The Great Bucket Dilemma

[Elaine Lindelef]

I wrote this the first week Bridey was home, and thought it might fit here.

Bridey is gifted, or cursed, with the 'easy keeper' gene. Anyone who thinks that weight is merely a function of calories in, work done, and body weight alone should come and meet my horses. We have a shetland pony who lives on air and a Thoroughbred who can (and probably should) eat all day. Z is a butterball on 3 pounds, and Farli is lean on 20 pounds, but she is only about twice his weight. Managing these horses together is surprisingly complicated. I need some of those special keyed magnetic cat doors, but extra large.

In the evening, the three other horses get hay and then a bucket of 'goodies'. Bridey does not get any extra food or vitamins, thus, no bucket.

The injustice of this appalled her. Horses love buckets. Horses know (though they do not have the higher mathematics to express it), that buckets are point sources, portals to a parallel universe where treats are piped through into our universe. Anything in a bucket is as wonderful to a horse as a hot fudge sundae is to you, and horses know that buckets need to be constantly checked. You never know when a sundae will suddenly appear in the bottom.

Now, mindful that horses expect to be fed if their buddies are fed, poor deprived Bridey was not ignored. I tried giving her a little alfalfa when the other horses got their buckets, and a couple of peppermint cookies. Alas, just not the same. She was indignant. Farli, Frank, and Z each got a bucket - she wanted hers. (Z's, for the record, contains a tablespoon of vitamins and a pinch of alfalfa & molasses, to trick him to eat it. He prefers his hay - but it's a bucket, and he's always hopeful that I'll accidentally put something good in it.)

I was wracking my brain to think of what she could have in a bucket. Certainly not the concentrated feeds in the other buckets, meant to keep weight on the senior horses. Maybe a scant handful of something.

Finally, the solution came to me. The previously unacceptable alfalfa would be delicious and highly appreciated - if it was in a bucket. And so it was - Bridey loved her bucket with her delicious treat of alfalfa. Justice never tasted so crunchy (and leafy).

[darian hall]

Hi Elaine, I have the same problems with feed. Mama horse Twilight with baby Rathfredagh get grain right accross the fence from the two fattys. Merry and Dapples. I found that beet pulp soaks up a tremendous amount of water when it is soaked for about an hour. I prepare it ahead and sprinkle a very small amount of goodies and serve it like soup when I feed Twilight. It takes them awhile to slurp it up. They are working girls on two flakes of grass. Darian