He is also a good
traveler. The most I ever get is a little "happy feet" when a
particularly scary truck goes by. I take him off every 2-3 hours for
15-20 minutes to pee, drink, and eat a little grass when available. He
recovers quickly and gets great vet scores.
*Here is a real long
shot....but wondering how he stands trailering.....reason I ask is that my
mustang tends to haul with one back foot cocked back and braced
against
the wall of the
tralier(has shredded the wall matt about 6" up from the bottom. I generally
don't haul long distances regularly, so don't know if this might cause some
sort of strain in the hip over time....
My thought might be to
change this position of the horse in the trailer (if you can, turn him around
and let him ride backwards) just see if that makes any
difference.
Maybe he has sore hip
ligament from bracing himself in trailer..
A very funny story about
the mustang and hauling...took her on camping trip last fall; about 3 hour
haul. On way home, stopped with friend and had dinner at a nice
restaurant while the traffic died down...often do this; the horses get a break
in the drive and have hay to munch...
IN the front stall of the
trailer I have one of the mesh Trail-Rite's hay mangers, that fits nicely in
my slant load. I prefer it to the hanging hay bags that seem to block the air
flow in the trailer windows, if you hang them from the tie ring. The
mesh manger is hung pretty high; the bottom being quite a few feet from the
bottom of the floor.
I had nice dinner and
drove the 2 hours plus home. This was Coyote's first long haul with me all by
her self (age 4 plus), and I was very pleased with how she camped by herself,
went steady on the trail, etc. Got home and opened back gate to
unload....to discover she was standing with one front leg and hoof clear up by
her
chest as it was stuck in
the hay manger!!! She just looked at me; and didn't panic while I tried
to extract the leg (it was cranked up pretty high), couldn't do it, so tried
to unclip hay bag....couldn't do it, so hollered for my husband and he came
and pulled up leg enough for me to unclip manger....whole time she patiently
stood there.
Horse was just fine, no
damange to leg, and amazingly enough, the hay manger didn't rip!! After
the whole ordeal was over I started laughing; wondering how long she had been
going down the road, standing on one front leg!
