My Pets’ November 2010 Update

Ok, so November has brought the first of this year’s cold weather, snow and ice. Lovely.

Every morning when I’ve been going down to the ponies and guinea pigs and Velvet at around 7am, it’s gradually been getting colder. First I’d notice it with the bitter temperatures, then the ponies water would have a think layer of ice, then a couple of days ago it began to snow a lot and then today, the guinea pigs’ water bottles were completely frozen solid (even inside the shed!).

Every morning recently I’ve had to take down trugs full of hay to the ponies as the grass was completely covered with snow! I’ve found that one trug full of hay does nicely for one Shetland pony for one day and night. I’ve tried to avoid putting the hay directly on the ground, as this gets it wet then the ponies won’t eat it. Instead I’ve put it under hedges, and on top of the lower branches of the hedge, as this raises it off the ground and keeps it from getting wet by snow. Also as some of it is raised up, I know that if it snows very heavily in the night, the ponies will still have some hay accessible to them. I also let the ponies eat out the trug too.

Recently I’ve had to break so much ice that’s formed in the trough and bucket; in fact today it was so cold that the ice was reforming only minutes after I’d broken ice and removed it!

For now, I’ve decided to let my ponies stay outside as they’re Shetlands and are adapted to even colder conditions in the Shetland Isles. Gradbach and Tulip seem to live playing in the snow, galloping around, and racing each other – they’re acting just like most excitable children do in snow. Read more on Shetland Ponies in the Snow.

The animals in the shed are all fine. I’ve put extra hay and bedding into their hutches to keep them warm. This morning their water bottles were completely frozen, right through, and it took me around twenty minutes to completely thaw the ice!

Today, we managed to get the four wheel drive out and drove to a garden centre, where I bought an extra trug (for carrying hay to the ponies, as I only had one before) and three extra water bottles (I already have one spare) for the guinea pigs and Velvet.

With the water bottles, the idea is that I fill the new the ones up just before I go out to the guinea pigs, then take the new bottles out and swap them with the frozen ones. That way the animals have fresh water immediately. I then take the frozen ones inside and leave them in the porch for them to thaw out whilst I’m out during the day. Then when I get home, I should be able to change the water in the old bottles, and swap them over if the new bottles are frozen. (I’d then bring the new bottles inside to defrost them over night, ready for swapping them over the next morning). This will hopefully save time, as in my morning routine of going around to all the animals, I haven’t time to thaw out all the bottles, before I go to work – and it’s important that animals always have fresh water.

Hopefully this plan will mean that I won’t be spending twenty minutes every morning defrosting water bottles!

November 28, 2010 В· Maddia (Admin) В· Comments Closed
Tags: , , , , , , , ,  В· Posted in: My Pet Updates, My Pets