My husband and I just got our first horse Saturday! I would say it was exciting, but actually getting her home and pastured was nerve-wracking--especially since we didn't have all of the fencing completed! I told my husband that this must be what parents feel like when they bring their first baby home from the hospital and they don't know what to do with it and worry that everything in the house is now unsafe!
Anyways, we finished the fence on Sunday and she's starting to get used to me (hubby works 4 10 hour days, so he'll only have time to bond on the weekends). She even came over to me when I got in the pasture this morning, which is a bit of a breakthrough because she's been a bit shy of us.
So, yesterday, I thought I'd spend some time in the field with her in the morning and clean up her poop. Our book on horse care says horses normally have 6-8 bowel movements a day. Um... wrong. Try at least 12 in a 24 hour period, LOL. And the book also recommended cleaning out your pasture once a week. Um, also wrong. I'd hate to leave this for Saturday! I get a wheelbarrow full in just one day; I'd hate to have to do 8 loads all at once come Saturday!
Yesterday, when I had left the pasture to go get the hedge clippers, she came over to the wheelbarrow and fork and checked it all out. Kind of a, "What *are* you doing with my poop?" She checked it out again this morning, then decided to have a poop right next to it. Which was terrible considerate of her--you know, not making me go to the other side of the yard to get it--but I learned a big lesson about it: never shovel fresh poop. Yesterday's poop doesn't smell, actually. Poop from two minutes' ago does. A lot! So if we get into this again tomorrow, I'm leaving *that* pile for the next day!
But I find myself thinking about it--is it the right color, is it properly formed? I was saying something to my husband the other day about my being concerned about the form of her poops and he said I was over-analysing the horse s---. I knew you guys would be the only people (except some horse friends that I won't see for a while yet) to "get" my fascination with another creature's poop, ROFL! But, you know, it takes a bowel problem to truly appreciate what your stools can tell you about how well you are functioning. The same is true for any animal, which is why I think dogs and cats turn around to sniff theirs before they bury it!