Horses with weird habits

Season’s Bleatings

Season’s Bleatings

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Anyone else have one with an odd habit?

My bf's mare is quite odd. She is fed her haylage from a net, which I always tie on the left hand side of the stable. Her water drinker is on the right hand side. The YO does morning feeds / turnout and when she is staying in, he normally puts her net at the left hand side too, which is ideal, as I prefer it on the left. There is a reason for this....

I went up to sort her out yesterday afternoon and immediately upon walking into the stable block I knew the YO had tied the net on the right hand side, the same as her drinker, because there was a puddle leading out of her stable and across to the drain.

When her net is tied on this side, she dunks her haylage in the drinker, trails it all over the place, splashes water everywhere and generally does her best to flood the stable. She doesn't do it when the net is on the other side!

Opened stable up and yep, puddles galore, wet haylage thrown about the place and her feed bucket was somehow full of water. Strange horse!

YO now instructed to please only put nets on left hand side!

Disclaimer, because I am sure someone will mention it ;) her teeth are fine, she is just a strange little being!
 
I have a water container on wheels. I put a tub inside the container which holds the water. If I don't put three house bricks in the container that the tub sits on and four bricks on the stable floor to encircle the water container my horse considers it good sport to drag the water container into the centre of the stable.

He will also explore anything and everything with his feet so everything has to be higher than chest height and you cannot tie him near anything as he is proper nosy and will investigate.

At night I place his hay inside a tub under another tub in the field to keep out the rain/wet and the next day when the staff turn him out he will walk over to the tub and knock it flying with his nose. I taught him that trick in about 20 seconds! The staff think its hilarious, and he causes much merriment!
 
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My mothers TB used to share his feed with the donkey. He would get food in his mouth and put it on the floor for her. When donkey wasnt in he wouldnt put any on the floor so it was definately a deliberate action.
 
My little mare if very handy with her feet and will trample on everything if she's not sure what it is. She's only young and tying her up outside the box for the first time she spotted the plastic drawers I had just bought to store brushes and spare pieces of tack in. Sniffed it then kicked it in with her front feet, smashing it. Then she moved on to my tack trunk, sniffed it and then put both front feet on the lid breaking it irreparably. The first time she saw the mounting block she climbed it. The first time she saw the tractor parked up she put a front hoof onto the top of the front tyre. Fillers, the benches at the side of the arena, a chicken coop - nothing is safe!! She makes me laugh, I've never seen a horse explore it's environment quite the way she does!! :D
 
Sheep said:
Anyone else have one with an odd habit?

My bf's mare is quite odd. She is fed her haylage from a net, which I always tie on the left hand side of the stable. Her water drinker is on the right hand side. The YO does morning feeds / turnout and when she is staying in, he normally puts her net at the left hand side too, which is ideal, as I prefer it on the left. There is a reason for this....

I went up to sort her out yesterday afternoon and immediately upon walking into the stable block I knew the YO had tied the net on the right hand side, the same as her drinker, because there was a puddle leading out of her stable and across to the drain.

When her net is tied on this side, she dunks her haylage in the drinker, trails it all over the place, splashes water everywhere and generally does her best to flood the stable. She doesn't do it when the net is on the other side!

Opened stable up and yep, puddles galore, wet haylage thrown about the place and her feed bucket was somehow full of water. Strange horse!

YO now instructed to please only put nets on left hand side!

Disclaimer, because I am sure someone will mention it ;) her teeth are fine, she is just a strange little being!
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My friend's gelding was a dunker. He had a completely separate water bucket for it because he got through so much.

I knew one horse which would keep the carrots to one side of its feed, and then enjoy them at the end when everything else was eaten up. Another wouldn't eat out of a bucket, and would tip it all out on the floor first. My girl used to eat her feed, then sort of hold the edge of the bucket in her mouth for a few seconds to show she had finished. I never really did understand that. She also had to take hold of her headcollar or bridle and shake it exactly 3 times before you put it on her. She would tug on my coat if she wanted something and if I fetched her in from the field when she didn't really want to come, or led her through mud that was hard work for her poor old arthritic legs, she would take my wrist in her teeth and hold it carefully for a second or two, often more than once, to show her objection. I miss her funny little ways.
 
Mine only pees in her stable, she could be out in the field all day or away at an event and would hold it. You know when shes dying to go though because she purses her lips and she goes in like lightning!:D Funny enough my old pony simply refused to pee in his stable, and had to go out first thing so he could go to his 'spot'. Only once in the three years I had him did he do it and he stood at the other side of his stable from it, I could feel his glare on me that morning when I put him out late.

Also Juno HAS to roll after riding, but only in sand. She goes out in the arena after riding so I can do her box and she prances out snorting and full on flings herself down as soon as her front feet hit the sand. Same at the beach, after I untack and sort of just let her plod around to find the perfect spot she just lies down and groans and wiggles about for a bit before getting up. No bad reasons though, she doesn't do it when out in the field, she just loves the feel of the sand I think!

Other girls horse at the yard tries to get whichever horse is standing outside her stable tied up eatings attention by wiggling her head or pulling faces etc just so that when the other horse looks up, she snatches a mouthful of whatever they're eating even if she has her own food! So funny:)
 
My lad doesn't like his feed too wet. If it's too wet in his opinion, he tips the lot out on to the floor to let the water drain off.
His next door neighbour will throw his feed bucket out of the stable if there is anything in his feed he doesn't like.
 
My little old horse is also a bucket-waver. He has also been known to throw it at people if he feels he is being ignored! My idiot ex-racer has a couple of funny habits, he likes to drink the manky, muddy water out of hoofprints and he holds water in his mouth, sort of swills it around a bit and then dribbles everywhere! Makes a right mess and to top it all, he has taught/been copied by the youngster, so I now have two stables with puddles on the floor and manky drinkers. Arrrgghh!
 
Yep, my gelding has to have 2 trugs of water. A 'clean' one by his door that he drinks out of then a 'hay' one next to his haybar that he dunks every mouthful of haylage into! He is an odd horse though.
 
StarlightMagic said:
my horse gets a mouthful of haylage then flaps his lips in his water before he eats it, he does it with the whole lot!!
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My mare does the same thing :) Besides I've got another horse, TB gelding, and the really weird thing he does is putting his tounge out of his mouth through diastema, and hold it like that all the time :D
 
This is not a stable habit like the others but if you make a fuss of my gelding he will stick his tongue out at you, he likes his tongue squeezed and will stand for ages like it until it goes blue, and he goes into an almost trance like state.
 
My late mare used to flood her stable by tipping her water bucket over. She used to hate being left and if she was staying in while others were turned out she'd flood the stable so she'd have to go out while I sorted the stable! Very clever!
Her son, my first foal and only 9 months old already has habits. Can't leave a rug over his door because obviously it's fair game and a cool toy!
Also he has his feed bucket on the wall, but before he eats he has to lift it out, put the bucket on the floor, and eat it there!
 
Beausmate said:
My little old horse is also a bucket-waver. He has also been known to throw it at people if he feels he is being ignored! My idiot ex-racer has a couple of funny habits, he likes to drink the manky, muddy water out of hoofprints and he holds water in his mouth, sort of swills it around a bit and then dribbles everywhere! Makes a right mess and to top it all, he has taught/been copied by the youngster, so I now have two stables with puddles on the floor and manky drinkers. Arrrgghh!
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Think yourself lucky - my old boy used to take a uge draught of water, hold onto it for a long time , and then dribble it all over any reachable human (preferably down the neck!). He alo taght the ret of the yard to do it, and one of them has taught my youngster to do it!
 
My boy has a good line in heavy sighs. When I put on his halter...sigh. When I put on his bridle...huge sigh. He's so long suffering! Makes me laugh.
 
Two trug buckets of water in stable. Will only drink from the one on the right. Never taken a sip from one on left.
 
I have a friend who won't eat cornflakes until they've sat in the milk and become soggy. I personally think that's disgusting, but I don't go to a lot of trouble to stop her doing it when she visits ;)

One person's (or horse's) funny habit is another person's (or horse's) perfectly normal preference. It might be messy, but it does no harm, and with horses I've found that some hay and haylage gets dunked and some doesn't - maybe the horse, who's standing eating it all day, likes to reduce the dust content that the person who only has to handle it for a few minutes doesn't notice?

My horse doesn't like deep buckets - I try to make sure he gets his feed in a shallow one, and I do sigh deeply when he waits until my back is turned and turfs the whole contents of the bucket on the ground and then picks through it extracting the tasty bits and leaving the expensive supplement... but then I have another (human) friend who picks through her Alpen and extracts all the raisins, so I guess all our personal preferences look like weird habits to others :D
 
One of my mares used to take her bandages off if she got too hot or if you put anything she considered uncomfortable under them like a poultice! She would then rip them into tiny little pieces like a patchwork quilt. She also used to take the fluff out of her duvet if you left it in her stable and you would find her surrounded by white fluff!

Her other trick in the summer when she had a chain on her door was to reach out and take anything in reach into her stable, one day I found her with the hosepipe and a plastic chair! She was a huge character and we all adored her.
 
*sprinkles* said:
My little mare if very handy with her feet and will trample on everything if she's not sure what it is. She's only young and tying her up outside the box for the first time she spotted the plastic drawers I had just bought to store brushes and spare pieces of tack in. Sniffed it then kicked it in with her front feet, smashing it. Then she moved on to my tack trunk, sniffed it and then put both front feet on the lid breaking it irreparably. The first time she saw the mounting block she climbed it. The first time she saw the tractor parked up she put a front hoof onto the top of the front tyre. Fillers, the benches at the side of the arena, a chicken coop - nothing is safe!! She makes me laugh, I've never seen a horse explore it's environment quite the way she does!! :D
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This reminds me of my pony. He isn't the bravest hack, so on one occasion a while back I led him along a scary section and then found a gateway with those big boulders farmers use to block the entrance. I thought I'd use one as a mounting block. With my terrible back it took an effort to climb up, it must have been 3 foot high. Triumphantly I stood up on top, only to find pony quickly jumped up next to me like a mountain goat! In retrospect it would have been easier to just get on from the floor!
 
One of my ponies pulls rugs down from the rail in his stable and sleeps on them

He also buries the hay bricks I give him in his bed, I find them when mucking out or trip over them regularly

I can almost hear it..

'oh goody another solid lump of hay for me to knaw at! yummy yummy thanks'

I walk away

'I'm not eating that rubbish'
 
KatPT said:
This reminds me of my pony. He isn't the bravest hack, so on one occasion a while back I led him along a scary section and then found a gateway with those big boulders farmers use to block the entrance. I thought I'd use one as a mounting block. With my terrible back it took an effort to climb up, it must have been 3 foot high. Triumphantly I stood up on top, only to find pony quickly jumped up next to me like a mountain goat! In retrospect it would have been easier to just get on from the floor!
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Hahahaha! Spluttering coffee over my computer!
 
o and billy picks up anything you leave near him! headcollars, rugs, tack, food, phone.... ANYTHING!!! ha ha i cant leave him alone with anything or it will be in his mouth!

He is so funny though, because he clearly knows he is being naughty because when im in with him he will sort of sneak over to the object and then look at me and then sneak closer and closer, it always ends in me saying 'BILLYYYYYYY' in a stupid voice and he will move away, for about 1min, then it starts over again! Im sure he just likes playing the fool with me! Im also sure he understands what i say! I told/pointed him to jump the tyres in the field the other day and he trotted off and jumped it! No word of a lie!:)
 
My gelding doesn't wee in his stable, he holds it till the morning when I turn him out - makes mucking out very easy :)

He also stretches like a dog/cat first thing in the morning when you bring him out the stable:

Dexterstretch_zps268e9a4d.jpg


When he is done with his feed bucket he throws it over his stable door. That's all I can remember for now, but he is a very bizarre horse bless him!
 
Tangled said:
My gelding doesn't wee in his stable, he holds it till the morning when I turn him out - makes mucking out very easy :)

He also stretches like a dog/cat first thing in the morning when you bring him out the stable:

Dexterstretch_zps268e9a4d.jpg


When he is done with his feed bucket he throws it over his stable door. That's all I can remember for now, but he is a very bizarre horse bless him!
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mine does that stretch too! ha ha its so cute isnt it!
 
We have just acquired a Shetland mare on loan as a companion pony. If she doesn't approve of what's in her feed bucket, she rolls on it (the bucket!!!!!)
 
Nessa4 said:
Think yourself lucky - my old boy used to take a uge draught of water, hold onto it for a long time , and then dribble it all over any reachable human (preferably down the neck!). He alo taght the ret of the yard to do it, and one of them has taught my youngster to do it!
Click to expand...

Nope, not lucky! I have learned to keep well out of his way when he's been drinking ;) He dribbles down the neck of his partner in crime instead, it's becoming a game as to who can sneak the most dribble onto the other's neck without being noticed.

My little oldie (horse in avatar) enjoys pulling coats onto the floor and standing on them, but only when I'm not looking. I turn my back for a moment and when I look round there he is, standing on my coat, looking the picture of innocence with the whole 'What? Me? Never! It just fell off, you can't have hung it up properly!' look on his smug mush. Toerag.
 
Enjoying these funny horsey antics. Don't know where to start with my character! Yesterday he threw his overreach boots, which he wears in the field, at another livery as she was taking her horse out, asking to have them put on and go out too.
Day before he unzipped my pocket, not unusual so I didn't take any notice, until I realised he had actually eaten the zip pull. Luckily it didn't seem to do any harm to him.
He certainly makes me smile every day which makes all the work worthwhile.
 
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