Badger Leaves

A whirlwind week after meeting Badger, with calls flying between me, Nikki, and the Bit-O-Heaven ranch, he's in his new home. It's still hard to believe that I've committed to this horse, at least for the short term, but he needed an immediate out and horse rescue is what I was collecting money for.

We (me and Nikki's family) went to rescue Badger today, and everything went great. His manners are amazing and I'm hoping it's not just because of the lack of food. The owner still wasn't soaking his pellets though, despite last week's heated phone conversations.

His plastic tub was now in the new goat's pen, replaced with a crusty wheelbarrow, the bottom of which was actually starting to rust through in spots. No chance of soaking the pellets this time, so instead we dug around for his lead rope and blanket before the trailer arrived. Also yes, you read that right, the woman had gotten a goat in the span of less than a week, because we were taking the horse (she had tried to change her mind and say she wanted to keep him, and as we found out later it was because her rental agreement requires a hoofed animal to be kept on the property, so it can retain its livestock zoning). Hopefully the goat has better luck there, or at least doles out some appropriate headbutting.

The plastic trash can that was his water trough had a bunch of mosquito larvae in it too. Those don't live in fresh water...only stagnant, standing water.

Photos from today:

Those aren't rocks he's standing on, either. And don't be fooled by the belly...he hasn't been getting regular worming medication since May, so it's probably parasites in there. His topline (spine and hip) tells the real story.

He loaded really well even though the trailer seemed really small for him (I think they said he's 16hh+, or about 5'4" at the withers) and thankfully the drive wasn't far. Humorously, he also left giant piles of "going-away presents" in the driveway as he was being loaded onto the trailer...

The girls unloaded him and put him in his temporary 'quarantine' pen at Bit-O-Heaven, and he was pretty much nose-to-hay for the rest of the time I was there. He did pause for horse cookies, though! Those seemed to be a yummy new thing for him.

What's kind of depressing (yet encouraging) is THIS is how he looked only six months ago:

Getting back to this is his goal for the immediate future. I'm going out of town in a few days, so next week Sunday will be my next shot at getting some photos in his *new* place. :) Didn't want to bug him with the camera while he was getting settled in.

Since it's officially October now, I'd like to buy Badger his own Trick-or-Treat bag. It's basically just going to be more of the same horse cookies that he got to taste today, but I'm sure it will be special for him all the same.