As I mentioned in the previous post, horse care is part of our life now. A major part. When we first decided on this life path, horse care was not part of the deal. But the owner was not able to find other places for the horses before winter so they became part of our life. When you've never worked with or cared for large animals, that's quite a challenge! It's finally sinking in that we received only a few hours instruction in dealing with the horses before the owner left but there is no substitute for experience! Horses are very quick to understand whether you know what you're doing and mean business or not. Since our initial failure with calling them into pasture, we have definitely come to understand this basic rule of dealing with large animals.
The big problem with large animal care is it much more difficult to just make them do something. Although cats and dogs can also be challenging in this way, they aren't bigger than you (normally!) and they aren't in herds. But with horses it's vital to have a strategy and at least rudimentary knowledge of their psychology. It's amazing how fast the horses figure out there are new humans caring for them and these people need to be paid attention to. We're also gaining confidence which makes the horses respond better. Horses, like people, have definite personalities. And like people they behave differently in the herd versus individually. Herd behavior is definitely a safety issue to be on your toes with. The first thing we learned is not to get between the horses. Feeding time is also not a good time to be among them. We dump the grain into widely spaced bowls from OUTSIDE the fence at feeding time.
The photo is of Rockette. She is an older horse, very gentle and agreeable in temperament. She along with another mare named Rose are mowing the front lawn in this photo. Horse eat grass for some nutrition but also as recreation. Like people, they also get bored if there is not enough to do.
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