Felling trees. Help

[carthorse]

Behind my field is a wood, I have two fields but both back onto the wood.
At the beginning of the year I went to bring my horses in after work and they were dripping with sweat and terrified. There was a terrible noise from the woods and I realised they were felling trees. I emailled the estate that owns the woods saying they could at least have warned me and my horses were very upset. Their response ,two weeks later, was unhelpful and just said they would be doing further work. Today they have been back and my beautiful 2 year old is in a terrible state. She was completely saturated in sweat and I have had to dry her off and wait ages to settle her. I dont know what to do. My horses are very expensive warmbloods (not that that matters, stressing any horse all day would be awful.
Any advice

 

[Hairy Old Cob]

Unfortunately the Estate are legitimately working on their own land and they have no duty to warn you about them carrying out works on their own land.

 

[carthorse]

Thank you. Oh dear looks like months of worry then.

 

[*hic*]

Think of it as de-sensitising - or try some de-sensitising with her asap if she's getting that upset. My crew have just had to put up with two days of felling over the past two weeks and apart from spooking madly at the trees in the garden that were no longer (!?!) there there has been little fuss, even at the men with chainsaws 30' in the air cutting down their favourite summer shade tree.

 

[katherine1975]

I'm sure your horses will get used to it, we have just bought a property with 3 acres of woods and will be working on them in the summer. I like it when there are things going on around us as it desensitises the horses. We have lots of pheasant shoots around here and have to hack past them, all good bomb proofing lessons.

 

[Goldenstar]

Put overreach boots on them leave them to it.

 

[dixie]

What a worry. We are also surrounded by woods and our horses seem fine with the chainsaw and lifting machines swinging logs into the air whilst I'm schooling! Not sure about how they would react to actual felling though, must make hell of a crash.
Can you perhaps write again a grovelling letter or ring them asking that they text or ring you when they are felling, or maybe you can catch one of the woodsman on site and have a word. Would they be any better in the stable though?

 

[carthorse]

The trees are being cut from the base and the noise as they fall is deafening. She is not getting used to it, she is getting worse as they move nearer to my field

 

[ozpoz]

I know exactly what you are going through as I had the same issue last year and my horses, since the last hurricane, are really unhappy at trees coming down. Try speaking to the timber contractors and spell out the problem clearly. Before I explained that mine were likely to go straight through the fence if they were out while felling was going on, and as I had giving them warning of this any vet bills would be passed on. They were helpful after that, letting me know when they'd be working, although surprised that some horses react strongly while others, like the highlands down the road, don't bother too much.
(Mine are completely relaxed about shooting... but we live in big tree country. It is literally earth shaking when they are felled)

 

[Dry Rot]

My stud is situated next to an MOD weapons training area.

They do not even flick an ear when another low flying aircraft skims their heads!

Hire yourself a chain saw, get them used to coming to call for hard feed, then introduce the chain saw as a secondary inducement….then have fun watching them trying to mug the forestry workers!!!

 

[dogatemysalad]

Must just be mine then that love to help with tree clearance. They empty the tractor bucket before its been tipped out.

 

[Honey08]

I'm sure that they'll get used to it.

 

[Dubsie]

They do get used to it, but it may take a while. Opposite us is a former landfill site, they're digging it out and 'remediating' the land, then will put it back and build houses - so constant to-ing and fro-ing of diggers with flashing lights and reversing sirens. Has taken about 3 months but our WB mare has finally learned to stand at the far side of the field in a dip, back to the hedge, where although facing that way, due to the trees she can't quite see them and it's not as noisy. I'm noticing she's now far more relaxed during the week and pretty much the same as at weekends (when there's no on-site work).

 

[Suechoccy]

I was sawing a crack willow branch this morning. My young horse decided to help me by standing underneath the fronded far end. I told him to move back but he stayed and enjoyed the fronds tickling him more and more as the weight of the branch made the end drop lower. Eventually the sawn end cracked loudly and all the fronds suddenly fell onto him. He was a Fronded Pony. He liked the look and stood there, wearing his willow pyjamas and chewing the fronds. When he'd had enough, he backed up and moved round to the trunk end of the branch where him and the old boy started debarking it.

 

[MerrySherryRider]

I was sawing a crack willow branch this morning. My young horse decided to help me by standing underneath the fronded far end. I told him to move back but he stayed and enjoyed the fronds tickling him more and more as the weight of the branch made the end drop lower. Eventually the sawn end cracked loudly and all the fronds suddenly fell onto him. He was a Fronded Pony. He liked the look and stood there, wearing his willow pyjamas and chewing the fronds. When he'd had enough, he backed up and moved round to the trunk end of the branch where him and the old boy started debarking it.

Your youngster sounds like mine. When she was very little she decided to help with the concreting by sticking her nose in the swirling concrete mixer. Getting the concrete off her muzzle was quite a job
Your old chap knows what he's doing, willow bark is nature's aspirin.

 

[julie111]

They will get used to it, our ponies used to spook when pheasant shooting went on near their field now they don't bat an eyelid!

 

[horsefeed]

They will get used to it, boots them up to protect there legs and leave them to it.

 

[Suechoccy]

Your youngster sounds like mine. When she was very little she decided to help with the concreting by sticking her nose in the swirling concrete mixer. Getting the concrete off her muzzle was quite a job

Aww, bless. Concrete can burn the skin too.