…but if you ask Nay Nay, he certainly would try.

In today’s episode of As Nay Nay Turns, we’re going to start by recapping Nay’s current diet. Because what else would we do?

Nay Nay’s current obsessions include 4 things:

• Chopped hay (Triple Crown’s Alfalfa Forage Blend because we certainly WON’T eat anything else)
• Fibre Beet (Why would we want to eat a feed that’s NOT imported from the UK?)
• Strawberry Applesauce (I mean, regular applesauce just is NOT acceptable for medication delivery)
• Junk Food (By junk food, I mean almost ALL junk food including peppermints and human cookies)

Does he eat other things? Yes, but that list is his preferred diet. A mix of high end and imported goods combined with a special flavor profile (we prefer generic strawberry applesauce thank you very much) and junk. It’s all very… special.

I’m starting to cut back Nay’s chopped. We’re down from 15lbs/night to 10lbs. And Nay isn’t taking it well. He gets his chopped in a tub in his feeder. He eats in and drowns it in his water bucket (and wastes some because dunking hay is messy work). Now, in the morning, he has taking to pulling his tub out of the feeder and leaving it by the door in protest to it being empty. Oh Nay… To make up for the “less chopped hay goodness,” Nay has 4 hay nets in his stall (tonight I’m combining nets/bags so he’ll be down to 3) — 3 alfalfa nets and a orchard grass/timothy hay net. He is picking through them. But, filling up on chopped doesn’t leave THAT much room for hay. So, I’m cutting back on the goodness of his chopped hay and pushing him over to his excellence of “crap hay” as he puts it. Ideally, I’ll get to the point that a 40lbs bag will last me a week vs 4 days (I’m up from 3 days so…).

As for the fibre beet? He’s still obsessed. This he’ll get as long as he eats it. He’s getting less grain right now (I haven’t even weighed it lately) so I only know by volume but he gets half his ration in his feed bucket when I bring in at night and then the other half mixed with the fibre beet right before I go to bed. The last few days he’s finished both his fibre beet AND dinner. The night I gave him his fibre beet with his full ration at dinner? He didn’t finish it so I’m not entirely sure why. Splitting it up seems to work better.

And then the strawberry applesauce. This is his obsession. He goes into a state of bliss when you squirt it down his throat. It’s the carrier of his sucralfate and he’ll be finished this week. I’ll have a disappointed pony. So, I’m pretty sure he’ll be getting syringes of strawberry applesauce as treats on occasion. But, not daily. Or twice daily. I’ve gone through way too many syringes due to an overly enthusiastic horse…

In other news, we actually went for a ride on Saturday. I debated lunging or letting him gallop around, but in the end it was very warm and we just rode. After a long walk, we had an enthusiastic trot where someone was pulling down like a freight train until he got a touch tired. After that? He required a little too much leg. Turns out? 3 months off leaves you (well, both of us) with very little endurance). We stuck with half the outdoor and just working on a large circle, but he was very good and happy. He kept asking to canter and I ignored him until the very end when I gave in. It appears that 3 months off is the answer to perfect canter transitions in both directions. And a balanced canter. Who knew?! We barely could keep the canter for a full half circle each way, but Nay was thrilled to get to canter and then completely exhausted by his efforts.

I had planned to ride Sunday too, but after warm and sun on Saturday, it was cold and windy and I just didn’t want to. I’m pretty sure Nay spent the day sleeping from his “efforts” the day before.