Corny's Diet Setback

Corny's strict diet of a meager half flake of hay twice a day continues.  I'm not exercising him as often, but he still gets run around three or four times a week.  He's hungry and unhappy.  The last week or so, acorns have ripened and are pattering down from the oaks in the pasture.  Corny has taken to eating them.  Acorns have a bitter taste (tannic acid) and can be toxic to some horses -- obviously not to him.  They also are fattening.  Sigh.  It may sound like this is the diet setback I'm referring to in this post's title.  I wish.

On Monday evening I cleaned out Corny's pen and forgot to go back and latch his gate.  I didn't realize this until very early Tuesday morning when I heard Bruce hollering from outside that the horses were out.  Luckily, they hadn't gone anywhere and stayed around the house.  Corny had no reason leave -- he'd broken into Sarah's rubber food container and consumed almost an entire bag of  Equine Senior.  That's about 40 pounds of high-calorie horse chow.  Horses are notorious for being able to literally eat themselves to death, and this was exactly how they do it.  I was furious with myself for leaving the gate open and very worried that Corny might colic or come down with laminitis (both life-threatening conditions).  Bruce was able to work from home that day, so he could keep an eye on our boy. 

To my relief, although Corny is an utter pig, he also has an iron constitution.  Other than looking a little uncomfortable and pooping out some of the BIGGEST horse turds I've ever seen, he showed no outward ill effects from his food raid.  OK -- well, he also did look a little puffier around his middle.  He had cause.

Yesterday evening we cut and then raked out all of the dry grass from the round pen.  Then we moved Corny down there and hopefully this will be a better place for him; at least for now.  As you can see from his face, he's not happy with the changes in his life.  He promises not to ever eat another acorn and to never, ever walk out of an open gate without permission again. 

Not surprisingly, I don't believe him: he stays in the round pen.

A little while ago I went down to check on him and kiss the baby boy goodnight.  If he could have managed it, he would have cuddled in my lap.  He looked so sad and lonesome.

But a mama cow and her calf came to the rescue.  They wandered over to munch on the mountain of dry grass we'd raked out of the pen.

When I left, he went over to hang out with them from his side of of fence.  Thank goodness for bovine baby sitters.