Thursday, August 20, 2009

Thursday - I drove to Farmington today to see Pat and Stefan at the mustang ranch. After hugging Pat hello, I asked where Stefan was. She sent him home! Not home to Largo, but home to Germany! I missed him by one day! I was very disappointed, but it was still good to see Pat and hang with the mustangs for awhile.

But, on to the mustangs. Pat "introduced" me to all the mustangs. They kept them in little groups, and Pat had names for each group: the Vikings, the Mustalinos (or something like that), and others. Then their names were reflective of the groups they were in. None of them were "tame" yet, and shied away when I got close. Except for the two that Pat had already had at Largo and were already trained to halter and lead.

Today the BLM was coming out to put freeze brands on the horses. It's a gentler kind of brand rather than a hot branding iron. First, they put the horses in a chute, and then moved them to a "squeeze chute." Someone was on the other side of the squeeze chute, and pushed on the squeeze part in order to make the horse immobile, or as immobile as they could get it. Then, a man took a stick to the horses lips to force them open so they could see how old the horse is. You know the expression, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth?" It's because the mouth is how you tell how old a horse is.

After that, the vet who was on premises would take blood from each horse. Next, was the freeze brand part of the procedure. They poured liquid nitrogen into a container and then put the "branding iron" in with the liquid nitrogen to get it cold. It was nothing like the old fashioned branding irons (which some still use.) It is very short, about the size of a hand held squeegee. While the horse is squeezed tight in the squeeze chute, they put the freeze brand onto the horse . . . and it has to stay there for thirty or forty seconds. Sometimes they guy holding the device has to move all around as the horse tries to get away from it. But, some of the horse just stood there . . . it just feels really cold, not the heated pain like a hot iron.

Each horse got a number and any kind of marks or blazes on him or her were written down. It was interesting.

Pictures: mustangs in corral, branding device, branding with horse in squeeze chute, Pat pushing the squeeze chute