Hay...omnomnomnomnom!

*hangs head in shame* I've really slacked off. Not my fault, I just didn't have as much access to the internet there for awhile. But I'm back now!

We just got a nice snowfall yesterday and it's still coming down. Ohio mom came out and fed us earlier than usual. I really liked that. She even snuck in some goodies--carrot bits, apple chunks, a few peppermint horse cookies...oh my! My mineral pellets never tasted so good! We also got big heaping piles of hay. Which brings me to my subject today.

If you are a chunky little pony, such as myself, and food is your main goal in life--you probably go through your hay like it's the last bits of it you'll ever see and some random hay eating monster or other pony may come and steal it from you.
Seriously, it could happen. I keep trying to tell Gypsy this, but she won't listen to me. She'll learn...one of these days, she'll learn.
Anyway. I was going through what my buddy Gypsy eats in a 4-5 hour period in less than 30 minutes. It's also caused me to choke once. Choke is no fun for a horse, let me tell you. So, Ohio mom and Michigan mom started thinking of making some slow hay feeders. That has yet to happen, but what HAS happened is they bought me a muzzle. You see, I decided that once the hay was finished, chewing the fence down was an appropriate behavior. I wasn't cribbing or eating the wood, just ripping it down and dropping it. Sure, they tried giving me more hay, but that just got me fatter, and I can eat an entire square bale in about an hour...so, not really an option unless they wanted to roll me around the yard for fun (there has been talk of painting the Goodyear logo on my blue blanket and calling me The Goodyear Blimp though...). Even putting up more of that biting, stinging wire inside the wood fence didn't help much, I just worked around it. The vet checked me out and said I was healthy as a, well, horse... So, they got a lovely breakaway halter for me in green to go with said muzzle as neither of them are a fan of leaving halters on. Not only did the muzzle keep me from ripping up the fence, but it has slowed down my eating drastically. It's not a grazing muzzle, it's just a normal ol' wire muzzle. But now I can stuff as much hay in my mouth as possible and it takes me 5 times as long to finish my hay! Oh, I don't wear it all the time, but I do wear it at feeding times and most nights.

This spring they are going to try to put together some slow down hay feeders of some type together for Gypsy and me...I'll be interested to see what they come up with.