October, 2004 Report

Once the hurricane stopped blowing and the fires died down, October ended quietly. The horses have gained back most of the lost weight, with the exception of Spica who is still a bit rangy. Smallest and lightest of the herd, she is the most aggressive. She drives the other mares away from their buckets, a scrappy little character.

Hooves look good, with a few exceptions where old, pre-vitamin growth needs to wear off. There is no lameness.

Since the mares look so good we are slowly cutting back on the grain ration and hope to taper it off entirely within the next few weeks. This will leave us in need of a vehicle for their vitamins, our vet is researching having some vitamin enriched salt licks made for us.

After removing downed trees and cleaning up the Preserve, the men cut trail and fenced in the Northwest corner that was former a squatter farm patch. It’s a lovely area, it’s literally a bowl surrounded by old rocky dunes. It’s very grassy, the most lush area on the Preserve. It has some of the “cow grass” that the horses relished on the farm, but not enough to do them any harm. The horses now have the full, two mile length of the Preserve area in which to forage and exercise. We are still waiting for a bulldozer in order to increase the width of the Preserve so we can bring in the remaining four stallions and one mare. And so that we can cut a fire break to protect us from the inevitable winter fires.
 

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