Horse having its feathers cut overnight

[Twiglet]

Our yard may have been broken into last night, as it appears one of the mares on overnight turn out had her front feathers clipped off (also cutting her leg). Have heard the story of manes being plaited for 'marking' but always thought it was a bit of an urban legend.....the owner of the mare thinks that this feather clipping may be for the same thing. Has anyone heard of this happening elsewhere? It doesn't seem to have been anything accidental as the feathers are cleanly cut, and only on front legs. The field is electric fenced. The yard gate was unlocked when I got there this morning, so it does look like someone could have broken in.

 

[*hic*]

Was this an untidy horse with little feather or a hairy? If it was an untidy horse (I have several of those) I'd be inclined to suspect wannabee pony owners.

If it was a hairy then why on earth would potential thieves be devaluing it by cutting its feather? More than that since people are now claiming that the plaiting is done to gauge how long it takes for the plaits to be noticed and taken out, cutting it's feather certainly doesn't fit with that!

Was the cut off hair found?

 

[sarah.x]

My horse had a handfull of his mane cut over Easter and shortly after I moved him back to uni so even if anything was going to happen there was no time. A few weeks ago it appears as tho is feathers had been cut cut with scissors. He wasnt cut and it was both legs and they werent hacked so I was a bit confussed as to why anybody would do that because its not the most straight forward way to identify a horse. As I said its been a few weeks since this happend and he has remained in the field for 24hrs each day, I dont know whether it was brambles or something similar that affected his legs but im pretty sure it was sciccors and his mane was undoubtable scissors

 

[hannah28]

OMG !?!?

my horse had his front feathers cut of yesterday, and had a straight neat cut down his back leg, on no i am really worried now, i didnt think anything of it at first thought he pulled it out, but walked the fence line and found no hair.....

 

[Twiglet]

It's a tidy connemara, and I doubt very much any wannabe pony owners turned up between 9pm and 5.30am, in the dark at a field with no light nearby. Cut off hair wasn't found but it's a 5 acre field, so the owners didn't check every square inch. Plus it could have blown away quite easy.
I have no idea why someone would do it, but it's quite obviously not something the pony could have done herself.

 

[spike123]

If you read my post below re the palomino colt he was found yesterday and had been hogged and trimmed by whoever stole him.

 

[Serenity087]

I suspect this is ponies doing it to themselves.

Feathers go missing for a variety of reasons, I've had enough hairies to know! (Sometimes it's backwards too, you find huge clumps of hair, but their legs are intact!)

At the moment Dorey's tail is falling out too, probably a hormone thing, but certainly not someone cutting lumps out of her tail as a pre theft thing.

I'd put it down to misadventure (do bear in mind manes can vanish for the same reason!).

Thieves have NEVER EVER plaited/cut/trimmed horses prior to a theft, it's an urban legend!!

 

[Twiglet]

Harper_Gal, I've always been of exactly the same opinion re: mane plaiting! It just seems so ludicrous it can't be true.
But re: this little mare, the feathers are quite obviously blunt scissor cuts, there's nothing else in the field it could have happened on, and nothing like it has happened before. Plus the gate was unlocked when I got there this morning - the last person there insisted it was locked when they left last night.
The pony isn't a hairy, she has standard connemara feathers, that were fully intact prior to this. She won at a big connemara show last week and qualified for Malvern - luckily she can't go anyway, as this would have put paid to it.

 

[WishfulThinker]

I think it will have been the horse its self. My boy ends up with chunks out his feathers that look like blunt cuts, no way that could have happened, but what does is that when he is lying down his legs rub together adn when he gets up he ised to stand on his feathers and kinda break them off. Also, chewing./scratching with teeth will do the same. And just them generally standing on themselves by accident.

 

[Serenity087]

Harper_Gal, I've always been of exactly the same opinion re: mane plaiting! It just seems so ludicrous it can't be true.
But re: this little mare, the feathers are quite obviously blunt scissor cuts, there's nothing else in the field it could have happened on, and nothing like it has happened before. Plus the gate was unlocked when I got there this morning - the last person there insisted it was locked when they left last night.
The pony isn't a hairy, she has standard connemara feathers, that were fully intact prior to this. She won at a big connemara show last week and qualified for Malvern - luckily she can't go anyway, as this would have put paid to it.

Ah. Perhaps you fell foul of someone who, unaware you couldn't attend Malvern, thought they'd help out with things... did everyone on the yard know they couldn't make it?

Also RE the locked gate - Our old yard had an old bat who used to insist that Milo must open the gate as she always made sure it was shut... and yet Milo never opened the gate when everyone else got the horses in! When other people's horses are at risks, lies are freely told!

But, given that it's her front legs, and that the mozzies are out in force, I'm still thinking she's chewed them herself. Very, very rarely are horses manes and tails (and feathers) cut, and there's no satanic or pagan ritual to be had at this time of year/the month.

 

[Twiglet]

He he, do you have the satanic calendar to hand?!

No, definitely wouldn't be any sabotage by anyone at the yard, it's not that kind of place Everyone would have been delighted if she could have gone to Malvern!

Maybe you're right and it is self inflicted, it is just very strange as it doesn't look that way. The owner has panicked and moved her to a friend's yard for the time being.

Funnily enough, I got to the yard last night and my fly mask - hanging outside my stable - had had an ear ripped off. Spent all night worrying someone was marking it out to steal

 

[applecart14]

I am on a busy livery yard with 40+ horses. We have 55 acres of grazing. One of the fields is right up a long path and is very isolated from the other fields. I was catching my horse the one day from this field and found a bunch of horse tail which had been cut. I knew it had been cut as it was all one length (approx 6 inches). I scouted the whole field but couldn't find any other tail off cuts, nor could I detect which horse it had been cut from as none of the horses in the field had had their tails cut. No one came forward on the yard to say their horses tail had been cut either. It was very worrying.

Then one day I went down the field to find a rag doll which had been dropped in the field. Its trousers had been pulled down to its ankles. Again very worrying as there was no footpath through the field and no one would have cause to be in there, particularly kids.

I nailed a load of Horsewatch signs everywhere and made sure my horses rugs were painted with his freezemark number. Shortly afterwards he was moved into another field and had never been back in that field. A number of horses are very skittish up this track leading to this field, and i have often wondered if there were dodgy people that used to hang around in the field.

All this business about marking horses to steal with plaits is a load of bunkum if you ask me. I did look at the satanic calendar as it happened and it marked some kind of 'festival' that was celebrated. I know that horse hair is used in fishing and I also remember reading in Danny Champion of the World about being able to catch pheasants by putting horsehair through raisins but don't know if that was just completely made up or there is any truth in it!

 

[applecart14]

Sometimes strange things happen with horses