Bucket colours!

Sussexbythesea

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I’ve got 2-3 green trugs in the winter fields and they always drink out of one in preference to the others. I changed their positions and it seemed in their case it’s the position rather than the particular trug. They’re all in a row next to each other so not exactly wildly different.
 

chaps89

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My old boy doesn't care about colour but will drink from the slimey, green weed infested trough over the clean one any time!

Likewise!
She's on box rest at the moment but drags me over to drink from the water butt.
Un the photo below she had clean water in the field but on the way out of the field stopped for a drink from the tub that hadn't been cleaned in yonks- they both did.
I haven't ever tried different coloured buckets, they just get what they're given :eek:

Screenshot_20200522-222332_Gallery.jpg
 

PapaverFollis

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Update on the orange bucket... with orange as the "outside" bucket the water in all 3 is going down more evenly. Suspect I have 1 horse drinking from the closest bucket to the field and one horse selecting the purple or blue bucket over the orange one. The purple bucket is now the "inside" bucket. BUT the weather was really foul so they spent more time in the shelter yesterday... so the purple may have bee chosen as the nearest bucket more often too!

The only way I'm going to get a proper answer is to sit by the buckets all day and observe!
 

Merlod

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Could it be vision related? I believe they see blue/green hues much better than they see red (and presumably orange).
 
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PapaverFollis

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Another update. My horses are definitely just lazy and go for the nearest bucket! ? Although there is a slight preference on purple over orange because the purple still gets a couple of drinks as the furthest bucket and the orange never did. But mostly thet seem to be lovers of convenience rather than very fussy over colour.
 

SpeedyPony

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We got a silver-coloured trug as a replacement and neither pony would drink out of it, the black/green/blue ones are all fine though. I wondered if the silver-coloured plastic either smelled different or reflected the sun in an unsettling way, as they've always seemed fine with plain coloured buckets.
 
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