Just A Foal Playing Football

Just a foal playing football...that’s got to make you smile!

After a morning planting up my plants from yesterday’s nursery visit, I spent a good while sitting amongst the chickens in their new extended area as we have fenced off a large part of the garden for them. We have one dominant hen and one very timid one, so we are hoping that the extra space will allow them to live together a bit more harmoniously.

After lunch I went to the yard to ride China. I rode in the school for the first time in a while. He was a good boy and I had a lovely ride. Of course I had to go and see the 2 week old Kouros. He is a really confident young colt and in the absence of other youngsters he expends his excess energy by being a real pest to his mum. So Mel has given him a football to play with, he loves it and I have a super video of him kicking and pushing the ball around the field in obvious glee.

Later in the afternoon it was really interesting to see Mel working with him on the yard (see extra). She has a stuffed glove on a stick to get him used to being touched and scratched whilst keeping enough distance to avoid being bitten and kicked (natural behaviour for a young colt) and this also has the effect of offering him no reward or punishment for his behaviour as even if he finds something else to bite (today it was his lead) it will not change the stimulus of the glove.