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Post by bethspring on Dec 27, 2015 17:23:14 GMT 1
Aaand following maybe two weeks where I honestly though YES! We're getting somewhere!! The slightly stroppy side of Spring has made her grand re-entry. She has now taken to striking out with her front legs and kicking out, bucking at and nipping at the others when they're having their morning feeds.
I am open to suggestions?
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Post by alonerawnut on Dec 27, 2015 22:39:39 GMT 1
Where are they fed? If it's in the field, can you build an electric fence pen to separate her from the others?
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Post by bethspring on Dec 28, 2015 8:22:24 GMT 1
We're in the process of having a field shelter built with dividing walls (in effect making three stables) it's just a matter of getting it up with the extreme weather conditions we're faced with at the minute! hopefully it'll get better then!
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Post by antares on Dec 28, 2015 10:57:14 GMT 1
you need to really try and separate them somehow. Can you take her away somewhere, out through a gate to feed her and let the others have peace? I would very rarely feed all of mine together loose. I would separate them by fencing in your situation. It would be very easy to make temporary small pens out of electric fencing whilst waiting for the shelter to be built
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Post by portiabuzz on Dec 28, 2015 16:52:15 GMT 1
Agree with Antares I wouldn't feed all together. At our yard the horses are only fed in their stables and no hay in the fields (lucky we have year round grazing)
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Post by bethspring on Dec 28, 2015 22:23:31 GMT 1
There's maybe a real reason behind it that I haven't picked up on yet - I'll try feeding her separately for a while and see what happens!
Thanks for the advice! X
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Caroline
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Post by Caroline on Dec 29, 2015 4:37:29 GMT 1
When my two teenagers came to live with my elderly mare, Beauty, I was finding that the teenagers were bullying Beauty off her feed each day. At first I tried making Beauty a pen to have her feed in with electric tape, but the teenagers kept breaking into that and creating messy and hazardous situations. So then I had a 24foot by 24foot post and rail pen built within my field, which is kept closed and only opened for Beauty to go in and have her feed each day. The troublesome teens can't break into that, so they largely don't even bother going near it. Beauty gets to have her feed in peace!
It's also handy to have a post and railed pen available for when the foot trimmer comes or if I need to isolate one of the horses for anything in particular. I don't tie my horses up, so I think it will be useful to be able to keep them in one place when the occasion calls for it.
I didn't used to bother seperating the teens when they were at their old place. They seemed to go in phases of switching between them about who gets to finish who's bucket and it was generally not done to unpleasantly or with much loss to either party. But the teens are both dominant over the elderly mare and I don't think that is going to change - and they would take her entire dinner if they could. She gets a larger and higher energy feed, so it is more attractive to the teens than their own dinner.
Sometime you have to know when things are not going to work out the way you would like them to I think. That can mean having to seperate horses at dinner time, which is such an emotional time for them and not a time when you can train or negotiate with them. When the buckets come out, resource guarding behaviour takes over and I think you have to accept that horses will be horses and work around that!
But I think the equation is very situational and dependent on all the horses involved and their evolving relationships. You may find that your horse will settle down in time and you will be able to feed her with the others.
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