Blue And Remy Stage A Rebellion

Remy and Blue have had to wear grazing muzzles since I discovered they were developing the hoof malady called founder, caused by eating too much lush, green grass:

They got to stay out on the pasture each day, but the muzzles slowed down their consumption:

Each evening I would rattle some feed pans and call them into the barn for a tiny bit of grain. Then I'd close the door and remove their muzzles, locking them inside with hay and water for the night:

Not surprisingly, they never liked the muzzles and became experts and wriggling out of them. I put cow collars on the horses and fastened the muzzles to the cow collars:

We had a period of relative calm, when all went well and both horses came into the barn with their muzzles still on each night - and their hooves began to look much improved:

Thanks to a suggestion from a blog reader, I tied yellow flagging ribbon to each side of their muzzles so I could see from my back door if they still had them on or not:

They managed to enlarge the holes in the front of their muzzles, allowing them to eat too much grass too rapidly, and they also began to wriggle out of them again. I spent many hours searching for the shucked muzzles:

And then they no longer came to the barn when called. They ignored me, so I had to walk out into the field, hook a lead on them and then bring them back to the barn each evening:

One night I found them at the extreme far end of the south field, in a section of pasture with more inedible Sedge than grass. A few cows were with them, and I got the idea that good grass was becoming scarce:

Remy let me put a lead on him, but Blue ran from me. I began leading Remy back to the barn, hoping Blue would follow, but he reared, kicked and dug in, refusing to be led. He even head-butted me from behind. He was NOT going back to that barn:

I figured that with the grass so scarce now, I might as well remove the muzzles and let them graze. I took Remy's muzzle off and unhooked the lead, but it took a long time to get Blue to allow me to remove his muzzle. After that, they were both happy:

The very next morning, I put out the first bale of hay for the winter. Both cows and horses confirmed my belief that good grass was becoming scarce because they ran to the hay bale feeder and stood there for hours, gobbling up the hay. Winter does appear to be arriving early this year, but for now, all is well in the south field pasture: