Have your horses ever stuck their noses up over perfectly good hay?
Doesn’t that just make you feel awful – and upset with them – at the same time?
I mean, first of all, I had gone through all the expense of buying the hay, and then the hassle of transporting it (read photo captions…) and stacking it…
The delivery truck was in a different configuration than I had anticipated. I had anticipated a receiver load (which is perpendicular). Instead, it came in a tractor load – horizontal. Uh oh. I knew it wouldn’t fit into our hay barn.
At about this time, the horses were moving about with anticipation… knowing that the large hay truck, now empty, had just rumbled down the road.
I triumphantly called out to the horses saying, “Lookey what I brought for you today, you lucky horses, brand new hay!!”
You can see the deep skid marks on the driveway. There was no way the driver could maneuver this long trailer into the hay barn… He didn’t have 4 wheel drive because he didn’t know I had a deceptively difficult driveway… I didn’t tell him to bring a 4 wheel drive vehicle because I thought he was bringing a receiver load… OY>
Oh yeah, and the stump I keep meaning to have removed… he couldn’t get the long trailer around it. D’oh! We were both really frustrated.
Excitedly, I distributed the hay amongst my eager charges, expecting whinnies of delight and the instantaneous burying of heads into the luscious mounds of sweet grass.
But no.
Instead, they sniffed it and looked at me pleadingly, “Is this it? Is this what we are all supposed to be excited about? Perhaps, little human, you should try it. If you are so excited about it, maybe you should eat it. We don’t like it. Can we have some of the old stuff instead? It was much better than this nasty hay.”
Crushed.
Every single one of them turned their noses up over this deeply researched, dearly acquired and hard to offload hay. Even Annie, the new horse who until recently was on a feedlot, even she ran around calling her disgust at this new meal.
Really? REALLY?!
CRUSHED!
So the sweet, 30 years old driver bucked 88 – 135lb bales onto this truck and then off of his truck onto the hill by the barn. Hubby would have to drag the bales down the hill or put them on our truck and make several trips to get this stack into the barn. Yowsa.
I felt so guilty to not have access to the hay barn… but he was really sweet. He said he was fine to load it on the ground… I wish I knew some girl for him. He would be a good catch. He runs this family hay operation plus dairy cows. He was on time, courteous and mannered. Plus it was his birthday… he even worked on his birthday!
HUBBY SENSE.
I ended up calling Hubby and crying a bit – (it had been a heavy work day as well) – telling him all that I went through to get the hay here and how much it cost… only for the horses to turn away in disgust.
Hubby told me that he has heard this from me before and to just leave the hay until they eat it.
“But what if they know something I don’t? What if it is poisoned…?!”
Hubby said that I was experiencing what all new parents experience when they change foods on their baby. The baby doesn’t like what it doesn’t know. Just leave the hay and by morning, it will be gone.
And he was right.
It took two days, but they are now all eating it, happily.
Phew.
The empty hay truck rumbled down the driveway… I expected the horses to be so pleased with me.
