Help! Horse owners!

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narutomomi

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Hello! Im an euine student at uni and I need to do an investigational project this year. My research interest is Equine Colour Vision and Appetite(water intake). This is because a particular horse at our yard, and he prefers drinking from yellow bucket with the choice of black bucket. Similarly, my horse too. When I searched equine colour vision on the web, it turned out to be a very grey topic although some americans have done some researches. So, before i start this massive topic, I would like to ask horse owner's opinion about this. Thanx a lot!
 
I have a pony who is funny about colours. I bought a new feed bucket - strangely enough that was yellow. It was a long time before he would eat from it. He was instantly happy with a green bucket and a purple one, but yellow was a no no.
 
Ours always prefer the a pale blue bucket to a red one. This is in summer when they have no access to a trough depending on how we separate the field with electric fencing.

Instead we fill two big buckets, a red and a blue one. They will always drink from the blue one!!! Although one horse has the red bucket in his stable in winter, and he happily drinks from it then! They have two troughs in their field, a metal one and a natural one. Natural one is a stone trough set into the ground that fills up with spring water - they will drink from either of those, with no preference really.
 
i have been told that black plastic leaches something into the water which other colours do not. i have found that mine will drink more from non-black buckets, given the choice. my big water troughs are black plastic (they don't come in any other colour) but all other drinking containers are other colours.
can you have analysis done of water samples from different coloured plastic containers? just an idea.
 
Hi!

I thought it was just my horse who is strange like this! She will only drink from one white bucket. I even have to take it with me when she travels.

When I first brought her home she had a big green one, which she refused to drink from.

I wonder if it is because she can be sure there is nothing nasty in there with it being white!

Jo x
 
Ours will eat food from whatever colour bucket they get given (we have pink,purple,black and yellow) they are too greedy to be fussy about that one!!

Think kerilli's idea is a good one
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if you are doing it about feed buckets as well as water buckets, that's a different matter. mine all eat from a particular colour per horse (makes it easier if i'm away, mum is less likely to give the wrong feeds then!) and i think they've got to the point now, after years and years, where they know which colour is theirs.
 
My mares drink from whatever is put in front of them, they have orange, pink, black, red, blue, yellow or green, depending on what is to hand.

Then gelding I ride will only drink from his black bucket.
 
As well as colours i was going to do the quality of water. For example, fresh water, water that has been left for a few days, and when you hold the water tap higher, you get water with less iodine in it. In that way, the results may show something more interesting.
 
That could explain some of ours - we have a water bore and our horses drink (and us) drawn water that goes to a tank which goes to the yard, tank is often let to empty - signal on the yard is no water anywhere!! Some has to go put the pump back on.
 
Interesting bit about black buckets leaching something into the water.

Ellie has a black water bucket in her stable but will rarely drink from it but will drink from the black 'bath' type water trough out in the field
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Could it be a different type of plastic so affects the 'flavour' of the water?
 
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