Help Please Before I Kill Him!

TheresaW

TheresaW

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Mac started living out at the beginning of June as he was diagnosed with arthritis and I thought I'd see how he coped. Since going out, he hasn't had a days lameness and has seemed really happy.

However, he is being such a git at the moment. To ride and handle, he is absolutely fine, laid back and chilled and just perfect. But!!!! He keeps escaping from the field. Have no real idea why, other than to eat grass that isn't in field. Three times this week he has broken out. We keep making repairs to the fence line, but it isn't working. What can I do? He isn't hungry. I go in early every morning and give him breakfast. He is in his stable for a while during the day and has hay, he has a feed every evening, and because the grass is rubbish now, hay is put out in the field every night. During the day when he is in, he is fine, but he is always happy to go back out in the evening. My own feeling is that he is bored. But what can I do to make life more interesting for him? He is out with 3 others at the moment, one of which he sticks to like glue, so I don't think it is lack of company issue.

OH is going to actually rebuild a proper fence tomorrow to replace what he has damaged, but I am worried that he will just make his escape elsewhere.

On a couple of occasions, have had to keep him in overnight and he has been sulky the next day. He has been kept in tonight because I couldn't trust him to be out until fence fixed.
 
Yes the only way is to completely secure your fields with good sturdy fencing. He is wanting the last of the grass and isn't ready to go onto hay...well tough really. He'll get used to it especially when he finds he can't take his little jaunts anymore.
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Thankyou! A few people have said he must be unhappy, but I know him so well and don't think that is the problem. If Mac doesn't want to do something, he doesn't do it, so he wouldn't go back out. We are going to run electric through the new fence as an extra precaution.
 
No it isn't that; I have a big horse who is always trying to test my fencing and he would be out in a shot if he could get out. Why? Well because he can and because he's a naughty blighter!
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Gah, the little toad.

Problem I've always found is that once they realise they can get over a fence or through a hedge etc, they keep on doing it. Hardest time is the first time!

I used some shorter polyposts to fence off the oak trees. Never had Patches and Tweenie go over or through electric fencing in all the time I had them. Well, somehow they realised they could get over the smaller fencing. I'm sure they found out quite by accident (thinking Hannah may have left it switched off). Well, the toe-rags went over it nearly every day for a week after that.

I had to put taller stakes in, even though they have shorter stakes in other areas of the fields.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that you will find something that stops him. He's just finding it too easy at the moment to do as he pleases.
 
ahh - at last someone who has the same problem I used to have...I remember the 5am calls from distressed farmers shouting down the phone that my pony was in with their sheep 5miles from her original field!! My pony was a nightmare..in fact we think it could have been the reason why she was up for sell....(we bought her from a riding school) - she is the spotted one below in my sig...so I couldnt get away with just pretending it was someone elses mare!!! I got well know in my village...!!

The only way we got around it is by double fencing....so putting two lines of electric fence up with about 1/2 meter in the middle depending on how well your horses can jump.you can also buy extra long poles which help too....this way it put them off having to go through two strands....or upping the electric power...someone said on here to me to use a lorry battery...cruel I know but it puts them off....but if he is rugged this would cause issues as he will not feel the shock....

My pony in her old age just now runs through the electric fence....in the end we gave up and built a solid post and rail and that way she just could not get through it....its normally grass which they are trying to get to...def a good fence will help...electric fences are good for horses who are scared of them...my pony rolled under them, jumped them and in the end ran through them so I have had to give up with them...she is now out for my 5 yr old in a big field and I limit her grass with a muzzle....she has 10 acres to roam in and ( touch wood ) she is fine and has not been out for about 5 yrs....
 
If it's any consolation, my usually beautifully behaved connie x who lives out most of the year has turned into a complete so and so over the last month. Am convinced it is change of weather and new coat coming through as he always seems particularly difficult to handle mid sept to mid oct and is a poppet for the rest of the year. Hopefully your ned will settle down, am assuming he is warm enough, as the temp is plunging around overnight hugely at the moment, mine always tries to escape to fresh grass when he gets a bit cold and feels the need to eat 10 times his bodyweight overnight!!!! I have had a close encounter with the golf course next door in the pitch black before now - was not the most pleasant experience of my life!
 
electric fencing is the answer. it is miracle stuff. having faffed around with all the other types for years, i cannot recommend Fieldguard highly enough. their skinny brown fibreglass posts are completely brilliant, won't shatter in the cold (unlike all other skinny elec posts) and go in very very easily, as deep as you want.
 
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