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Without much bother a hay net is set up in the shade, tubes of polos stuffed into pockets amd a large bucket of water heaved into place it was time to catch the terrible two. With no real problems getting their head collars on it was simply a matter of waiting for Freddy to arrive. A short toot of the horn signalled his arrival and with the gates opened he soon had his van in position. Now it was simply a matter of fixing the lead rope to Deno and getting him to follow me out of the fenced area. As it turned out getting Deno through the fence gateway was easy - preventing Cuddles coming through at the same time was impossible! Still she was safe and her main interest seemed to be the fresh clover grass. Deno was led over to Freddy without incident and the first thing he did was to check each foot individually - his advice at this point was not to fit shoes this time but to trim the hooves well, let them grow again and decide at his next visit in the first week of August whether to fit shoes or not. His reasoning for this is that not having trimmed Deno's feet before he wants to see what the rate and method of growth is like. Any way to cut a long story short Deno was positioned carefully with his lead rope tied up and me holding his head and an open packet of Polos at the ready. The front two feet were trimmed remarkably quickly and without incident - only four Polos consumed. As may have been expected the rear feet, being further from Deno's brain, were a different matter. Yes he'd lift one without much fuss but after a few seconds he'd forget it was in the air, despite Freddy trimming the hoof, and lean forward to get at a weed which was more tempting than the fresh hay! This meant he'd lose his balance lean heavily against me and send me flying into the nettles. However a few attempts later, numerous packets of Polos later and innumerable nettle stings Deno was finished and led back without incident to the fenced off area. I am pleased to say that Cuddles came to the call and was very quickly reshod. Job done. Unfortunately being on my own it was impossible to take photos of Deno being attended to however I did manage to get one shot whilst Cuddles was being done and knowing how interested you ladies are in the technical aspects of being a farrier I post that picture below.
 Week 8.
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