Who has horses?

[BreanneRN]

Wow that's really interesting. Is that common for horses to want to eat the bedding?

Some of a them will eat anything and everything, including many things that aren't good for them. Most will eat wood, which is why you don't want to build fences/barns with wood. Maintenance nightmare! Some like to suck air, a nervous habit... If you go to a sale and see one with a strap around its neck, avoid that one! I personally think it might be related to weaning too early, but can't verify that... Just my opinion (I also think that weaning too early may help cause humans to become addicted to smoking (besides the addictive drug nicotine)...

 

[Peaches Lee]

Wow that's really interesting. Is that common for horses to want to eat the bedding?

Some will try to eat straw, but it's not common for them to eat bedding such as pine shavings/pellets.

 

[paintedChix]

You've introduced some of the older horses - I just had to intro this little girl (& her family).

We are still going back and forth on a name. At first - "Bay-Bee" was cool... but that just goes against the grain for me to call a horse "Baby". So we are trying Bee-Bay (she flits about like a little Bee and she is a solid bay in color)... Eh. Larry (hubby) suggested just "BB" since her dam is "GG"... GG is one of the few whose barn name doesn't go along with her registered name. Well, it sort of does. Her registered name is LP Painted Silver Toy. The white marking on her silver bum looks like the Fisher Price giraffe. Giraffe and any shortening of it simply didn't work for her/us... So we went to GG & 8 yrs later, it has stuck well... This is her 2nd foal.

"Bee-Bay" was born on 15 June. The same day as my mom (who passed in May, just short of her 76th Bday)... She was handled several times over the first 3 days of her life and again at about a week of age. Not a lot - not the complete imprinting stuff (I no longer have clippers handy/working), but enough. Then on Friday the 13th of July, when she was 28 days old, she wore a halter for the first time, did some leading and got her first of many, many "pony pedi's"... I thought I'd share a series of the pics... In all, from the time the halter was first put on to the time it was removed was about 25 minutes of handling/working with her. From the time her 1st hoof picked up, the short "dance recital" to being rubbed into her nap, was 18 minutes...



Bee-Bay's dam, GG (born 10 June 2010), went to driving lessons with her dam & her aunt. Starting at 10 days of age, again when 2 months old, then driving with her dam @ 3 yrs of age and then getting introduced to a young rider (learning balance) after having her 1st foal. EDIT to ADD - GG is not a fully trained riding pony, having only been saddled and lounged and sat on. Wouldn't be hard to get her going, hoping to have the girls' help w/ that soon...





We own the 3 generations - Bell (1992 mare - silver black), GG (2010 mare - silver black tobiano), BB (2018 filly - solid bay)... and also Chylly (GG's 2016 filly - chestnut tobiano w/ a lot of white) & both sires of the 2 fillies (both of whom are bay tobianos).

Bee-Bay has quite the little family to live up to & I fully expect her to - as a great driving pony and she could be an awesome riding pony, too.

To illustrate still "working" in older age AND color - this is Bell, a 1992 mare. This mare wasn't even "halter broke" when I purchased her in 2009 @ 17 yrs of age - when I started training her. At Christmas 2017, she would have been 25 -1/2 yrs old... Gwen spent a large portion of her 2 week Christmas break learning to ride. Bell is BLACK based with NO CREAM, yet she looks lite "yellow" or "gold" (both in 'high summer" and in winter) due to the double dilute silver gene (Z) in play on her black coat... Bell is heterozygous black (1 black, 1 red gene - Ee), homozygous silver (2 silver genes - ZZ ) and NO cream (nn for Cr)... The 3rd pic was taken - probably at her darkest coat color while at a trail driving event in 2012 (she is 20 yrs old).



OI, guess I went a bit overboard on the pictures again...

 

[Bunnylady]

Wow that's really interesting. Is that common for horses to want to eat the bedding?

Most horses won't eat shavings, but foals sometimes will, which can cause an impaction. For that reason, stalls for mares in foal/with foals are usually bedded with straw.

Wood chewing, wind sucking, etc, are behaviors usually lumped together as "stall vices." Horses have an almost obsessive need to do things with their mouths; if they were free ranging, they'd spend most of their time moving around, eating grass or chewing on each other. Stuck alone in a stall all day, they get bored and anxious, and they start doing these things to relieve the stress and boredom. Some of these habits get so ingrained, they do them even when not in a stall; one horse I took care of was being fed along a fence in a pasture, and his windsucking habit was so set that he'd pause between mouthfuls of feed and grab the fence post. Horse stomachs aren't meant to deal with wood and air, of course, so horses that do these things often have chronic digestive issues, on top of their mental ones.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

You've introduced some of the older horses - I just had to intro this little girl (& her family).

We are still going back and forth on a name. At first - "Bay-Bee" was cool... but that just goes against the grain for me to call a horse "Baby". So we are trying Bee-Bay (she flits about like a little Bee and she is a solid bay in color)... Eh. Larry (hubby) suggested just "BB" since her dam is "GG"... GG is one of the few whose barn name doesn't go along with her registered name. Well, it sort of does. Her registered name is LP Painted Silver Toy. The white marking on her silver bum looks like the Fisher Price giraffe. Giraffe and any shortening of it simply didn't work for her/us... So we went to GG & 8 yrs later, it has stuck well... This is her 2nd foal.

"Bee-Bay" was born on 15 June. The same day as my mom (who passed in May, just short of her 76th Bday)... She was handled several times over the first 3 days of her life and again at about a week of age. Not a lot - not the complete imprinting stuff (I no longer have clippers handy/working), but enough. Then on Friday the 13th of July, when she was 28 days old, she wore a halter for the first time, did some leading and got her first of many, many "pony pedi's"... I thought I'd share a series of the pics... In all, from the time the halter was first put on to the time it was removed was about 25 minutes of handling/working with her. From the time her 1st hoof picked up, the short "dance recital" to being rubbed into her nap, was 18 minutes...

View attachment 1474960 View attachment 1474961 View attachment 1474962 View attachment 1474963 View attachment 1474964 View attachment 1474965 View attachment 1474966

Bee-Bay's dam, GG (born 10 June 2010), went to driving lessons with her dam & her aunt. Starting at 10 days of age, again when 2 months old, then driving with her dam @ 3 yrs of age and then getting introduced to a young rider (learning balance) after having her 1st foal. EDIT to ADD - GG is not a fully trained riding pony, having only been saddled and lounged and sat on. Wouldn't be hard to get her going, hoping to have the girls' help w/ that soon...

View attachment 1474988 View attachment 1474990 View attachment 1475012

View attachment 1475006 View attachment 1475015 View attachment 1475016

We own the 3 generations - Bell (1992 mare - silver black), GG (2010 mare - silver black tobiano), BB (2018 filly - solid bay)... and also Chylly (GG's 2016 filly - chestnut tobiano w/ a lot of white) & both sires of the 2 fillies (both of whom are bay tobianos).

Bee-Bay has quite the little family to live up to & I fully expect her to - as a great driving pony and she could be an awesome riding pony, too.

To illustrate still "working" in older age AND color - this is Bell, a 1992 mare. This mare wasn't even "halter broke" when I purchased her in 2009 @ 17 yrs of age - when I started training her. At Christmas 2017, she would have been 25 -1/2 yrs old... Gwen spent a large portion of her 2 week Christmas break learning to ride. Bell is BLACK based with NO CREAM, yet she looks lite "yellow" or "gold" (both in 'high summer" and in winter) due to the double dilute silver gene (Z) in play on her black coat... Bell is heterozygous black (1 black, 1 red gene - Ee), homozygous silver (2 silver genes - ZZ ) and NO cream (nn for Cr)... The 3rd pic was taken - probably at her darkest coat color while at a trail driving event in 2012 (she is 20 yrs old).

View attachment 1475047 View attachment 1475046 View attachment 1475049

OI, guess I went a bit overboard on the pictures again...

No such thing, lol......
Makes me miss my minis.....this was Holly Hula and Miss B Hav'n

 

[538150]

I think that you should probably start on riding lessons again and spend a lot of time with other horses to build your confidence around them. It is true that horses will get nervous if the person handling them isn't confident. If you do get a horse, I would definitely recommend you get a small, calm, older horse that has had much experience with humans.
Horses can be expensive, it depends on the breed & size of the horse and what kind of pasture you have. Mustangs are less expensive to own, due to them being so hardy since they have lived in the wild for a long time.
Anyway, I hope this helps. I've been around horses ever since I was very little and have owned a horse for over half my life . Owning a horse has been beyond amazing (there were some challenges, but we worked through that!), and I know you'll enjoy it a lot, as well!

 

[ShrekDawg]

I think that you should probably start on riding lessons again and spend a lot of time with other horses to build your confidence around them. It is true that horses will get nervous if the person handling them isn't confident. If you do get a horse, I would definitely recommend you get a small, calm, older horse that has had much experience with humans.
Horses can be expensive, it depends on the breed & size of the horse and what kind of pasture you have. Mustangs are less expensive to own, due to them being so hardy since they have lived in the wild for a long time.
Anyway, I hope this helps. I've been around horses ever since I was very little and have owned a horse for over half my life . Owning a horse has been beyond amazing (there were some challenges, but we worked through that!), and I know you'll enjoy it a lot, as well!

Thank you for all of this!! It is definitely very helpful!! I think I will definitely start lessons again. I still haven’t yet since the original post but I think I will finally start again. And I like the idea of a little horse except that I’m almost 6 feet and close to 200 pounds so if I want to ride it, it needs to be a pretty good size. Unless I start with a mini or pony or something first just to get experience.

 

[538150]

Thank you for all of this!! It is definitely very helpful!! I think I will definitely start lessons again. I still haven’t yet since the original post but I think I will finally start again. And I like the idea of a little horse except that I’m almost 6 feet and close to 200 pounds so if I want to ride it, it needs to be a pretty good size. Unless I start with a mini or pony or something first just to get experience.

You're welcome! If you do get a mini or pony, just remember that they can be a little more high strung (depending on the breed) since many of them have been breed down. I've just always found that getting an older, calmer horse (is doesn't really even depend on the size, as long as you are comfortable around it) is best.

 

[ShrekDawg]

You're welcome! If you do get a mini or pony, just remember that they can be a little more high strung (depending on the breed) since many of them have been breed down. I've just always found that getting an older, calmer horse (is doesn't really even depend on the size, as long as you are comfortable around it) is best.

Thanks, that makes sense. I think I have heard that a lot of ponies and minis are bad tempered and can bite and stuff, right? Maybe it would be better to get a bigger horse. Kind of like how bigger dogs are way more chill than Chihuahuas but yeah, I would definitely get an older horse. I know a lot of people don’t want them but I’m thinking maybe like teens. Or at least 10.

 

[538150]

Thanks, that makes sense. I think I have heard that a lot of ponies and minis are bad tempered and can bite and stuff, right? Maybe it would be better to get a bigger horse. Kind of like how bigger dogs are way more chill than Chihuahuas but yeah, I would definitely get an older horse. I know a lot of people don’t want them but I’m thinking maybe like teens. Or at least 10.

Yes, that's what I've found in minis! Also, I saw you have a lab/pyr mix. We have a Pyrenees that guards our goats and they are great dogs! Ours is 100 lbs at 1 1/2 yr and still growing!