Was I Wrong to Freak Out?

[babyblue]

totally agree with spectrum and rusty. my mom never ever ever let us lose at the boarding stables we used when we grew up, never. she kept going out to the barn until my younger sister was in her early 20's just to help or keep on eye on things. my own kids don't get out of my arms or let go of my hands at strange barns. even at home if a kid is outside so is an adult and within so many feet.


I want to write a book called common sense parenting.

are they...hungry, thirsty, tired and have they had any exercise today. that would solve about 50% of the tantrums I see other people kids have in public. the rest of the book would be about actually watching, teaching and paying attention to your kids.

 

[Akane]

Even stalled horses with tons of energy can have manners. Sure they may bounce around, buck, kick out, and have a wild time when turned out. However charging humans with ears back and then kicking out in their direction is unnecessary and I've only ever seen it with horses that were poorly trained/handled or missing something between their ears. Not counting young horses who don't know any better yet. It's not too hard to get across to a horse that playing does not involve humans and even if play does happen around humans it does not involve threatening humans. Usually mine know better by the time they are yearlings.

Personally though I'm entirely against stalled horses in the first place. I don't think a horse should be stalled more than 12hours a day which is long enough to put them up in the evening and let them out in the morning or the opposite if you have one with sunburn issues. Stalling a lot has a bad impact on their mental health and sometimes starts to impact their physical health. I've seen stall walkers(those are some annoying stalls to clean), cribbers, chewers, and some rightly ticked off horses that would try to tear the barn down daily if they weren't turned out but all were wonderful easy to handle horses when turned out more. Horses not brought up with other horses can be harder to train because they never learned when to give and how to move with another horse. They just start fights and get the crap beat out of them on a daily basis when turned out with other horses. They also occasionally get injured while running cause the herd goes one way and they go another resulting in crashing against an object or other horses. Horses raised with a herd and stalled infrequently are much more stable mentally and pick up cues both in groundwork and riding with less effort. They also rarely suffer injuries because they know how to move and how to get along in a herd. Once we moved away from wire fencing we haven't had an injury in 5 years now. Prior to that I can count on one hand how many injuries happened to horses who were used to being in a herd and did not involve unsafe fencing in the years we've had horses which is my entire lifetime. On top of that majority of the exercise a lot of stalled horses get involves going in circles. Circles on a lunge line. Circles in an arena. Around and around and around. Cracked hocks are pretty common with the western pleasure show horses around here. Other leg and even back injuries are also much more common than with horses who are turned out more.

My plan if I ever get a stallion is to improve the fencing on my arena that is 150x50 which angles out to 150x100 at the back with a 2 acre attached pasture at one end and leave him turned out most of the time to burn off energy. Depending on temperament a horse can also be easily locked in the attached paddock while the arena is in use but some horses might try to go over the fence so stalling occasionally may still be necessary. I could never stall a horse majority of it's life. It's like making a person live in one room aside from going to the gym once or twice a day. Minimal socializing and you don't get tv or computers. We'd be a bit insane too.

 

[redhen]

Do people actually keep horses in a stall all day long?? Wow.... never knew that...
I thought all horses were supposed to be in a pasture or something during the day so they can run around and stuff that horses need to do...

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

My plan if I ever get a stallion is to improve the fencing on my arena that is 150x50 which angles out to 150x100 at the back with a 2 acre attached pasture at one end and leave him turned out most of the time to burn off energy. Depending on temperament a horse can also be easily locked in the attached paddock while the arena is in use but some horses might try to go over the fence so stalling occasionally may still be necessary.

Hot wire is your friend. I have four 3-acre paddocks in a row with 10' aisles between the paddocks and hot wire as the top strands on all 4. The stallions may run the fence line and they do argue/talk across the aisle way at each other but nobody challenges that hot wire. They spend all daylight hours out unless it is cold and raining. (I won't leave an animal out in cold rain when I have a nice big barn right there to keep them dry.)

Something similar might work for you.

HTH

Rusty​

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

Quote:
Show horses are all too often kept exactly that way. People who pay tens of thousands of dollars (or more) for an animal do not want to risk it hurting itself out playing with others, so these horses often never get more than a solitary turnout for an hour or two a day. Some do not even get that.


Rusty

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Show horses are all too often kept exactly that way. People who pay tens of thousands of dollars (or more) for an animal do not want to risk it hurting itself out playing with others, so these horses often never get more than a solitary turnout for an hour or two a day. Some do not even get that.


Rusty

Wow..i dont even care for horses..but that makes me very sad...

 

[cassie]

It might interest you to know that in Europe people often ride and work stallions. This looks like less of a stallion problem and more of a training problem. Stallions do need plenty of exercise and socialization. By the way, I had a mare come at me exactly the way you describe. Once. I had a bridle in my hand at the time and I let her have it across the nose. She never bothered me again.

 

[welsummerchicks]

There is NO REASON to be afraid of stallions! What you should be afraid of is their owners!!! LOL! A good owner is fine - the others, fear!

It's not just Europeans who ride stallions. Many show jumpers, dressage and driving horses in the US are stallions. It is all in the attitude of the person training the horse. If the person thinks the stallion should behave like a gentleman and do his job, most likely he will wind up doing so. If the person thinks a stallion is a dangerous, vicious animal, unpredictable and not to be trusted, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. He keeps the horse in, doesn't train him in different situations, is afraid of a normal animal acting like a normal animal, and there ya go. He's created a monster.

Horses that get a lot of attention and work and activity, are quite happy without being in a pasture 24/7. In fact, 24/7 in a grass pasture is something that's quite unusual in the rest of the world - there just isn't enough land for that. The key is the constant attention and activity they get - and that it's a routine that they're used to.

Some types of show horses in the USA are in their stalls many hours, but not all show horses are.

Most of the better owners find ways to keep them occupied and keep them moving most of the day. There are those big oval exercise lanes and the horses go in those together and seem to relish it(we saw a couple that had learned to hurry to the front of their own compartment, bite the horse in front of them thru the divider, and then wander off looking innocent and guileless, or hurry up and grab a treat from a passing person). There are treadmills, and grooms to hand walk the horses to grass, and swimming, and most of them go out with other horses to trail ride, do hill work, and train in the outdoor arenas. Many of them go out several times a day to work as well. They don't just sit in their stalls. I've seen horses handled like that, and none of them look in the least bit unhappy - not in the least. In fact they look fit, healthy and in great spirits.

Some of the top horses can't be turned loose or they are so fit and sassy they will (or already have!) hurt themselves. When a horse is worth five or ten million dollars, no, a lot of them can't just be set loose or turned out in a group. Even a healed injury or a very slight unnevenness of gait is out. Those competitions include a panel of vets and judges that examine the horse at the start of the competition - even the slightest uneven step, and the horse is out of the competition.