Molly
Molly is a small hairy black pony who lives
in the big field with the larger
horses. She likes to boss around the other horses even though she is by far
the smallest pony in the field. She is nervous until she gets to know
you. Her favorite treat is carrots and she also likes the odd parsnip.
November 08
Molly is fine and has only had a minor health problem over the summer which was treated with Antibiotics, apart from this she is so healthy for her age and is still top of the pecking order in the ‘big horses’ field. When Zak and Lady joined the herd earlier in summer she was very accepting and hardly noticed , we think she realised they were old like her and had also been through a hard time so she made them feel welcome, which is really important as Lady especially is wary of other ponies.
She is now perfectly well behaved for the farrier although a little tense, this is such a change from how she was years ago when she was so petrified of men, she has come such a long way and is a lovely sweet pony to have around.
May 2007
Molly is muddling along quite well despite her health issues, she has had a good few visits from the vet due to our worries about the discharge from her nostril, but the vet has assured us that although this will flare up now and again she is not in much discomfort and the main thing is to keep it clean especially in the warm weather when there are flies around. The discharge has not been bad for some time now so fingers crossed it will be kept at bay through this summer.
We have noticed that Molly's skin is very greasy and scurfy too so we are going to supplement her diet with some seaweed and a little soya oil to see if that will help.
She recently had a visit from the farrier and was really well behaved although nervous, but nowhere near as bad as she used to be years ago which just goes to prove that with careful and sympathetic handling even very frightened and unhandled ponies like Molly can eventually become brave and trusting, we are really pleased with her progress and she is never ant trouble to care for.
Unfortunately Molly is now the only pony without a neighbor as Mr .Jingles, our donkey was stabled next to her but when we had to say goodbye to Beauty we moved him next to Muffin to keep him company.
Hopefully the next pony we take in will be friendly and make a good neighbor for her.
She is still the boss in the big horses field but does get a bit of trouble from Hilton who doesn't seem to want to take orders from an little old pony like her, but she soon puts him in his place and lays her ears flat back on her head and runs at him and if that doesn't work she will turn and have a good kick at him, which will make him behave himself.
July 06
Molly is doing quite well despite a lot of problems with her teeth. She has
had a tooth removed, which has left a hole in her gum in which bits of hay
and feed are getting stuck in, causing infection and a discharge from her
nose. The vet has twice been to sedate her and clean out the bits of feed
from the gum to ease any discomfort, and then he visited and plugged the
hole to try to prevent any food getting impacted in there in the first
place. Unfortunately this didn’t seem to work very well and we are not sure
where to go next with her treatment apart from courses of antibiotics if the
infection becomes very bad.
Although she had these problems and the treatment was traumatizing for such
a nervous and head shy pony like Molly, she is well in every other way and
we're all really proud of her for getting through it & being so brave.
She has also been really good as Pearl & Red, two of our ponies up for
adoption, have joined in with the herd in Molly’s field. Molly is the herd
leader but is good and once she's done a bit of chasing to let them know she
is boss, she lets them join in and they are accepted into the herd.
March 2006
Molly has recently been through quite an ordeal as she has had to visit the
vet due to her tooth problems.
she visited once a few weeks ago to have an ex-ray done on her head to see
where the problem was in her mouth.
She was found to have part of a tooth lodged in her gum high up, which was
becoming infected and causing her problems.
So a couple of weeks later she returned to have this and another problem
tooth removed.
She is the worst pony to put through this as she is very frightened of men
and vets, needles and strange places!
We are very pleased and proud with how well she has coped with it all. She
was very nervous going onto the trailer as the last time she saw one was when
she was collected when found wandering in heavy traffic very frightened and
alone .However with a little bit of encouragement she walked straight up the
ramp much to our relief.
She is now eating very well and has almost finished her Antibiotics.
November 05
Molly has had a rather bad time recently with the vet and her teeth. Due to
past experiences Molly is very shy around her head and also scared of men.
So for her to have problems with her teeth and for a man to have to treat it
is very traumatizing for her.
Molly had began dropping bits of her carrots and also old food had been
collecting where an old tooth was missing in her gum. So we have had the vet
out twice to sedate her and treat her teeth. She was found to have a
fractured tooth and a few sharp edges. On his first visit the vet filed her
teeth down and did some investigating in her mouth.
The next week he had to remove the fractured tooth. As you can imagine Molly
got into quite a state and it took a lot of coaxing to keep her calm and
from jumping around in panic too much. Unfortunately it is painful for her
to have a fractured tooth and in the wild she would not have lasted much
longer without being able to eat properly, luckily though she is with us and
we are able to help her.
She is now eating well and also had her tetanus injection and a check up in
which she was found to be fine.
October 05
Molly is fine and healthy and has began to grow a lovely woolly winter coat.
We were very happy with her when the farrier came
recently. A natural horse trainer came out to help on the day and she asked
our farrier to begin stroking Molly all over and reassuring her just for 5
minutes before trying to trim her hooves. This worked well and molly began
to rest a back leg after initially being very nervous and jumpy.
We had not sedated her this time and so it was a real test for little Molly,
but happily she did get all 4 hooves properly trimmed with only a bit of
panic now and again. She was very brave and we are very proud of her.
Molly has also progressed well at being caught, although it has taken a lot
of time and patience and treats. She has been caught from the big field a
number if times and once her head collar is on she has been led down to the
yard easily.
August 05
Molly is her usual self and is really enjoying staying out in the field
through the warm weather.
She has become quite cheeky recently though, frequently wandering away
instead of walking onto the yard to be groomed and given her carrots for
breakfast! If she possibly can she tries to stay in the field and enjoy her
freedom, and with her being so difficult to catch we sometimes have to
resort to waving a bucket in her direction to get her in.
She has been well and healthy apart from a lump which has appeared on her
neck.
The vet has checked it and advised us to monitor it and put Molly on a small
course of anti-inflammatories. It may be an insect bite and does not seem to
bother her.
July 05
Molly has been amusing us all for the past few weeks with her head collar
removing tactics. Molly has never been catch able since she first joined with
the bigger horses in the top field. This has not been a problem for us as
she has always walked into the smaller area at tea time every day and
allowed us to put on a head collar on there, however we decided it was time
she learnt to be caught so she could be groomed anytime during the day just
like the other horses. To help us to do this we decided to start by leaving
Molly's head collar on during the day in the field. Molly has definitely had
very different ideas though, as at least 10 times now she has managed to
wriggle out of it!
We have tried different head collars but she still manages to somehow
remove them.
She is obviously a very clever little pony to realize that wearing a
head collar means being caught and that being caught means being brought away
from the grass!
Molly also had her hooves trimmed recently and although she still had to be
sedated we are proud that she stood well enough to have her back hooves
trimmed this time.
May 05
Molly Has been very well and has had no medical problems since having her
teeth rasped.
She is still Very nervous with the Farrier, so when he came to trim her
hooves earlier in April he could only trim the front hooves as Molly proved
far too difficult to handle.
As she seems to be moving backwards rather than forwards with this, we are
planning to start her on some special training to convince her that having
her hooves handled is not all that bad.
Although Molly is not so bad with the staff, she is petrified of men and
we think that this is because her ear injuries were caused by men, and she
has very bad memories of them.
We'll keep you updated with her progress when we start her training. |
