I was traveling some after Christmas, and we’ve also been dealing with some winter weather. (See Diary 51: Snow Day.) As a result, poor Chewie had to wait nearly a month and a half to finally get to play with her Christmas toy from Santa!
Chewie’s new toy is a big plastic ball with holes. I can unscrew the lid and fill the ball with hay. The hay ball moves (slowly) as Chewie eats the hay and pushes it around. It will be another way for me to provide hay to Chewie and Liberty. As well, the hay ball will provide a bit of extra movement and mental stimulation.
At this point, Chewie has lots of experience with hay bags and with different types of enrichment toys. She figured out how to use the hay ball almost immediately and was quite interested!
Chewie didn’t want to share her new toy, at first. But, later in the morning, Liberty did also get a chance to give the hay ball a try.
I will be curious to see whether they like the hay ball more or less than the slow-feeder hay bags that I usually use for their hay. I’m also curious to find out approximately how much time per day they will spend playing with the hay ball.
Finally, my challenge will be making sure the ball doesn’t go for a swim in the pond!
Currently, I plan to only let them play with the hay ball when I am present or if the ball is in one of the smaller paddocks. I’ll report more later as we continue playing with and experimenting with the hay ball.
Here’s a short video clip from Chewie’s first day playing with the hay ball.
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