Difficulty with training and feeding Shetlands

[Xant’hippe]

Tech Notes: Two desktop computers, one Windows w/Vista, one PowerMac w/OSX 10.4.11. Browser on both is an appropriate, well-maintained version of Firefox: it's popular and should not be difficult to communicate with. Its publishers provide frequent updates. My ISP is one of the big names. I live in a major population center in the US. Fiber optic lines were installed in my neighborhood a few years ago. Generally my internet experiences have been satisfactory.

But last week (May 1-7) I had a really frustrating, occasionally miserable series of work sessions with a group of Shetlands. This was far from what is implied by "gameplay" which is supposed to be conscious, even conscientious, but not Sisyphean.

Note on working methods: Scythian and I trade off horses and responsibilities. If one of us is training, that's careful, intense attention being paid to relatively few horses. The others stay on the other farm, being in good shape generally, while the owner enters them in competitions and stands the stallions.

So here's what happened: The ponies were in generally good shape except for Intergalactic Charger, who was at BCS 3 (a previous attempt to slim him went too far). The goal was to improve everybody's skills, maintain / improve BCS, and complete Silver Seal's pregnancy. I started out by checking pasture quality against their recommended feeding levels, and mowed several pastures to different quality, ranging from nearly 0 to 50% -- of course this was supplemented with hay and Performance Mix.

But keeping the pastures close to a desirable level is difficult. The situation wasn't stable, so I resorted to putting the ponies in the stables and feeding them mostly hay, with some Performance Mix. I thought that gave a good proportion of fiber and protein, with some sugar. That worked for a while with some of them. Others, including Charger, stayed thin or even got thinner!

Training routines began with the pony starting out with 100% energy and residual fatigue 5 to 25%. Each individual session was typically 30 minutes per day, sometimes up to 60, with one to three separate exercises. I sought to develop different skills on successive days, so sometimes Strength or Speed was addressed, other times Agility, Movement, etc. If residual fatigue got over 30%, I would do a very mild workout the next day (one 30 minute session, Arena-Walk- and Lunge, Ground Drive, or Loose Rein).

Doing what I believed to be adequate, it was so painful to see them fail to thrive or even lose weight while seemingly adequately nourished. Shetlands are supposed to be robust, and 5 of the original 7 in the working group are young, 5 to 8 years.

So eventually I trained them less and less and put them in rich pastures. Ultimately they all got to BCS 4 and I returned them to Scythian's farm.

The progression of events was weird enough that I wonder what combination of factors produced it -- including, just maybe, some programming at the head end. Granted that little ponies are little -- therefore any stress would show up quickly and noticably. I still can't entirely shake the feeling that, to quote a old space pirate, "it's not my fault!"

At the risk of enormous , I'm going to post this in "Gameplay Questions" and expose myself to what will undoubtedly be Argent II's everlasting scorn.

As for the ponies, they have kept winning -- but that's because few if any other entries have been made recently. The reason to do these training sessions is in fact drawn from the knowledge that it is an essential part of competition, and that few can rest on their laurels.

[larissar]

The feeding system does have a few flaws when working with smaller ponies like Shetlands. I've actually been working on revamping the feeding system for the new update over this past week and I beloved I have most of the links worked out. I'm actually hoping to post a preview video later today.

In the meantime what I found when testing with ponies is that it's hard to bring their weight up while also training. If you get their weight up first with a mix of Performance Mix, Corn and Alfalfa Hay then it's easier to keep their weight up with just Hay when you train them.

Others may have more advice hopefully.

[Xant’hippe]

Thank you! That does help!

Again, gratitude for the work you (and the other people) do for us here. It is difficult, and if anyone *really* feels like Sisyphus it's probably the Admin staff folks. After all, gamers do (theoretically) have a choice.

Just that it's so ... habit-forming? And it feels good when it works out for the better.

Loving slobbers from the Shetlands, and best wishes from Xant’hippe and Scythian.