Valentina: 5 months!

I realized its been so long since I updated this! When the news is good you forget to share it sometimes! Val is doing awesome! She has put on weight, she is part of the group, and just doing fantastic. Its been really satisfying getting her up to weight.

Her current diet is TC Senior, Purina Amplify, and grass hay. I have been able to taper her feed down significantly, because she has put on so much weight! The only spots that she really needs some help is the fat along her hips, and to fill in her topline. Other than that, she's been looking really good! I'm both excited and nervous to see her in spring when she's clipped. Its really hard to get down into that hair to feel her body condition. I think she looks amazing, and I cannot feel any ribs, but its just so hard with 5" hair to really know for sure how they look underneath that.

Her feet look great, the farrier was really happy the second time he came out to trim. He's been doing little trims at more frequent intervals to get the angles back where they should be.

She's trotting (and cantering, and galloping, in the pasture) sound, and yesterday she had her first outing to my neighbor's place. She was a little strong and nervous to handle, but after a quick lunge I put Lily on her and she was fine. I think she was more upset because the resident horses were prancing around, visibly upset by this little fuzzy thing trotting in the arena! If they hadn't been acting stupid, I think she wouldn't have been rattled. She handled it all very well! She's clearly seasoned, or maybe she's just that nonchalant!

I took a few photos this morning as I was putting them out to show how she looks!

Day 1 at our place, for comparison. I can't imagine what she looked like even before this! She was kindly saved by a woman and had been gaining weight prior to coming here. 

She doesn't look like the same pony, does she??? One of the biggest differences I've noticed is that the halter she is wearing right now, was so big when I got her that it was hanging off the end of her nose. I just pulled it out a few weeks ago and it fit! And I bought her a girth when we first got her, and its almost too small. Granted, alot of that is the winter hair, but the halter thing really threw me. 

Lily is still head over heels for her, and I love listening to their "conversations". Mostly Lily does the talking. Val does the listening.