Yesterday we dewormed the horses and donkey. I wanted to get pictures, hoping I could get them making a funny face or something.... err they turned out boring and pretty horrible... taking pictures of the deworming process is more difficult than I thought it would be haha!
We started out with Zep. Since he's half wild and not halter broke (yeah I fail lol) we have to build a pen to put him in. He was already in the round pen (that isn't round right now) playing with a feed bucket, so I just closed the door, then we put up another panel to make a three sided square in one corner. Then we follow him slowly so that he walked into the corner. When he realizes he's trapped he turns to face us and then he freezes. Once he's caught he always freezes. It's kind of sad. You would think by now he would know we aren't out to hurt him.
So after getting him in the corner I put the halter on him easily. I was standing in front of him to block his escape the whole time because if he bolts you can't hold on to him. He doesn't understand halter pressure or leading at all. Then we gave him his dewormer, scratched and petted him a bit, then unhaltered him and let him go. Not dramatic at all. It was hard to get good pictures because I couldn't move from where I was or back up to get better shots.
He's really good about his dewormer. He never fights it. Something he even tries to eat the tube lol.
Next up was Faran. He has to have one and a half tubes of dewormer because he weighs more than what one tube will do. He doesn't like being dewormed at all and tries to walk away, but he doesn't pull or try to bolt. He moves his head away for the first tube, but he's always perfect for the second tube. :)
You can't see it, but the tube is in Faran's mouth here.
This was the best "making faces" picture I got. He didn't like the flavor lol.
Chrome was last. I always give him his dewormer, without a halter or lead rope, and I forgot about getting pictures. My hubby got one. It's awful and I look gross, but it shows me giving it to him without a halter. :) Such a good boy.
I'm so happy deworming is almost a non-event around here. I guess having to corral my wild donkey is sort of an event, but it's not hard hehe.
my donkey says, "Wormer? For ME??? YES!!!" as if it wasn't a shot of nasty pasty chemicals, but a shot of honey and applesauce. the horse, however....
ReplyDeleteMy horses are calm about it too - we've all got good horses!
ReplyDeleteMonty and Harlow
LOL silly Bellis. None of mine like the taste. Well I guess Zep might... hard to tell. :)
ReplyDeleteWe do all have great horses huh? :D
Great that it's a non-event. Mine are very good about rhe worming thing too :-D
ReplyDeleteI need you to come wormer train Dickie. He hates it with a passion. I'm debating on daily wormer because it's such a pain.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Silly Dickie. You know Chrome didn't like it when he was younger either. When he was a weanling/yearling he got two respiratory infections back to back and then a gum infection and then a hock puncture and had to have antibiotics each time. I put the antibiotic pills in a syringe, filled with water, shook it up and squirted it in his mouth twice a day for ten days each..... after each time I fed him a cookie. By the time all of that was done he was totally fine with syringes, including dewormer. He was very accident prone as a baby. Also when he had the gum infection I had to rinse his mouth out with plain water in a syringe so that was even more practice. At first when I was doing the antibiotics he got very resistant to it and was trying to avoid me until I started feeding him the cookie, so I think that's what did the trick. Even now when I give dewormer I give him a cookie after. A lot of times he will spit it out because of the nasty taste, but he still got a cookie so it's all good in his book LOL! :)
ReplyDelete