Turned a Blind Eye This Morning.....

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mcnaughty

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I am in the throws of moving yard and one of the reasons (amongst many...) that I am moving is because the grass is sooooo poor there and the "rotation" always goes against me. My poor mare and foal have had to live off 1.5 acres all summer - through all that draught. Cost me a bloomin fortune to keep them going.

Anyway, YO has decided to put her 3 in the "winter grazing" next to my mare and foal's bare paddock which is knee high in lush grass with just an electric fence between them.

As I drove to work this morning past the field I glanced over and thought "that picture looks wrong somehow..." so I pulled in and saw that the foal has somehow limboed or jumped the electric fence into the field with the grass and left her poor mum to starve. However, they both had their heads down and were not in the least bit bothered by the situation so I sort of thought "sod it" let her have a bit of grass.

It probably would have taken me ages to catch her anyway so will go up at lunchtime and try.

Part of me is having a good old giggle though - serves YO right for being so bloody selfish.
 
Have to say i would of done the same as you as long as the foal is old enought to cope without mum for a while.
Foals are very adapt at getting back to mum when they want to so i would not panic too much.
Happen at my yard a coupe of month back got a call at 10 at night to say foal was in another field from its mum, i said dont worry it will pop its self back when it wants to (it was doing it regular), YO insited that i went straight up, so had to get a taxi (was in pub having a couple at the time) to find foal happily in same field as mum.
 
Ive had exactly the same problem all summer too. My mare and foal had rubbish grazing while all the other liveries got exactly what they wanted and all did well over summer. My mare now looks like complete crap because she was feeding a monster all summer and no matter how much feed and haylage i pumped in, i still struggled to keep her up to weight.
x
 
amymay said:
Wonder what will happen when foal wants 'back' with ma.

Not sure I would have left the situation as you did.
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I agree. My pony is currently sporting some pretty nasty cuts on his hind legs as a result of getting caught in the electric fence and then panicking. However the wee one got into the lush field, he/she might not be as lucky getting back out.

Your YO is being bloody selfish but I would get your foal back with ma asap, just incase.
 
Leaving in 15 mins.

Just wonder if she will just pop back and forth anyway as show now knows it is much nicer over there....
 
i think somepeople worry to much and the foal is big enought to get over and so will most likely get back. i would have been tempted to lift fence for the mare to but o well. the yo sort of deserves it
 
All safely back together now. They were pleased to be back too - mare's udder was pretty large and foal had a good suck.

Looks like they might have been apart for the best part of the night - there was lots of paceing marks next to the fenceline and little poppy poos too....

Checked fencing and it was down at one end so looks like a limbo dance was going on. Shame she didn't have the intelligence to go back that way but I expect she might have got a bit of a wallop from the battery on her bot bot so was thinking twice about it!

Anyway, all safe and sound now. Just had to give the mare a massive lump of hay though as she is looking very poor again.
 
Anyway, all safe and sound now. Just had to give the mare a massive lump of hay though as she is looking very poor again.
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Probably not helped by absence of child.

Glad there was no other damage.
 
why don't you move the mare and foal? or at least speak to the YO, I would be rather concerned myself if the mare is poor now - what happens when the weather really does change?
 
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