Merging

Blossom is over a month old now and she and her mother have been isolated from the rest of the horses.  They are mainly kept in the miniature pasture but on rare occasions I would set them up in a temporary pen far from the horse pasture but closer to home.  On those occasions I noticed that Pixie would constantly break out and bring her baby back to the pasture fence where the other horses were.  Horses are herd animals so it wasn't really surprising she was doing this.  The only other animals sharing her pen were the sheep and goats.  I began to notice Blossom starting to "play" with the sheep and thought it was time to introduce her to the herd before she began to think she was a sheep.  Pixie's behaviour told me it was time and that she was ready to merge back with her herd.

Today I brought one horse in at a time to meet the foal and everything went smoothly.  The only horse who got "excited" was Aussie but that is because he wants to befriend everyone and have all the horses love him.

Assie finally gains Pixie's trust and is allowed to graze with them.

Even merging Willow went smoother than anticipated.  I had accidentally put Willow and her colt Tex in with Pixie and Blossom far too early and it was quite the scene.  Willow had wanted to steal the foal and it took all my doing to catch her and remove her from the pen.  But over the last month all the horse's have been able to meet and introduce themselves to the new foal over the safety of the pasture fence so that when it was time to merge, they already knew each other.  I am wanting to leave Pixie and Blossom outside overnight but wanted to ensure there was a bigger horse around to protect the foal in case of coyote attacks.  But Willow is plenty tough enough and will guard over both her own colt and Pixie's foal.

Pixie and Blossom officially merge with the herd.