A Tale Of Two Horses

Remy and Blue were living the good life, enjoying their freedom outdoors in the glorious springtime:

But their hooves seemed to be growing unusually fast, and Blue in particular began to limp slightly:

I called my neighbor, the Amish farrier, to come trim their hooves - and he informed me that they had a touch of Grass Founder, a potentially debilitating hoof malady caused by too much rich, lush grass:

So I locked them in the barn to keep them off the grass while I searched for some way to handle this:

The neighbor, who has a similar problem, told me to use grazing muzzles on them, I ordered two immediately. When they arrived, I removed their old halters and fitted the muzzles as best I could:

I'd been warned that they would not like the new restrictions, but both boys seemed delighted to be outside again:

They ran and played, chasing each other:

All their pent up energy from several days in the barn was expressed in rowdy (and aptly named) horse play:


But soon they began to try out eating grass through the reduced hole in the front of each muzzle:

They seemed to do quite well, and I also saw them drink water with the muzzles on:

I followed them around for a while and was pleased that the new muzzles seemed to be no problem:

Alas, it soon became clear that they could (and did) shuck their muzzles easily and often. Remy let me put his back on, but Blue ran whenever I approached him. This all happened multiple times the first day and I began driving my car out into the field to catch the horses and find the discarded muzzles. The time I found them both together in the grass, I wondered if they'd helped each other out of them. This is all still new and I am trying to work out a system which will keep them safe from over-consumption and yet comfortable with their muzzles. Stay tuned: