Jacques is going to a retirement facility

Hey folks, sorry for the delay in offering an update. I've had some personal life junk going on, which also factored into my decision to move Jacques in the first place.

He seemed like he was settling in really well at first. We had some hot days and i would go over there on my lunch hour, the booger would be standing inside, in his stall, underneath a fan, with the stall door wide open. That's EXACTLY what I had hoped for, made me so happy!!!

So I was going to say he was settling in super awesome. Have visited him a couple of times recently and he's been sort of stand-offish with me, and has some marks on his body like he's getting beat up a little by the others. Nothing bad enough for me to worry, I'm still very happy with his situation. And I hope that the stand-offishness will get better if I just make an effort to get my butt over there to see him more often. I was aiming for once a week, but I think maybe he's asking for more than that. And maybe more than just grooming, a little groundwork or something to entertain his mind.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the way things are working out.

..... Editing to add an update for the other guy ...

Reggie is doing fine as well!  I've got a shareboarder for him now because he just wasn't getting as much exercise as I thought he needed, so he's a little less than pleased with the extra work.  But I think it's good for him.  We went on our very first ever little trail ride out on our own!!!  I had literally in 10 years of owning a horse never once gone out riding on my own!  This was just a little jaunt around the pasture, out and back in about 20 minutes, not much time at all.  But what it did for my brain was awesome.  He was a perfect gentlemen in spite of wild turkeys calling to each other in the woods and later flushing across our path ... Reggie was like, "dang birds, out of our way!" but no spook, no concern whatsoever. 

Yep, that's what I figure ... it's funny but when we were at the old barn ('09-13), every horse had marks on it everywhere. It's just the way life was. But when we came to this smaller barn with a little smaller herd that didn't suffer as much "turnover," both boys have been remarkably mark-less. Maybe a littel due to Reggie being herd boss too, but honestly I just don't see the volume of marks on any of the horses that I had seen at the old barn. At the old barn, there was one definitive "a-hole" horse. I don't use that term lightly, but that animal was not respectful of people or other horses, and generally a jerk. So I wonder how much that had to do with it.

Back to Jacques, I suspect he'll be having fewer marks on him soon enough.

Hi there everyone ... figured I"d come in here for some life updates.

Jacques has been doing very well at his small barn. He's just hanging out, enjoying life. He really likes a good grooming, and I think would love a small job to do but I see him tripping or stumbling in the pasture at a walk, so I don't want to risk any rider's wellbeing, not even a light kid.

Throughout 2016 I tried and tried to get into a routine with riding Reggie. But he continued to have lamenesses that usually came on suddenly, and usually took 2-6 weeks to go away. We went on one trail ride in April, after which he was fine. But then did our first horse show in June. It was a half hour trailer ride, there for 2 hrs, nothing harsher than a trot, and he came up ridiculously lame the next day. Looked laminitic to me, not wanting to move his front tootsies out of the poop pile where it was soft. Recovered from that a coujple weeks later, and it happened again only without work\exercise prompting it. So we headed back to the vet to test for Cushings AGAIN and still negative. While I guess that's good news, it didn't answer for me what's going on.

So we started up with front shoes in August, and in September I moved him to Jacques small barn! Well that was a bit of surprise, but Jacques was a total butt-head to Reggie. He acted like he wanted to kill him. Barn manager had to do separate turnout for a while. Then gradually started everyone together. It's been months and I still have to be a little careful of the two together, because invariably Jacques will make a grumpy nasty move at Reggie and Reggie will scoot out of the way, regardless of whether there's a human around or not. So I've taken to bopping Jacques on the snout anytime I have Reggie in-hand near him. Goofy critters, they used to be best of friends!

The idea behind the move was multiple ... I'd been growing increasingly unhappy at the care he was getting where he had been. Their idea of poop management was reduced to using a skid steer on the paddocks every 2-3 weeks, so he was constantly in poop when in paddock. Their promise when I moved in was that the animals would always be 12 hours on pasture, 12 in paddock, with daily swaps of the two herds. Then one day each week there might be a run of 24 hours in one place so that the two herds were taking weekly turns as to whether they were "in" or "out" at night. (All pasture board, no stalls.) But then the barn's manager passed away and what started happening was a week at a time in paddock, and a week at a time out to pasture. I didn't like that at all from a digestive standpoint. And they had also decided to lime the paddocks, so basically Reggie was standing around on hard-as-concrete surface ankle deep in poop for a week at a time, alternating with a solid week on grass.

So the move to the retirement facility got him a nice stall at night, not a lot of grass at turnout, and less physical space for him to be thundering around like a nutball (1.5 acres versus the other barn's 7).

This Spring, I've been riding Reggie a little, and so far no lamenesses. The last one he had was December. We're on our 5th pair of shoes, and that is having a positive effect on the shape of his hoof. I tried to get them shaped correctly for 3 years without success. Never thought I'd be a fan of shoes, but I think in this case it's what he needed. Hoping we can go back to barefoot in the fall, if nothing else than to give him a break from shoes for a while, and re-evaluate in spring of 2018.

Meanwhile, I'm under contract to buy a 10 acre property! (duh duh duh......)

As we all know there is the good bad and ugly of owning horses and keeping them at boarding facilities.. but at least now you have all the undercontrol.. the boys will get it worked out.. so a little time is all that is needed
as for buying property.. congrats.. everyone needs some room to stretch and plant the flowers..   welcome back.. 

Gosh, I just realized how much more was left out in the between times of this thread ...
2017 - bought my 10 acre property
2017 - got a companion horse for Jacques, so it became Jacques, Reggie, and Maverick
2020 - Maverick went blind and never adjusted to it, so for my own safety I had to have him euthanized
2021 - I adopted a Belgian mare roughly the same age as Jacques (upper 20's) ... she was actually on one of those double decker trucks headed for slaughter when it overturned and she spent 6 months rehabbing at the humane society before I adopted her. Her name is Bonnie, so I could say I have Bonnie and two Clydes. :-)
2021 - a big storm caused a bunch of damage at my property, grr...
2022 - not horse related, but my mom passed away
2023 - is off to a sucky start, hoping it gets better from here on out!