Wednesday, May 03, 2006, 19:00
That Was Easy. . .
"Look, Kajun," I said as I knelt in the grass by the barn. "Look what I'm doing."
I began pulling handfuls of the lush, green, tender grass and putting them in Kajun's blue feed bucket.
Kajun, who only moments before was backing away with a terrified expression on his face, halted his retreat and stood there wavering about whether he should come forward or run to the far corner of his pasture.
"See?" I said. "I'm filling your bucket with grass. And you know what that means."
I glanced over my shoulder. Kajun had taken a few steps forward.
In the meantime, the man who had come to trim my horses' feet continued his task of getting out the hoof knife and the rasp and putting on his chaps and leather work gloves.
"See Kajun?" I said. "The bucket is almost full."
I glanced over my shoulder.
Kajun was standing by the fence.
"Do you want some of this tasty, tender grass, Kajun?" I said.
"Her-her-her--hmmmmm-mmmmm," Kajun grumbled.
"I thought so," I said.
I stood up and walked slowly to the fence. Kajun began to shuffle his feet in anticipation of the delicious grass in his feed bucket.
I gave Kajun some grass to eat, and while he was chewing I climbed through the fence.
"Here," I said. "Have some more."
While Kajun chewed the next mouthful, I clipped the lead rope onto his halter.
By this time, the hoof trimmer, Mark, was ready to come through the gate.
Kajun took one look at him and tried to bolt.
"Oh, no, you don't," I said taking a firmer grip on the lead rope. "Here, have some more grass."
Kajun took the grass but never took his eyes off Mark. The horse's eyes were wide with fright, and the whites of his eyes were showing.
The man slowly approached and reached out to pet Kajun.
The horse shied away.
"Here," I said, holding out some more grass.
Kajun, of course, stopped trying to get away and took the grass.
Mark took the opportunity to pet the horse.
In the space of a heartbeat, Kajun relaxed. His eyes went soft and dreamy as he reached for the next mouthful of grass that I held toward him.
"There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" I said. "This is a nice man, Kajun. He wants to trim your feet so you can walk better. He's not going to hurt you."
Mark is, in fact, a very nice man. In addition to being a county sheriff's deputy, he works with a lot of rescue horses and problem horses and has horses of his own.
In a few minutes, Mark had trimmed the first hoof.
"I'm going to do a rough trim on all four. Then I'll go back and smooth 'em up some. If he blows up on us after I get the feet trimmed and I can't get them smoothed out, at least the feet are trimmed," he said.
Sounded like a fine idea to me.
When he had trimmed all four feet, Mark went back and smoothed and fine-tuned and rasped some more.
All the while, Kajun barely moved a muscle and held up each foot as he was asked.
"Good boy, Kajun!" I said, stroking his head and his face and his neck. "Good boy!"
"What a difference over the last time," Mark said.
Last fall, he had managed to trim Kajun's front feet, but when it came time to do the back, Kajun went bonkers and wouldn't let either one of us touch him, much less let Mark trim his hind feet.
"We've had a couple of go-arounds this spring," I said. "I've had to keep him moving for a half hour or 45 minutes before the nose drops to the ground and he lick-chews."
Mark nodded. "Sometimes you have to remind them who is the herd leader."
The horse dropping his nose to the ground and lick-chewing signals that the horse is requesting permission from the herd leader to be let back into the herd so he can eat. Herd leaders, when one horse misbehaves, will drive that horse out of the herd and keep it out of the herd until the horse signals that he is willing to comply with "the rules."
When Mark had finished Kajun's feet, we went to Isabelle's pasture.
Isabelle, who has an entirely different temperament than Kajun, hurried up from the pasture to see who had come to visit her. I clipped the lead rope onto her halter, but Isabelle didn't pay any attention because she was too busy waiting to see if maybe Mark wasn't going to pet her and pay some attention to her.
And as Mark picked up each of her feet and trimmed and rasped and trimmed some more, she stood quite well. Which is amazing. Because I think this is only the third time she has ever had her feet trimmed in her whole life.
All together, the entire hoof trimming job went much better than I expected! And that's a good job done. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Tuesday, May 02, 2006, 19:17
Quiet, Please!
"All right," I said. "Everybody be quiet! Barn swallows: stop twittering. Kajun: stop munching your grain. Kitties: stop crunching your kitty food. Raccoon babies: stop chattering. Charlie: stop panting."
Of course, none of them paid the slightest attention to me and the uproar continued in the barn. It was Monday evening feeding time.
"If you would all just pipe down, maybe I could hear it," I said.
For just a second, I thought I had heard a faint 'meow' but with all the background chatter, I could not be sure.
I waited a minute or two. Then I went over to the hay and tried to peer into the space between the bales.
"Hissssss!" said the wild stray momma kitty.
"Hi, Momma Kitty," I said. "You're in there, then, are you."
I figured as much. The other barn kitties appeared for supper, but she did not.
Later on, when I went down at night to give Kajun and Isabelle more hay, I shined the flashlight into the space between the bales. I thought maybe I could see a faint shadow but was not at all sure. The kitties have been using the space between the bales as place to sleep all winter long. As I feed hay out of the barn, I have made sure not to disturb the little round nest between the bales.
Tuesday morning all four barn kitties came for breakfast. After I had given Kajun his grain and the kitties their kitty food, I peered into the space in between the bales again.
"Hah!" I said. "You DO have babies in there."
I couldn't see much. But enough to know that there are tiny kittens in the nest. Maybe two black ones and a gray one.
Momma Kitty abruptly stopped eating kitty food over on the shelf where I put their food and hurried back to her nest. She glared at me just before disappearing between the bales. I waited until she came out 15 seconds later. She threw another dirty look in my direction once more before returning to her kitty food.
"You sly old kitty, you," I said. "You had to go check on your babies just to be sure they are okay and that I didn't hurt them."
The mother cat has been around the barn for years. I don't know where she came from. She was only a kitten when I saw her for the first time late one fall. I have always wondered if someone dropped her off and left her to fend for herself. If so, I wonder how *they* would like it if someone had dropped them off in the middle of nowhere when they were just small children and then expected them to fend for themselves?
Be that as it may, Momma Kitty has remained wild and unpredictable. One time she launched herself at my leg and hung there, clinging to my shin, biting and scratching and hissing because she thought Charlie was too close to a dead rabbit she had brought into the barn for her babies. Good thing I was wearing jeans!
But I *can* say one thing for her -- she is an excellent mother. She takes good care of her babies and worries about their welfare.
The funny thing about Momma Kitty's kittens is that her past litters have all turned out to be friendly cats. When they come out of the nest at four weeks of age, it only takes a little coaxing with some canned kitty food for them to realize that people are okay. And from then on, things are fine. All the while, Momma Kitty is in the background, hissing and snarling and growling. But the kittens don't pay any attention to her.
When these babies come out of the nest in June, I am going to bring them up to the basement. That way, they can learn to get along with Charlie. And they can learn to use a litter box. When I advertise that I'm looking for good homes for kittens, people always want to know if they are "used to dogs" and if they know how to use a litter box.
Until then, I am going to stay away from Momma Kitty's nest as much as possible. She worries about her babies enough already as it is!
LeAnn R. Ralph
Comments -- To e-mail comments, click on the contact link on the right -- or you can also copy and paste in the address line of your e-mail and replace the (at) with @: bigpines(at)ruralroute2.com