Читать книгу 9 Wild Horses - S Carol Johnson - Страница 8

Finally spring arrived in 2013. It hadn’t been a particularly cold winter, just white. What that means is it snowed a lot, but the temperatures didn’t drop below zero a lot. It was cold compared to what most think of as cold. It stayed in the teens most of the time. As I wondered if I would see the horses again, at all or soon…. they showed up. There were still 3 mares (2 gray and 1 bay – Bossie), the stallion, the now nearly two year old filly from Bossie, the two yearlings from Bossie and the lightest gray mare. So that makes 7 horses total.

I continued to figure out how to name the members of this herd but life got in the way, big time. Babies. Little bitty beautiful babies were born to the mares.

Shortly after they returned, another little filly was born in the middle of April to the same light gray mare that had the reddish brown yearling. This baby was a very dark, dark gray with an even darker gray mane and tail, a white blaze on her face and one white sock. Two weeks later a little boy was born to the gray mare that hadn’t had a baby yet (that I had met). He was a really dark gray with matching dark gray mane and tale with 2 white socks. And around the first of June another little boy was born to Bossie. He was that reddish/brown color with a strawberry blonde mane and tail, with a very large wide white blaze on his face. I simply had to start naming these horses……

Shy with yearling John Boy and baby Blaze

I could tell the mothers were extremely protective of these little ones. I didn’t dare venture too close or I would probably get the same treatment the other horses received. The mothers lay their ears back, lift their heads and threaten to bite whoever isn’t making them happy. I had no real desire to get bitten by an angry mama horse!! The babies, however, had me intrigued and I decided it was time to see what sort of a relationship I was going to have with these horses. I went to the feed store in town and asked what sort of feed horses would eat. They suggested sweet COB (corn, oats and barley and plus the price was the best) so I bought a bag and then had to figure out how to get it to them. First I started giving the herd some grain in small piles on the ground around the base of a pine tree a hundred yards off to the south of the house. I also put a salt block near that tree. This seemed to work – they ate it ravenously each time, but I was seeing that pecking order really become evident and I was afraid those babies would be hurt as the larger horses all vied for the small piles of grain. I thought I probably was in danger, too, as the pecking order displayed itself.

Feeding the herd around the base of a pine

At first I put out one pile for each horse – mostly because that is all that would fit around the base of that tree. As time went along one pile each wasn’t working – not for them and certainly not for me. The herd knew what I was going to do when I would head for that tree and it was getting dangerous just to make that walk. As much as I thought it might not be right, I moved where I put the grain so that walk wasn’t as long and the herd didn’t have time to start vying for position before I got the grain out. I was still putting it in piles on the ground, but scattered out in a line along the area in front of the house and yard fence. Each pile was a long ways from the others. This seemed to work and it felt much safer because I could get some of them busy while I was putting out the rest of it and I didn’t have them all surrounding me.

Then it rained. Well, piles of grain on the wet ground didn’t work either. Back to the drawing board: How to keep the grain off the ground as the horses are all jockeying for a pile. I had a couple of Home Depot buckets – 5 gallon orange buckets with handles and I got the bright idea that maybe that if I put the grain in the buckets before I went out to feed them I could just drop the buckets and let them deal with who got which bucket. And, it would keep the grain off the ground -- if they could get their heads in them. It seemed I had a plan – a plan is good if it helps keep me safe!! As a result of putting buckets out with grain in them, I quickly realized that there was absolutely no problem with the horses putting their heads in the buckets – even the stallion’s head and the head of the big darker gray mare fit in the buckets. They would twist and turn their heads to get as much grain out of each bucket as possible. I discovered that the nearly 2 year old sorrel loved kicking the buckets around after everyone else was done with them. She was getting any grain that stuck to the sides of the bucket loose so she could scarf it up. It wasn’t very ladylike, but I started calling her ‘Bucket’ and it has stuck. She is still Bucket and I still apologize for that name every time I introduce her. And she still kicks the buckets!!!

At this point I decided if I was going to get involved with these guys, I was just going to have to name them. The gray mare this and the gray mare that….. it was just too hard to communicate that way.

I had decided that the mother of the second foal was going to be called Daisy, short for lackadaisical because she had a very laid back attitude even if she scared me more than the other horses scared me. She seemed to march to a different drummer than the rest of the herd. She was always the last coming here and the last leaving here. I couldn’t figure out why she scared me so much, but I was always fearful when she came at me. I eventually figured out that it was because she was so big!! She was quite a bit bigger than all the other horses, including the stallion. But I also learned that she was actually very gentle – as wild horses go – I just had to deal with her different attitude that went with that size.

The oldest yearling was that same reddish/brown color and I later learned is called a sorrel or a chestnut. He had two white back feet instead of the 3 white feet that Bucket had. He seemed a gentle soul and tried hard to keep out of trouble with the mares. I started calling him John Boy. The yearling gray filly was very aloof and never came close enough for me to get to know her.

So, it is important for us to stop here and make note: we have the stallion, the 3 mares, Bucket, John Boy and the little gray yearling filly, an almost black newborn filly with a white blaze that was 9 weeks old at the first of June, an almost black colt with 2 white back feet that was 6 weeks old at the first of June and a brand new 2 day old sorrel colt with strawberry blonde mane and tail and a very wide white blaze. Why is this important? You ask…..

I was watching out the windows late in the afternoon and the sun was really low in the sky. Low enough that it kept me from seeing clearly in that direction. It was actually very pretty, until things started happening in the field out in front of the house. I saw a solitary horse out in the field. Just one. How weird is that?!? It looked to be gray but with the glare of the sun, it was hard to tell. Then I saw the gray stallion come out of the trees and chased it around the field like he was trying to hurt it or run it off. I went outside to get a better look and realized it was Bossie’s yearling filly. She was running from him as if her life depended on it. At this point I am very fearful for what is happening to this little girl, but helpless to do anything about it. I didn’t know them very well and this little girl was as afraid of me as she was the stallion. I could see Bossie back in the trees just watching. After a few hours of this, the herd took off and left the yearling in the field by herself. She was so young and it was getting dark. I didn’t know if she would be able to survive the night, since there were predators everywhere. In my happy place, I hoped that the herd would all show up together the next morning, but I didn’t sleep hardly at all that night.

Morning finally made its appearance and the sun was shining through the east windows. I went to the west windows that look out over the field and looked to see if there were any horses – to see if that yearling filly was back with the herd. Not only were they not in the field together, but they weren’t there at all. Then finally I spotted one….. it wasn’t the yearling filly. It was the 6 week old colt all by himself. I looked all around for the herd and/or his mother (who was one of the mares I had named – Daisy) and they just simply weren’t around. This little bitty colt was here all by himself. Now I am starting to get very concerned and a tad bit freaked out.

Daisy and Stranded

I ran downstairs and out the door and slowly walked toward the baby who was out by the fence. I wanted to run, but I knew how scared the babies were of me, so I had to keep calm and see if I could get close to the little guy. I had no idea what I would do with him if I was able, but I guessed I would figure that out as I went along. As I got closer he looked at me. He wanted to trust me. But he couldn’t. He finally ran away following the fence line to the north. There was a herd of cows and their calves there and it looked like he was running to them.

He came by 4 times that day and I was not able to get close to him. He was obviously looking for his mother. He kept whinnying all the while he was looking. But no Daisy came. It made me want to cry. Each time he would run back to the herd of range cows with their calves.

The next day he came by again with a herd of cows and their calves. He was hanging out on the edge of that herd and the cows seemed to be okay with him being there. He was antsy and moving around, but mostly in and out among the calves. At least he wasn’t going to be immediate cougar bait as long as the cows could tolerate him, thus keeping him from being by himself and prey for any variety of predator. By six weeks old he was eating hay and grass so he wouldn’t starve, but he wasn’t getting any milk from Mama Daisy and I didn’t know how horrible that was for him. Next I started making phone calls to neighbors because I didn’t have any idea what I should do.

The first neighbor I called dropped everything to come help me look for him. We drove everywhere we could think looking for the herd of cows with a colt mixed in. In our journey we didn’t find the baby or the herds – horses or cows, but we did find the yearling filly that had been out in the field by herself two days before. She was a couple of miles away down in the valley and outside of a fence with 2 big beautiful geldings – she had found herself a herd. I had brought an orange bucket with grain just in case we found any of the herd and we used the bucket to get close to the filly. It worked and my neighbor said she would find her a home. So at least I had hope that the filly would be safe and not cougar bait.

The next day I contacted a rescue who sent a couple down to look for the missing colt. They drove all over these back roads, private and county, looking for the baby. I hadn’t seen the colt in a couple of days now. I called another neighbor to go with me on foot thus looking in places you can’t get to by vehicle. We travelled all over the area around my house. Nothing turned up, this baby or the herd. I had been told he could only live 3 or 4 days without mother’s milk and we were on day three. I was so afraid he would die out there all by himself from lack of mare’s milk or that something would eat him before I could find him.

I was frantic. I had been frantic for nearly 2 days now. How in the world could I save this little one if I couldn’t find him? And what in the world happened to the herd and his mother? Why weren’t they coming back? On day 4 I decided to go looking for the herd (baby only had four days, remember). In my travels I had been told of quite a commotion that had happened the day all this started. It was far enough away that I couldn’t hear it from home but a lot of others had been aware of some sort of battle that first night. A large gray mare had been spotted running down the canyon, by herself, at breakneck speed. We described the little filly and no, that wasn’t the same horse folks had seen. They kept saying how big the mare was. So that had to be Daisy, the missing colt’s mother. Something awful must have separated the pair because mares never leave their healthy babies behind.

The only thought I had was that maybe the herd went back to where they started – where they were set loose. I didn’t know exactly where that was, but I knew I could find the right canyon. It took about half an hour to get down the valley and up into that canyon, because we had to go by road – as the crow flies it wasn’t very far at all, but by road it was just over 10 miles. That canyon was similar to the one I lived in which was a rough dirt road with lots of twists and turns as it wound up the hillside. I took someone with me to help me look in all the nooks and crannies that horses might hang out in. We watched both sides of the road as I drove slowly up into the woods.

Finally I came to an open field not far from a barn and house and there were horses in the field. I stopped the truck and got out to see if this was the herd I was looking to find. They were a ways away from the road and they were on private property, but I could tell it was the same horses. They were all there, including both gray mares, the two month old little filly and the brand new baby -- everyone except the lost 6 week old colt and, of course, that little yearling filly. They all turned and looked at me but didn’t come toward me at all. I talked to them – I have no idea if they could even hear me from that distance – hoping to let them know that it was me. They just watched me. They never moved toward me.

I felt like crying, but that wasn’t going to do me any good, so I got back in the pickup and decided the only thing to do now was go home. I knew where they were and maybe whoever lived there was going to take care of them and I would just have to get that baby out of my mind. So I drove up the road a bit and turned around and started the journey home back down the same horrible dirt road we came up. Of course it took about a half hour to make it back. On the way back we kept our eyes open for a herd of cattle with a colt mixed in, but we didn’t spot them. By the time I got home I was feeling like a failure because I couldn’t fix this mess. Heck, I didn’t even know what the mess was, really.

About an hour after I got home (this was just over an hour and half since I left the horses) I was looking out the windows of my living room, licking my wounds, and all of a sudden, running up over the ridge to the south, here comes the herd of horses I had left in that big field and, not only that, with them was the colt that had been missing the herd for 4 days!!!! They trotted to a stop in front of the house and barn. Baby started nursing immediately.

Somehow, seeing me over by that field must have triggered something in the herd, or maybe in that stallion or in the lead mare…??? That reminded them they had a place where they were safe and could get grain. It could not have been a coincidence. The desire for grain must have outweighed whatever the trauma was that sent them running for their lives. In that short distance to get here (more or less, as the crow flies) they must have come across baby’s scent (or baby came across their scent – I’ll never know which) and they set about retrieving baby in the process. And boy, was baby hungry!!!

Those 4 days were some of the strongest emotions I have ever felt in all my years. I was so worried over that baby and there wasn’t anything I could do to help him. The little filly had gotten kicked out of the herd for some reason and all we could do was find her a safe place to live. I didn’t understand any of it. But the story of the little filly wasn’t done yet.

The neighbor that helped me look for baby and was with me when we found the little filly was true to her word. She found that little filly a home a couple of miles away and up on that hill to the north of me. The family had a couple of geldings so she would have herself another herd of three. There wasn’t any way to get her loaded into a trailer because she was wild and there wasn’t any way to contain her, so they bribed her with grain to get her to follow them home. It worked, even though it took several days; they finally got her up the hill to their place, to safety and to her new home.

So that first week in June, 201, was finally over. What a stressful week!!! Little did I know that it was just the beginning of several emotional times trying to protect this herd.

That kind of stress made me want to know what had happened – especially to that little filly. Why had she been kicked out of the herd? So I got on my computer and started doing research.

There was a lot of information on colts getting kicked out of herds. It is apparently common knowledge that once a colt matures enough for the herd stallion to sense a threat it is time for the boy to go. All the articles I could find tell you that he will kick the colts out between a year and two years old. That depends on how fast the colt matures, and how tolerant the mother is. There are stories that the colts will even try to mate with their mothers if left in the herd. The stallion will give them 2 warnings and then the 3rd time, if the colt hasn’t found it prudent to leave already, the stallion will make sure he stays gone on the 3rd attempt.

There isn’t nearly as much information on the web about what happens to the yearling fillies when they come into their first season. I did find some and it explained a similar story in that the lead mare somehow knows the stallion can’t mate with his own offspring so she kicks out the fillies when the time has come. I have found that it is not common knowledge about fillies getting kicked out of their birth herd. Also, what I witnessed was not the lead mare kicking out the little gray filly, it was the stallion. It is probably worth mentioning here that Bossie’s two year old filly is still with the herd because was not sired by this stallion, but rather by the first stallion I met. At this point for lack of information I am feeling at a distinct disadvantage and I am not sure whether that was just an oddity or if there is another version of this experience just waiting to be written.