Absolutely incensed!!!!

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Muddywellies

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Well words absolutely fail me (well nearly)!!!!!
A non horsey friend posted a pic of FB of her and her daughter feeding shetlands in a field whilst enjoying their 1 hour exercise. I very politely suggested it's not a good idea and explained why. She took it well and understood. However, a friend of hers had the bl**, y cheek to state that the ponies shouldn't be where everyday people (whatever they are??) can feed them and there should be a sign up saying not to feed them.
The field is in a lovely quiet spot, a typical rural/semi rural area (ie not in the middle of a residential area) so how can someone think this?????? Furious doesnt even touch on it!!!
 
Because people are stupid!.. I've never understood why people think its acceptable to feed other peoples horses, they wouldn't walk upto someone else's garden and feed random dogs!! I also find it highly irritating when people take it upon themselves to feed other peoples cats just because the rock up at their door (and I'm not even a cat person)
 
We've had problems with people feeding horses, but the incident that really took the cake for me was a cyclist telling me I had no right to be hacking on one of the tracks on the farm. Not only do I pay good money in livery fees to have access to the tracks, but the spot in question isn't even a footpath or bridleway so he had absolutely no right to be there.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
I am with you but unfortunately some people seem to think that the countryside is a petting zoo and they are free to feed any animal they come across.
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No no, the feeding thing was sorted. She understood when I explained.
What I'm furious about is that someone said horses shouldn't be kept where people can get to them and feed them. Where are we supposed to flipping keep them????? Middle of the Atlantic??
 
rowan666 said:
Because people are stupid!.. I've never understood why people think its acceptable to feed other peoples horses, they wouldn't walk upto someone else's garden and feed random dogs!! I also find it highly irritating when people take it upon themselves to feed other peoples cats just because the rock up at their door (and I'm not even a cat person)
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No no, the feeding thing was sorted. She understood when I explained.
What I'm furious about is that someone said horses shouldn't be kept where people can get to them and feed them. Where are we supposed to flipping keep them????? Middle of the Atlantic??
 
Muddywellies said:
No no, the feeding thing was sorted. She understood when I explained.
What I'm furious about is that someone said horses shouldn't be kept where people can get to them and feed them. Where are we supposed to flipping keep them????? Middle of the Atlantic??
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I took it to mean that the other idiot felt that if you could reach the horses it was fine to feed them, unless there was a notice asking you not to do so.
 
SoundTheBugle said:
We've had problems with people feeding horses, but the incident that really took the cake for me was a cyclist telling me I had no right to be hacking on one of the tracks on the farm. Not only do I pay good money in livery fees to have access to the tracks, but the spot in question isn't even a footpath or bridleway so he had absolutely no right to be there.
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Clearly we should get rid of all animals in the countryside and open it all up for folk to walk and cycle.
 
I'm slightly more forgiving of people who have no knowledge of horses. For many people, their only experience of being close up to a horse, sheep, cows and goats is at a petting zoo where they can buy bags of food to feed to the animals.
When they go for a walk in the countryside, they're delighted to see the animals if they come close and genuinely think they're being kind to feed the equally delighted animals. How can they possibly understand that in the green pastures of the UK, the biggest danger to horses comes from over feeding and lack of exercise?
My mum, born in 1929 on an Irish farm, always carried a few lumps of sugar in her pocket. Her experience of horses was that they worked hard and seldom got treats.
The public are not stupid, they just don't have a reason to know about laminitis or colic. Why should they ?
The responsibility for the welfare of our horses, lies with us. If your horses are accessible to the public, put up polite, educational signs. Put up electric fencing in places where people can touch them if possible and use social media or conversations with friends to inform and educate.
 
dogatemysalad said:
The public are not stupid, they just don't have a reason to know about laminitis or colic. Why should they ?
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There are stupid people in every bit of the population, however you decide to slice it, but I agree that the main problem is not stupidity, but ignorance.

When I was a young boy wandering around the countryside near our house, I would often find a horse that had grazed short all the grass in its field and was trying to reach the long grass beyond the fence. I admit that I would grab a few handfulls and give them to the horse. It never occurred to me that the grass by the path might have been sprayed or contain plants that are toxic to horses.

When I started riding and heard about this or that horse having a bout of colic, I thought that it was just belly-ache, like babies get. It was only after I'd been riding for a couple of years that I thought of it as being similar to, and as serious as, bloat.

dogatemysalad said:
The responsibility for the welfare of our horses, lies with us. If your horses are accessible to the public, put up polite, educational signs. Put up electric fencing in places where people can touch them if possible and use social media or conversations with friends to inform and educate.
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That bit tickled me.
 
Muddywellies said:
Well words absolutely fail me (well nearly)!!!!!
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Feel free to send the post to me. I will explain the dangers very clearly with no hesitation and a lot of angry words. Why not just ask the owner instead of assuming.

This makes me SO mad. I have had a horse have a serious allergic reaction due to people feeding him. He could have died if I hadn't of noticed him immediately. I also have a laminitis prone horse that I have to keep about 50m away from and fences during lockdown because of this!!

If one person feeds them, you have no idea how many others are. Owners don't account for this kind of food when they work out their horses diet. I certainly didn't account for the 30 apples, 1 loaf of bread, thousands of carrots, and god knows what else a day that two of my horses were getting.

We put electric on the fence. No change. We fenced the gate off. No change. We moved what field they were in. No Change. We put up signs. No change. The very angry message on facebook town chat and my running screaming across the field to anyone I saw near did the trick I think. When I moved them, I fenced them off about 70m from the gate and people scaled a 10m high embankment to reach the other side of the field....

I have spoken about this before in another post but it makes me SO mad that my beautiful young cob was in such pain and is now scarred all over from the horrendous hives he got. I still have no idea what caused the reaction because I can't get an allergen test for everything and vets aren't keen to come out at the moment when the immediate danger has passed.

I put up signs and still people ignored them. The only thing that worked was putting up full coverage cctv of the fences and posting on the town facebook page that whoever I saw on the cctv coming near my fence would get named and shamed. I haven't found any food or seen anyone since.

ITS A PANDEMIC. Why would people be touching other peoples horses/gates/fences/ livestock?? At the start of lockdown before the signs and CCTV there were at least 50 people feeding them all sorts everyday. After my horse cut open the sides of its face leaning right over the fence and had his SEVERE allergic reaction. I started sitting outside to work so I could run and confront anyone doing it. I got a lot of exercise.

The ignorance and arrogance of people is beyond what I ever thought possible. (Can you tell how angry it makes me lol)
 
I'm still going ahaha:

Even before I got into horses I was always taught that I had to ask the owners first. The first horse I rode was through putting a letter through the door of the house asking if I could and what to feed it when I was 4... and they invited me to come hop on.

I think an odd carrot or handful of grass here and there is probably harmless in 'normal' times. But in our case, people don't just stick to this, everyone does it so the amounts become insane and then people feed our livestock chunks that will choke them. People treat our animals as a garbage disposal

You wouldn't pet or feed a dog without asking the owner first, you wouldn't give food to someones kid without asking the parents first. And in the middle of a pandemic even more unforgivable because people KNOW the dangers of how the virus is spread ect. This is not ignorance but arrogance that they have some kind of 'right' despite possibly transferring a deadly disease. One member of our family is terminally ill and cannot come near us, the gates/fences or the animals because people can't be trusted to use their brains.
 
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OP, a man walking a dog on a footpath (well, he was on the footpath, dog was wherever the fancy took it), attacked and killed one of my hens. The dog did I mean! I went ballistic and he said 'the hens shouldn't be in a field that the dog could access'. That didn't help, I must say. I ran after him carrying a flapping disembowleed hen (it was dead, just still twitching) ranting at him until he gave me £20 for a new hen. Hopefully above and beyond that he learned a few countryside manners.
 
dogatemysalad said:
I'm slightly more forgiving of people who have no knowledge of horses. For many people, their only experience of being close up to a horse, sheep, cows and goats is at a petting zoo where they can buy bags of food to feed to the animals.
When they go for a walk in the countryside, they're delighted to see the animals if they come close and genuinely think they're being kind to feed the equally delighted animals. How can they possibly understand that in the green pastures of the UK, the biggest danger to horses comes from over feeding and lack of exercise?
My mum, born in 1929 on an Irish farm, always carried a few lumps of sugar in her pocket. Her experience of horses was that they worked hard and seldom got treats.
The public are not stupid, they just don't have a reason to know about laminitis or colic. Why should they ?
The responsibility for the welfare of our horses, lies with us. If your horses are accessible to the public, put up polite, educational signs. Put up electric fencing in places where people can touch them if possible and use social media or conversations with friends to inform and educate.
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The path doesn't go through the field. There's a substantial fence between the path and the ponies field. My friend understood not to feed them anymore once I explained. She genuinely didn't realise. What I'm cross with is when her friend said the horses shouldn't be in a field near a path where people can get to them. Obv she thinks if they can get near a horse, then they have the right to interfere with it. I just wonder where she thinks we are to keep horses if it's not in a field. These people with these opinions are literally taking our countryside.
 
Clodagh said:
I went ballistic and he said 'the hens shouldn't be in a field that the dog could access'.
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He wouldn't have made this comment if it were a cat or another dog. 'Oh well it shouldnt have been where my dog could get it' wouldn't fly. Annoys me how people put value on a type of animal, just because he personally isn't a fan of hens doesn't mean they aren't someones beloved pet or livelihood.

I love dogs more than I love people, but there's a reason in some countries that farmers ect can shoot dogs trespassing.
 
I get that everyone is feeling a bit stressed at the moment but really there is no need to be “absolutely incensed” over a Facebook comment from a friend of a friend about some strangers shetlands ! Lots of people say things that lots of others don’t agree with on the internet, just ignore them is my advise, no one will change their mind because someone they don’t know is annoyed about it.
 
bonny said:
I get that everyone is feeling a bit stressed at the moment but really there is no need to be “absolutely incensed” over a Facebook comment from a friend of a friend about some strangers shetlands ! Lots of people say things that lots of others don’t agree with on the internet, just ignore them is my advise, no one will change their mind because someone they don’t know is annoyed about it.
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Sorry but I did explain why not to feed them. She's a good friend and understood. (it's not her I'm cross with). I'm cross with her friend for basically saying the horses shouldn't be there. I politely explained why they are there (then came on here to get it off my chest) hopefully now they are both better informed and I've had a vent with like minded people.
 
dogatemysalad said:
I'm slightly more forgiving of people who have no knowledge of horses. For many people, their only experience of being close up to a horse, sheep, cows and goats is at a petting zoo where they can buy bags of food to feed to the animals.
When they go for a walk in the countryside, they're delighted to see the animals if they come close and genuinely think they're being kind to feed the equally delighted animals. How can they possibly understand that in the green pastures of the UK, the biggest danger to horses comes from over feeding and lack of exercise?
My mum, born in 1929 on an Irish farm, always carried a few lumps of sugar in her pocket. Her experience of horses was that they worked hard and seldom got treats.
The public are not stupid, they just don't have a reason to know about laminitis or colic. Why should they ?
The responsibility for the welfare of our horses, lies with us. If your horses are accessible to the public, put up polite, educational signs. Put up electric fencing in places where people can touch them if possible and use social media or conversations with friends to inform and educate.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't expect non horsey people to understand colic and lami but you would absolutely have to be stupid not to think about at the very least allergic reactions and getting bitten! It's common sence. Allergies are common place in a lot of cats, dogs etc which most people own so why would they think horses would not be effected? Tbf when your mum was young most horses would have been worked and hard feed were straights not pumped full of crap like they are now so a lump of sugar would have done no harm, even 20/30 years ago I swear half the issues we have today weren't half as common, particularly with regards to lami
 
Muddywellies said:
No no, the feeding thing was sorted. She understood when I explained.
What I'm furious about is that someone said horses shouldn't be kept where people can get to them and feed them. Where are we supposed to flipping keep them????? Middle of the Atlantic??
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Obviously your supposed to keep them locked in your house, did you not know? Also when out riding you must not ride on the roads, you must pick up its poo and also let random passing kids have a little sit on them too!
FWIW you did your best by trying to educate and it sounds like your friend now understands but as for her friend, well, you cant teach stupid
 
rowan666 said:
Obviously your supposed to keep them locked in your house, did you not know? Also when out riding you must not ride on the roads, you must pick up its poo and also let random passing kids have a little sit on them too!
FWIW you did your best by trying to educate and it sounds like your friend now understands but as for her friend, well, you cant teach stupid
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Exactly :-)
 
It's frustrating. I appreciate that the public generally don't know, and most of the replies I've gotten from friends and family when discussing this are along the lines of 'It's just what we always did'.
We have signs on any footpath adjoining fences or gates to say 'Don't feed them, they're on a diet for medical reasons', but we still fence them away from those areas, because people don't care. A bit irritating to lose out on grazing space because people can't be trusted.
 
Muddywellies said:
Sorry but I did explain why not to feed them. She's a good friend and understood. (it's not her I'm cross with). I'm cross with her friend for basically saying the horses shouldn't be there. I politely explained why they are there (then came on here to get it off my chest) hopefully now they are both better informed and I've had a vent with like minded people.
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I don't think that is what she meant, I think she was meaning they shouldn't be there, *if you don't want people to feed them*, which is slightly different and follows the petting zoo experience
 
Muddywellies said:
Sorry but I did explain why not to feed them. She's a good friend and understood. (it's not her I'm cross with). I'm cross with her friend for basically saying the horses shouldn't be there. I politely explained why they are there (then came on here to get it off my chest) hopefully now they are both better informed and I've had a vent with like minded people.
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To be honest I now a lot of people who think horses should nowhere near people even if they are just walking past them.
 
I hate this with a passion - I don't want to sound like an 'us vs them' townie/countryman situation but our local area has been flooded with people who don't even know what side of the country road to walk on for their own safety, let alone how to safely act around animals. There's a footpath running through some of our horse fields and they let their kids run screaming and clattering around through them. Lord only knows what happens in the next field full of calves and cows, put a foot wrong in one of those and you get a very angry mumma..

It's the entitled attitude that gets me. We have so many people trying to access our private farm areas because they look nice and they want to walk their dogs, it's very clear it isn't public and they get very sh*tty with you when you say you can't come through here..
 
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