Horse Talk

So how long should I wait and see on them? Becuase I don't want her to end up hurting herself if he can't ease up on her. I want to give them as much time as possible but on the other hand I don't want to wait for something that's never going to happen and get too attached to him, ya know?

I constantly worry about my two. They are biting, kicking, and chasing each other ALL the time

So I shouldn't worry about it so much then? I just hate that he leaves scrapes all over her when he bites her. And there's never any times where they're not tense, surely your horses have times where they do get along

As I said, there could be a number of things at play here. You said you had trouble getting June to move in the round pen; she may be a bit slow about responding to pressure, so Phoenix may be ramping things up to drive the point home. She's young, he's not; IME, young horses frequently get rather rough treatment from their seniors. People may prefer horses with flashy paint jobs, but a lot of horses seem to hate them; bay/brown/chestnut/black horses often are the highest ranking in a herd, with lighter colors being lower down or even ostracized (I once heard about a Thoroughbred stallion that had a very strong dislike for gray horses, if he had to breed a gray mare, his handlers had to entice him with a mare of one of his preferred colors first, then switch mares at the critical moment).

If Phoenix was in a confinement situation with limited food (for example, a 1 acre field, 6 horses and 1 round bale), he could have food aggression issues. All horses push each other around to some extent; food aggression is really just an escalation of natural behavior to a level that is excessive and dangerous. Is there some resource that he seems to be trying to keep the other animals away from, or is it just his space?

Some animals are more diplomatic about their places in the pecking order, and some are just pills. I had a goat that I swear, if there were 4 walls and one door, I don't care how big the space was or many animals you might have, that space could only hold one goat - him.

I've seen horses do the same sort of thing about shelter - the run-in shelter at the barn could easily have sheltered all 10 or so horses in the pasture, but even in a downpour, I never saw more than 3 under the roof at a time (usually the 3 highest-ranking animals in the group).

On at least one of his videos, Rick Gore mentions the problem of run-ins or stalls that lower-ranking animals can get trapped in when a more dominant animal comes in behind them. I've had that problem myself. Latte and Sunny have only their barn for shelter; I leave the stall door open all the time. The stalls are 12' x 12,' you'd think that would be enough room for two animals that like each other to stand in - but it isn't.

We had an incident about a year ago when my husband woke me in the middle of the night, having heard all kinds of banging around in the barn. He didn't know what was going on, but they are my horses, he figured I ought to know about it. We got some flashlights and went out to investigate. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, so we went back in the house.

Next morning, I saw Sunny standing near the fence, and she had no less than 12 clear marks from Latte's feet all down her right side. Some were just dirt, some were clearly puffy and bruised, and some were scrapes with both hair and hide taken off. Apparently, Latte had cornered Sunny in the stall and managed to land that many kicks before Sunny could make it out the door. And this is the buddy over which Latte has a fit any time she can't see her! Sunny is usually healing up from some contact with the Big Blonde, but that was the worst. With friends like that, eh?

Hmm okay. I don't want to have to worry about him scraping her up all the time and the possibility that he could end up kicking one of her legs or something, but it's only been a few weeks so maybe it'll just take a little more time and then they'll get along. He does it to keep her out of his space.
On another note, aside from both the horses being a little spooky this evening (after I was done working with June, when it started getting windy out), June was awesome today! I lunged her, she was perfect, and then I showed my sister how to lunge her and she was perfect for her too, and my sister did pretty darn good for her first time lunging a horse. Until today the only experience my sister has had with horses is brushing them, leading them around and backing them up, and she sat in the saddle on a gelding I had while I lead him around once. But she really likes June and is very comfortable around her (and she's still been asking for a horse) so today I had her lead June to the round pen, and then after I lunged her I showed her how and stood in the middle with her, and then I got out and had her do it by herself, and she was awesome! And then I had her help me get all the tack out and taught her how to saddle her up (we'll still have to work on the cinching part) and then I rode June and she was listening super well and was very relaxed, so I had my sister get on her (just in the round pen and me and my grandpa sat on the fence) and she did awesome again! She had her turning and stopping and going with no problems. There was one time June decided to stop and not move but I told her to just keep on applying pressure and then drop the pressure as soon as she moved, and she did get her going, which I was pretty impressed by. Oh, and June decided to do a nice big shake while my sister was on her too, which she's never experienced, I thought my sister would freak out at that but she just sat there (her eyes kind of looked like they might pop out of her head for a minute) and then started laughing. So all in all it was a really good day, June behaved like an angel and my sister took her very first real ride and enjoyed it, she was a natural at everything! I'm starting to take her more serious about wanting a horse, she keeps asking for one and was excited about really helping with June, and did such a good job with her. She even went out and bought a pair of boots today so she could work with the horses and not worry about her toes haha.

Trotted on June for the first time today! It was amazing. And this coming from someone who gets nervous trotting

abigalerose said:

Trotted on June for the first time today! It was amazing. And this coming from someone who gets nervous trotting

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That's awesome!! I had a time in my life when I was scared of getting on horses because I was bucked off, and hit my head against a metal gate, and my arm was stepped on...

I Love Layers said:

abigalerose said:

Trotted on June for the first time today! It was amazing. And this coming from someone who gets nervous trotting

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That's awesome!! I had a time in my life when I was scared of getting on horses because I was bucked off, and hit my head against a metal gate, and my arm was stepped on...

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My gram's brother was drug to death by a horse, so she's scared of them...

ChickenLover200 said:

My gram's brother was drug to death by a horse, so she's scared of them...

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That's really sad... My Great Grandpa trained horse teams, and one time he was harnessing a team up, and they backed him into the barn, and killed him.

I wanted to ride today! But it was raining all day, and i couldn't see the horses in the pasture..