We had some beautiful weather last weekend and we decided to bring the horses into the field for some grazing and to see how they do with the new fence. The fence is made up of three strands and wooden fence posts. Two of the strands are a rope like material and the third is a metal wire. The fence is electric (the first time we have ever had electric fencing) but we did not turn it on while the horses were in the pen. This is the first time that the babies have not been in a paneled pen. To say I was nervous is an understatement.
Mom lead Tabasco while I lead Shoshoni and we walked around the perimeter of the field (what a walk!) . The babies could care less about the fence all they wanted to do was graze. Shoni stepped on me a couple of times while we were walking because she was gawking to the right and can't walk straight when she does that. Tabasco was being a brat pulling his head down to graze and at one point decided to kick up his heals a little while being lead and he almost kicked Mom. I need to figure out a way to work on him one on one with his manners.
Mom and I finally lead them all the way around and stopped at the beginning. "Ready to let them off the lead? On the count of three. One. Two. Three." We unhook the ropes and... nothing happens. They just drop their heads and start grazing.
They didn't wander too far away from each other and at one point both of them were trying to eat the grass on the other side of the fence... the grass is always greener I guess!
Mom and I were on the other side of the fence checking out these weird looking weeds (I think they are called milk weeds) and we started picking some of the grass over there. Shoni heard it being pulled and decided she would gladly come over to eat it.
While Shoni was hanging out with us Tabasco had wandered off a little ways grazing. Shoni looked up and noticed that he was very far from her and that she needed to fix that and trotted over to him.
At some point when no one was looking and the camera was put away Tabasco got a good sized tree branch caught in his tail. My good boy did not panic he just calmly walked away trying to dislodge it from his tail. He had an annoyed look on his face but he remained calm. Dad came over and held onto Tabasco's halter while Mom and I detangled the branch out of his tail. I was glad that it had been Tabasco's tail to get snared and not Shoni's I don't know how she would handle something like that yet.
Later in the afternoon we were getting hungry so mom and I went into the house to make something to eat while dad stayed outside to work on the horse shelter. Not even five minutes after we had gone in the house the cell phone rings. It was dad informing us that Shoni just jumped the fence. We ran outside to go catch her and saw Shoni already back in the pen with Tabasco. Turns out she felt lonely and decided to jump the fence into the pen that dad was in (and about give him a heart attack) so he was able to grab her halter and lead her back to the other pen. We decided that was enough fun with the babies for one day so we put them back in their pens. Shoni promptly went to her corner to take her nap after all of that excitement.
Does anyone have any experience with jumping horses? How do you keep them in their pens since they are trained to jump? Any thoughts/suggestions would be most appreciated!!! :)
After we finished lunch we haltered the big horses and led them over to the field for a romp. They had already been lead around the field on Saturday (while I was at work) so we just closed the gate behind them and they happily grazed. They stayed pretty close to each other most of the time.
As they were grazing Sweetie decided to stay in one spot along the fence line and let the other two wander to the middle of the field then she let out a little happy squeal and ran back over to rejoin the group.
Convinced mom to let me take some photos of her and her pretty Sweetie girl. Shhh don't tell her I posted them on SPIDERSWEB!
7 comments:
What beautiful pictures of your horses! Thanks for sharing!
Great pictures of your horses, they are beautiful.
I've only ever had horses jump out of the paddock one time and they never did it again. I have no solutions but maybe if you turned the electric fence on they would have more respect for it and stay away from it. Good luck, that's going to be a hard habit to break if they start to do it all the time and it could be dangerous to them too.
Boy I wouldn't dare turn my goof balls out without the electricty working, they'd be testing the fence for sure. LOL
It does sound like some leading lessons are in order. Good luck with that.
I would have been nervous, too about the first time out. Beautiful has never been in the pasture and probably won't be until next year.
I've never had any of my others jump a fence--which surprises me because in the winter last year the snow was so deep, they could have walked over it.
Mine are afraid of electric. So, I'd agree with the other suggestion--put the biggest current you can through the wire--and let them learn.
I love the pictures!!! What a beautiful location--and the fence looks GREAT!!!
I just found your blog. I am moving to Wisconsin (originally from WI) from Idaho. I'm actually in WI right now, having just moved my horses here. I've recently met a network of people near me in ID/WA with mustangs and was hoping to find the same network in the midwest. I was looking at your pics, thinking, "she must be in the midwest somewhere", then I read you're in MN! What part? I'm in west central WI, near Tomah.
Lots of great pics. Is that a lake out there? We have electric fence out at our boarding facility. I didn't like the idea of electric fence at first, but the horses really respect that boundary. Good luck.
Hi all,
Thank you for stopping by and leaving your comments and ideas :)
We are going to be putting all five horses in the same pen on Thursday (*insert nail biting here*)and turn on the fence to see how everybody does.
Unfortunately we have Shoni who jumps fences and Sundance does also *sigh*. So far they have jumped from one fenced pen into another fenced pen so I can't complain too loud- and usually Sundance only does it when he's scared (like that time he saw the horse eating Llama with a herd of goats... hmmm). I guess we will see if turning on the electric makes a difference (betcha I get zapped more than they do). If not we will have to keep the babies in a paneled pen until we figure out a plan B.
Kara- I actually live in Lake Park, MN which is about 30-45 mins east of Fargo, ND. Count me in for your network of mustangs! :) I have been trying to do the same since I got here (I'm originally from CO) and not many people here have heard of adopting a wild mustang. The good thing though is that there are a ton of horse lovers here and so far they have all been really nice. Future mustang owners maybe?!
Lots of lakes and swamps up this way. Our house is actually on a lake (you can kind of see it in the background when Shoni is running) and across the road (photos of Sundance) is a "swamp" area that looks like a lake to me. The nice thing about areas being labled as swamps is that you never have to worry about someone building there! :D
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