Grass! And a New Halter

So, as I understand it, Stella as a Mustang isn't supposed to get anything but grass hay and alfalfa, and whatever they find out at pasture. No oats, no carrots, nothing like that. Her stomach digests differently than a truly domestic horse I guess, more used to all-day foraging instead of scheduled feedings.

I have a hard time not giving my horse something special. So I thought about what I could give her that would be ok. And I decided on fresh grass in a watered pasture. From what I have read online turn out time in a pasture is just fine, as long as the Mustang gets eased into it, since they might not have had any access to fresh grass when they were in the BLM facilities. Besides, Stella loves finding all sorts of weeds along our walking route, so I figured she would like getting grass even more.

The stable has a turn-out pasture that they water every night so it has green grass growing even in August. This isn't manicured grass either, this is wildish clumpy grass that seems to only be mowed down by the horses who go out into the pasture to munch it.

I took Stella out to this pasture for just 5 minutes of munching. I don't want her to make herself sick on fresh grass. She was quite happy to get to eat fresh grass, as you can see. After her 5 minutes she was fine following me back out of the pasture, and she didn't even pull much to get to the weeds that she usually tries to go for along our walk.

Stella's lack of pulling may come from the fact that she pulled me down again (sort of) yesterday, so I put a new halter on her. I say "sort of" because she pulled away and took off and I actually did let go in time, but then I stepped in a hole, rolled my ankle, and fell down. It was stormy, and Stella's feed bin was empty, and she was pissed off. I guess she figured that the first time she pulled away it had worked, so she would try it again.

You may notice that the halter she has on in this picture is blue, while her other one was red(ish). This is a rope halter called a Be Nice. It is designed with knobby bits across the top and the whole thing tightens up if she pulls back hard. It's not enough to cause pain of course, but it is enough to be uncomfortable. As soon as she stops pulling back it loosens up again and is a nice loose halter once more.

Stella did in fact try pulling away from Mom the next time we took her out after she got away from me the second time, but Mom kept a tight hold of her. Stella seemed startled and disappointed by the fact her pull-away trick didn't work. I switched her to the new halter anyway, since my little filly is too smart to think that just because she can't get away from one person means she can't get away from anyone. 

We'd had the Be Nice for decades now, having gotten both a Medium and a Large for our horse Sam, not knowing what size he would need. He took the Large, and Stella fits the Medium. It still had its tags on. We didn't use the Be Nice for the control factor on Sam as he was old and couldn't be bothered to spook or get jumpy anymore, but it is also really easy to take on and off compared to other halters. We just flipped the knobby bits over so they didn't press on his neck. Sam seemed to appreciate not having to fuss about getting his halter on and off for more than a second or two. Stella also seems to appreciate how fast it comes on and off, and hasn't shown any more or less willingness to get this halter put on than the old one.