New Home

We moved Barokko from MAK to the new barn, AG, today. M rode him, and I biked alongside. We've taken several long trips together before, with one of us riding, and the other on a bike, and he fully accepts the bike as a leader and companion. Throughout the ride he kept a very close eye on where I was, accelerated if I accelerated, waited if I fell behind, crawled in behind me if something worried him etc, exactly as he would with a steady-eddie equine companion ;)

The ride went very well, he was a little tense at the beginning of the ride because there were a lot of people in Dyrehaven (Easter vacation), but as soon as we got away from the crowds he relaxed. We completed the 9 km ride in just over an hour, which was considerably faster than we had expected. Barokko was very nicely forward the whole ride, in all gaits, and we didn't have any problems along the way.

At AG we let him settle in in his stall with a warm beet pulp meal and a full hay net. He was a little restless initially (all the other horses were still in turn-out), but not overly stressed.

After a while we introduced him to his new herd. First he was alone with the alpha for a while, and then we let in the other two geldings also. Unfortunately, when the two other geldings came in, the alpha wanted to keep Barokko and the others apart, and ended up chasing Barokko away and biting him a few times.

We've decided that the next few days we'll turn out Barokko and the alpha in one pasture, and the two others in an adjoining one. Then we'll turn him out with each of the other two one at a time for a bit in the evenings, so they each get time to get properly acquainted, without the dynamics of the full herd. The 3 other geldings have been together for several years, so it's not easy for them to accept a new horse just like that, but I think Barokko will fit in well once they've each had a chance to get to know him and realize he's perfectly happy being in the bottom of the hierarchy ;)

We each buy our own feed, so I'll be putting Barokko on a completely grain-free diet of hay, lucerne, beet pulp, oil, vitamin/mineral supplement and electrolytes.