Thursday, July 3, 2008

The grass is always greener in the other stall

We stick to a fairly regimented feeding schedule here at the 7MSN. When there is no pasture grass to munch on, The Boys are fed grass hay four times a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and a bedtime snack. There are three stalls for the four boys; since George and Alan are joined at the hip, this arrangement works out quite satisfactorily.

At meal times, I dump a flake of grass hay in a tub in each of the three stalls. And then the dance begins. Thankfully, each stall is open at the front and the back so that The Boys can waltz from tub to tub without anyone stepping on each other’s feet.

Another meal, another flake of grass hay... I was cravin’ a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I wonder what those pesky little burros got in their tub?

More grass hay. Dang, I wish she’d serve something different for once.

This stuff tastes exactly the same as our stuff. You’d think he’d figure it out and leave us alone instead of chasing us out of our stall every stinkin’ meal.

Watch out, George. Lyle’s fixin’ to come over here.

Kinda dry...needs a little oil and vinegar. Garçon!

I’m gettin’ mighty tired of these progressive dinners.

9 comments:

  1. Aww, gorgeous photos! It'll never cease to amaze me how animals always think the other stuff is better no matter how many times they switch! But I guess humans are like that too aren't we!?!

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  2. We call this phenomenon musical stalls here. :)

    It shifts to dominoes during the times of year they get hay out in the field - when I make little piles all around the perimeters and through the middle, and one horse pushes the other along to the next pile.

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  3. The hay is always greener in someone else's tub. They all do it, maybe just to see if someone else really has better stuff or to just establish herd hierarchy.

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  4. Great pictures (and thanks for visiting my blog). We have two stalls and we have to lock the run out gate to Betty's horse, Gletta. She's older and eats much slower than my 9 year old gelding. He snarfs his hay down and would eat half of hers if we didn't keep him out.

    Also, from the previous post, you have a beautiful dog.

    Regards,

    Dan

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  5. We play musical stalls too. Siete is always convinced that her mama's food tastes better. How are those tubs working for you? I tried some and the girls just took all the hay out and spread it all around on the ground. I wish they'd be neater when they eat.

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  6. Victoria, the tubs sort of work some of the time. If the boys get sand in their bellies, it's not like I didn't try. The tubs are placed on top of stall mats, so when they do toss it out, some of it at least lands on the mats.

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  7. My what big stalls you have. Kind of reminds me of the giraffe house when I was a docent at the Rio Grande Zoo. They are huge!

    The musical stalls is a hoot!
    I've started using a tun to feed Baby Doll her alfalfa because the flakes literally fall apart and all those little leaves just fell to the ground.
    I was worried that Baby Doll would ingest to much sand or goat poo (as much as try to clean it up, goat poo is prolific around here!).

    So far the tub seems to be working. The only time the hay ends up on the ground, is if I toss in some grass hay on top of the alfalfa. Baby Doll always tosses that aside as if that is the healthy lettuce and the alfafa is the chocolate chip cookies. haha!
    Horses sure know what they want.

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  8. Hmmm. Reminds me of my children at every meal and snack time.

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  9. This is adorable - they are all so darn cute. It is amazing to me what non horsy people miss out on.

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