In Which Milton Registers a Complaint About the Meal Service

Awareness of the outside world. Appreciating the interesting parts of history while keeping it real, Behaim Globe.

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To understand Milton’s comment, one must know about Rodney’s hay habits. Rodney gets essentially free-choice alfalfa, from which he eats the parts he wants and leaves the rest. Yes, he’s so spoiled picky that he gets to be selective about alfalfa. I admit it is ridiculous. I want to get hardcore and tell him to clean his plate. It’s gorgeous hay. It’s not a big ask. However, it’s difficult to play hay chicken with a 26 year-old hard keeper. Occasionally I insist, but mostly Rodney gets what he wants.

Milton gets the leftovers.

Leftovers, may I remind, of very nice hay.

Milton’s meals are distributed into buckets by his minion. I serve them through the day.

One day at breakfast, I heaved the relevant bucket under Milton’s nose. Milton tossed the hay around, looking for the good parts. He stopped and glared at me. He then went over, stood in front of the pass-thru, and pointed himself toward the hay corner.

I called his minion.

Me: Did Milton get any new alfalfa today?

Minion: Nope. There were enough leftovers.

Me: Well, Milton would like to inform you that you did it WRONG!

I never thought for an instant that Milton was refusing food due to illness. That’s our go-to fear. In this case, he was so clear that he was fine and his universe was not.

Whoever says animals can’t communicate, just isn’t listening. [Talk To Me]

He got new alfalfa.

On A Related Note

To recap. Hay is served in clean manure buckets hanging from the wall. Milton has three types of hay in his bucket: timothy/alfalfa, leftover alfalfa, & alfalfa straight from the bale. Rodney gets one type of hay, alfalfa.

Milton is in the habit of snorkeling through the first two types of hay to get at the good stuff. There is much bucket banging as he does this. Rodney has no need to search through his bucket. He only gets one thing and it’s all prime. And yet, he has started banging his hay bucket against the wall.

It’s what the cool kids do.

Onwards!
Katherine