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H has been riding Junior whenever it is nice enough to do so. It's getting hotter these days so Junior may get a big break over the summer. I did try ponying H on him last night, since it was nice and cool after dark. Junior was mostly too distracted trying to cram as much grass into his face as possible, since we hadn't allowed him out to free graze earlier that day. He was a bit twitchy, and H overbalanced at one point and slid off.
Junior didn't get to free graze because of a new problem with him that we discovered the day before. I caught him scratching his rear end on one of our young fruit trees. He had it bent over at a 45 degree angle as he backed onto it. I tried to scare him off, and it worked. Unfortunately, it worked so well, that he tore off the top of the tree as he tried so quickly to get away.
*Sigh*
This new behavior explains the damage we'd found recently on other young trees. Since I wasn't around to scare him off of those, we'd only lost fruit and found a handful of broken branches on each. I don't know if we can let him loose in the main yard anymore. Certainly not till our fruit matures, so he doesn't knock them all off. I have him grazing in the front yard today.
It's because he is so short. Ezra rubs his rear end on the mature orange trees, because he is too tall to use the young trees.
*Sigh*
At least the next time I'm likely to add to the herd, the trees will be much taller. Eating trees I might have expected, scratching posts - not so much.
Junior didn't get to free graze because of a new problem with him that we discovered the day before. I caught him scratching his rear end on one of our young fruit trees. He had it bent over at a 45 degree angle as he backed onto it. I tried to scare him off, and it worked. Unfortunately, it worked so well, that he tore off the top of the tree as he tried so quickly to get away.
*Sigh*
This new behavior explains the damage we'd found recently on other young trees. Since I wasn't around to scare him off of those, we'd only lost fruit and found a handful of broken branches on each. I don't know if we can let him loose in the main yard anymore. Certainly not till our fruit matures, so he doesn't knock them all off. I have him grazing in the front yard today.
It's because he is so short. Ezra rubs his rear end on the mature orange trees, because he is too tall to use the young trees.
*Sigh*
At least the next time I'm likely to add to the herd, the trees will be much taller. Eating trees I might have expected, scratching posts - not so much.
