Inexplicable horse behaviour ?

[ycbm]

I put hay/haylage in barred off corners in a barn where the horses live overnight in winter.

I put a circle of straw in the barn which I call the pee magnet, where they will always pee, keeping the barn dry.

The horses pull stuff out of the bars, and if I leave it they will pee on it and ruin the track I might want to ride on in bad weather. They won't eat it.

If I pick it up and and move it to the pee magnet, which has already been peed in, they eat it!

Go figure ?

Do yours do completely inexplicable things?
.

 

[Laurac13]

Ha ha yes my elderly mini Shetland eats his straw bed in his stable and poos on his lovely hay I put in fresh ?

 

[Peglo]

TB tipping half her bucket of very expensive feed on the floor and fussily picking it up (but still wasting far too much for my liking) just eat it out of your bucket horse!!

 

[julesjoy]

Oh yes. Strip grazed ponies. Opened a new strip of grass and the first thing they do is wee and poo on it, so they can't eat a chunk of it. Why waste the grass they could eat??

 

[Squeak]

TB tipping half her bucket of very expensive feed on the floor and fussily picking it up (but still wasting far too much for my liking) just eat it out of your bucket horse!!

My tb did that but it got too heartbreaking so I got him one of the bowls in a tyre and he eats a lot better for it.

 

[Gloi]

Not inexplicable but mine lifts his haynet onto his stable door and goes to sleep using it as a pillow.

 

[smolmaus]

TB tipping half her bucket of very expensive feed on the floor and fussily picking it up (but still wasting far too much for my liking) just eat it out of your bucket horse!!

So many of the horses on the yard do this and it drives me absolutely batty.

Shitting in the corner feeder is one I will never understand

 

[Mule]

Not inexplicable but my horse is guaranteed to stand on any dropping he does, guaranteed. He does his dropping then immediately walks backwards and rests his hoof in it

 

[Dave's Mam]

Spooked at a bale of hay & ran away?

 

[meleeka]

TB tipping half her bucket of very expensive feed on the floor and fussily picking it up (but still wasting far too much for my liking) just eat it out of your bucket horse!!

Yep one of mine does this too and has even been known to leave what’s left in the bucket to go and hoover up someone else’s (exactly the same) leftovers.

 

[windand rain]

They always pee on new grass/hay they go to toilet areas to poo but if given new strip of grass will poo on it until I poo pick it then they eat it

 

[SpeedyPony]

Yep one of mine does this too and has even been known to leave what’s left in the bucket to go and hoover up someone else’s (exactly the same) leftovers.

The feed is always sweeter from someone else's bucket. Even if they end up stealing the unmolassed chaff from one of the fatties, that they'd turn their nose up at in disgust if it was presented in their bucket. ??

 

[Mule]

Another one mine does is come in to the stable specifically to pee when I've mucked out and put in nice fresh bedding. He waits for me to finish the bedding, stares at me, marches in to the stable, pees while staring then marches out again

 

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

Spooked at a bike (static, just leant on a wall with the child holding it) I can’t remember when he last saw a bike. He reared and my shoulder is wrecked.

My warmblood always pooed in his water, every night. He would destroy anything left in his stable.

 

[BeckyFlowers]

Has a right good go on someone else's salt lick given the opportunity but refuses to acknowledge it if I buy him one. The same make and model. Every time.

 

[meleeka]

Another one mine does is come in to the stable specifically to pee when I've mucked out and put in nice fresh bedding. He waits for me to finish the bedding, stares at me, marches in to the stable, pees while staring then marches out again

you’ve just reminded me! My big mare will walk from the field just to have a poo in the stable. She also wees in the same place in the field. I think in her mind she’s being terribly tidy and polite. The wee patch is quite near the hay and it stinks!

 

[little_critter]

Not inexplicable but my horse is guaranteed to stand on any dropping he does, guaranteed. He does his dropping then immediately walks backwards and rests his hoof in it

Yup, he number of times I’ve gone “Don’t step backw…, oh never mind”

 

[luckyoldme]

My daft old boy walked straight past a working tree harvester then shit himself and took off because he saw a cat ?

 

[asmp]

Oh yes. Strip grazed ponies. Opened a new strip of grass and the first thing they do is wee and poo on it, so they can't eat a chunk of it. Why waste the grass they could eat??

Mine always wees on a new strip of grass but at least he eats it (or one of them does!)

 

[asmp]

Another one mine does is come in to the stable specifically to pee when I've mucked out and put in nice fresh bedding. He waits for me to finish the bedding, stares at me, marches in to the stable, pees while staring then marches out again

Our spotty one does this so we have a large bucket with straw in it to whisk under him to save the bed a bit.

 

[Clodagh]

Our spotty one does this so we have a large bucket with straw in it to whisk under him to save the bed a bit.

Was going to say that! We had a shavings bucket for when they came in ?

 

[MissTyc]

My cob "twitches" himself in the corner of the stable door/frame. He works his lip right into the little gap above the hinge, wedges it in tight, and then sleeps for hours.

 

[Brownmare]

Oh so many things! Retired gelding was and still is a hay hoover but when he used to be stabled any hay that fell to the floor from his haynet was untouchable. If I mucked out while he was still in the stable he would eat the very same hay out of the wheelbarrow from in amongst the poo etc. Same horse now lives out and is fed tied up in a shed with a stone manger. He insists on taking huge mouthfuls then turning his head to dribble all his food onto the floor where he can't reach it.
Fussy mare is ridiculously particular about what she will eat, but when staying away managed to nick a bucket of fatty chaff from the horse next door and crammed it down despite refusing to eat the very same chaff at home even when mixed with tasty grass nuts.
And all 3 of my idiot horses stood still while a bunch of escaped lambs chewed their tails off ?

 

[poiuytrewq]

TB tipping half her bucket of very expensive feed on the floor and fussily picking it up (but still wasting far too much for my liking) just eat it out of your bucket horse!!

Every day ? why?!

Mine are much the same with hay. Pee on it, refuse to eat it because someone has pee’d on it. So I go scrape it all back up then they try and eat it out of the barrow!

 

[poiuytrewq]

My cob "twitches" himself in the corner of the stable door/frame. He works his lip right into the little gap above the hinge, wedges it in tight, and then sleeps for hours.

That’s weird ?

 

[Sir barnaby]

i fill the hay box in the field and Barney promptly puts his nose at the bottom and throws all the hay out onto the ground then eats the dregs at the bottom of the box?

 

[BBP]

I kept finding piles of poo outside the field boundary, sometimes behind the stock fencing with no horses the other side. Apparently bbp likes to keep his field clean so he reverses up to the fence and poos over the top.

 

[LadyGascoyne]

Rolls under the electric fence when she thinks you’re not looking.

Gets shocked every time but still does it.

 

[littleshetland]

Standing next to their perfectly warm and cosy field shelter, staring at me reproachfully whilst getting lashed by wind and rain until I catch them in....what is that all about? lol!

 

[Clodagh]

I kept finding piles of poo outside the field boundary, sometimes behind the stock fencing with no horses the other side. Apparently bbp likes to keep his field clean so he reverses up to the fence and poos over the top.

Now that’s a plus!