What cooler is that? I almost never see this style made in pony-appropriate sizes. My girls may need one for Christmas! 
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Centaur Turbo-dry in Cob sized! I do have the neck rolled back just one fold above the last velcro.
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Grundy’s belly is too big for the rear surcingle on the Baker knit cooler. 
I’ll keep it, but plan not to use the rear one lest it be a bucking strap.
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Our blaze orange trail walk. I was in a vest and a hat.
And with that, Grundy is going to a trainer friend for 30 days. Sole reason why - she can be a real butthead at feeding time, and my husband and I will be going on our annual hunting trip next weekend. My farm sitter is my mom, and she doesn’t know horses well enough to deal with that. Don’t want her getting kicked or stomped by little miss grundy. I have full faith that by next year this won’t be an issue, but I don’t want to take any chances.
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Smart choice.
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Good choice! I’m sure your mom appreciates that. Where is your hunting trip?
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Iowa! We’ve done Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa once already - different area for this year’s trip. Long term we hope to move there, so our hunting trips are also area-scoping-outing.
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Mom watching the Old Man = she lets him in the backyard to eat the grass.
Good thing I haven’t done the landscaping back there yet!
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I had about 3 hours of “fix it” work when I got home from our hunting trip. Let’s just say Niko had a very good time while we were away, and my mother is incapable of following instructions LOL
He’s alive, and my mother uninjured. I shall call it a success.
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Oh no
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My farm sitter is my trainer’s assistant, and this is still my goal every time I’m away from home.
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No kidding! My husband just watched my old man for 4 days while I took the youngster to an away show, and this is one of the updates I received:
“F is happy. He has the appropriate number of eyes for a horse, two shoes, and all his blood is on the inside.”
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Feeding instructions are written:
On the supplement cup itself
On the white board in the feed room
On the sheet I typed up with instructions
On the feed bins
She still fed 2x the rate. Niko was a happy, happy clam.
Lots of other instructions not followed and liberties taken, but again - he’s alive, happy, and mom didn’t get hurt and had a great time. Success!
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Pre mixed supplements/feed in daily bags or containers with the horse’s name written on each bag and the bags kept in a closed bucket with the horse’s name written on the outside. It’s what I do for farm sitters. And if you need to, hide or lock up the rest of the feed so she can’t feed more of it
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I paid my non-horsey sister to farm sit while I went out of town to watch a friend at a show. There wasn’t that much for her to do - I never expected to have her clean stalls. Just make sure the horses had hay and water at all times. Neither of them ate much grain so if she forgot to do that it was not a big deal.
I got home to horses without a scrap of hay. But she did, however, rearrange my silverware drawers. Did not hire her again.
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The way the supplements are set up, she still would have fed too much. If she didn’t read 4 separate instruction sheets, coupled with my walking her through the daily routine - there was no fixin’ it!
@SusanO she stripped all the good bedding out of the Old Man’s stall, in good faith. Where I boarded for 20 years the stalls got picked once a week and stripped once a week. She wasn’t familiar at all with how to keep a stall that’s picked daily and shavings added whenever needed. That said - those 12 dollars of shavings in the compost bin mock me on a daily basis lol
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Tell yourself daily that you are thankful that it is only $12 of shavings.
With how much shavings cost now, that number could have been much more scary.
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2.5 bags of fresh ones (roughly 5 bucks a piece)! Bless my mom, she thought she’d surprise me, and that she was doing me a favor. When I saw the bare mats, she could see it on my face even though I tried not to show it and she immediately apologized. Ohhh momma. It’s no big deal.
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I do this too! My farm sitters are horsey people, and could follow the feed board, but I try to make it as easy and straightforward and quick as possible.
I figure making sure everything is very clear not only keeps me happy because stuff is done the way it should be, but also eliminates a stressor for the sitter. When I watched critters for others, I hated it when I wasn’t sure about something and had to guess. 
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There was no guessing. There’s only one can of grain on the whole property, supplements are pre-made, and the instructions were listed out in 4 different places and they all matched exactly. She just can’t read. Love her to bits, but I’m not surprised - she can be forgetful, and was so excited that I asked her to watch him she lost her mind a bit. If I would have put it in bags, he still would have gotten double, and then ran out on day 2. Trust me.
1.5 scoops grain + supplement AM
1.5 scoops grain PM
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