Sudden pheasants etc..follow on from cantering on verges thread.

Well of course if you own a welsh cob then neither pheasants nor bird scarers will bother them, but a man wearing a hat (or not wearing a hat when he should be) will be utterly terrifying.

yep!!
though the screech-to-a-halt to sniff some dead bird on the track instead of cantering on can be a bit 'interesting'

Mine thought the village band dressed as Munchkins on carnival day as the most normal thing in the world though, and would actually peer down holes in the road to see if there were any workmen down there.
 
I had a horse that used to be frightened of pheasants, then we moved to Hampshire, where the hedges are full of them, and he got used to them. That is the key... whatever the trigger is, the horse just needs to see lots, and lots, and lots of it, until it's normal.

If that means having someone the far side of a hedge chucking pheasants at neddy whilst you feed him a bag of carrots, so be it.

haha!! funny mental picture! so true though...

We've cracked cars, buses, bicycles, toddlers, pheasants, birds, guns, fireworks, sheep, dogs, cows, leaves (cos you know leaves are lethal, right?), tractors are also now friends since one dropped some lovely haylage accidentally once that was destined for the cows...

Can anyone please help with traffic cones? Do I need to camp in the hedgerow and chuck a cone over at regular intervals? I've thought of dressing up as one but unsure how tenants would feel about me poo picking looking like a "freshers week" ancient statue prank.

Income is still important.
 
I have a neck strap AND a strap across the d-rings- did I remember to utilise either of these as I slid gracefully down his neck to the floor? Nope, not a bit :) My poor lad is an utter gent and will do all he can to "save" you should you become unseated, but even he could not save me from myself! He looked at me in disbelief and then, forgetting his abject terror, partook of some delicious grass whilst I hobbled to my feet ha

I don't mind the sideways hop/spin at a surprise pheasant or sound, if he was a bolter, or rearer, I would be really bothered by that. I don't know how you can de-sensitise other than riding through it and keeping confidence so that the little wibble doesn't go anny further

I never remember to grab hold of any strap in front of me when about to fall off. I do usually manage to cling on very ungracefully.

I have actually only had one time where my horse did 'bolt' and it was only from one end of the arena to the other. He got scared seeing the cat dragging a rabbit through a field (how odd must that have looked to a horse?). Bless him he did stop and watched and tried to be brave but he couldn't manage it lol. He spun and took off. I had slid sideways at this point as was taken by surprise but when I asked him to slow down he did. He always will, if you ask him not to run he won't even though he really wants to. Of course if you let him he will.
 
yep!!
though the screech-to-a-halt to sniff some dead bird on the track instead of cantering on can be a bit 'interesting'

My Welsh Cob to a T. We would go for hours through all terrain - gunshots, motorbikes, lorries, dogs chasing us? No problem. Seeing a person walking towards us, a log on the ground that he's seen a hundred times, or a bin? Utterly terrifying.
 
yep!!
though the screech-to-a-halt to sniff some dead bird on the track instead of cantering on can be a bit 'interesting'

I used to ride my friends Sec C out - and this was him to a T. Except it was usually other horses poo that we had to emergency stop to sniff.
 
I must admit the pheasants do make me jump at times my horses are not too bad with them they can spook but not really badly, I think it's worse when your next to a hedge and about 20 of the things are running hell for leather beside you mine seem to react more to this than a random one flying up in the air, I tend to avoid going to near bird scarers luckily most of them are far enough away from the bridle paths to worry about, although my horses are not bothered by the local shoot or fireworks I think riding past a bird scarer would make them jump if it were to go off.

One of my horses is more concerned about the pigeons in the trees around the menage he can't stand it when they are fluttering about he has done some pretty impressive spooks, I have found myself on the other side of the arena in a matter of seconds many times.
 
There's a huge difference between a horse jumping because something has taken him by surprise and proper spooking with spinning etc. I expect every horse (and every rider) to do the former - they'd have to be superhuman (or should that be superequine?) not to.
 
There are shoots go from our yard so the fields we ride round are full of pheasants and the horses seem to get used to them quite quickly. A little spook when they flap out then carry on. My young cob was so unbothered by a baby pheasant running out between his legs when we were trotting up a field boundary earlier this year that he trod on it and didn't even flinch! :eek3: It made a horrible crunch :(
 
Hubby and I were hacking on Wednesday past a big just sown field, and it had two crop scarers going off at 30 sec intervals.... Thank goodness the girls didn't get too overexcited, and also they were about 20 yards back form the road (the same farmer has put them just on the other side of the hedge before)... They were a bit sweaty when we got home though :(

There are so many pheasants around us they have learned to ignore them..

Fiona
 
There are shoots go from our yard so the fields we ride round are full of pheasants and the horses seem to get used to them quite quickly. A little spook when they flap out then carry on. My young cob was so unbothered by a baby pheasant running out between his legs when we were trotting up a field boundary earlier this year that he trod on it and didn't even flinch! :eek3: It made a horrible crunch :(

Crikey - pheasants really are the stupidest of birds :(

Fiona
 
Crikey - pheasants really are the stupidest of birds :(

Fiona

funny,because I often think they are quite brainy round here! They have the best road sense of all the wildlife. Or perhaps the thick ones have already been run over.

My older mare has always done her fast work around game crop etc so is pretty pheasant proof. Little one was a bit frightened when she put some up in her field, but I think she's come to terms with them now. Lots of shoots around us so they are everywhere. We have a field of farmed deer on one of my hacking routes and when they are all chattering to each other they are WAY more scary :lol:
 
Definitely thick round here, they invariably run the wrong way in front of cars, and fly straight into fences etc....

The gamekeeper of local shoot was out on our local A road chasing them back into the estate the other day, he admitted himself it was a fairly thankless task lol....

No deer thankfully apart from the very occasional wild stag...

Fiona
 
well, mine are used to geese, large ducks laying eggs in their stables (while they are in there-so flying in and out), chickens etc. so they are pretty bird proof and wouldn't waste energy on a pheasant. however, one spooks at big rocks. its not lack of desensitisation-there are big rocks everywhere. he's just an arse.

I'm with you on the rock front. Big rocks and benches. God forbid anyone wanted to sit down at a sensible spot along the track we use (regularly). It's not as if the benches move around to different locations either. And they're as naturally-designed as can be, you'd hardly spot them. Unless you are my horse. She knows about the benches. She knows exactly where they'll be. And still behaves inappropriately. And if there's someone sat on one...look out. Because people sitting quietly minding their own business aren't something she's seen before, clearly.
 
Just to show that you can't train for everything; mine had the air ambulance land and take off again from their paddock this week. I arrived shortly after it left to find them grazing peacefully as if nothing had happened.
 
Just to show that you can't train for everything; mine had the air ambulance land and take off again from their paddock this week. I arrived shortly after it left to find them grazing peacefully as if nothing had happened.

That happened to me once, it took a team of people to keep my TB at bay as he's so nosey he was trying to look in the ambulance and they couldn't take off :D
 
I remember cantering up the hill when I was on the old place on our show cob. They routinely ran shoots and bred hundreds of flipping pheasants. Thought we'd missed feeding time...... We hadn't. Got halfway up the hill and we started raising pheasants. The boy kept going, a hundred of them must'v e taken flight by the end. Wish I had a picture It was amazing to do it.
 
There was one just off the road at an old yard I was at. It went off 3 times in succession every hour so we learnt to time it. Sadly it wasn't on the hour and seemed to vary slightly but we usually managed roughly to avoid it!
 
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