an eye, he just HOPPED like a little bunny - too cute! Seth however saw it as a major barricade and there was no way he was going to make it. So I asked him again and he decided he was going back to the other end of the pen... I headed him off, back toward the gate and asked again, wondering if I was going to have to get a halter and lead, but this time he gave the same little bunny hop and over he went! So I shut the gate quickly because Fred was thinking maybe he should come IN the east side pen and see if they had left any food or anything else interesting...

Meanwhile poor Abner is being told in no uncertain terms that Trooper is THE BOSS. Abner is no softy though, and he gives as good as he gets... I watch for a while to make sure no one gets too serious and I guess Trooper finally was satisfied that Abner got the message as he wandered off, and was totally ignoring both the "new boys" by dinner time. The weirdest thing to me is that he never even bothered with Seth...