It was time for one of these after my trip to the barn yesterday. I had been giving serious consideration to dropping next year's insurance for injury and mortality on all of my horses as I sealed the envelope on the final installment for 2009. Like so many years I had paid the premiums but just didn't have any claims. So...money being tight, I was thinking why bother.
This was still in my mind as I went out to do afternoon feeding. From the carport I could hear hooves galloping and I figured that Atlas, my young gelding, was doing a bit of pre-feeding time excess energy burn. When I walked around the corner, though and saw the real situation, it was an "oh crap" moment. There were three horses in the same pen, where there was only supposed to be one. I saw that the not turned on hot wire between Atlas and his huge mom, Robijn, and elderly very pregnant mare, Joline had been knocked down and run over.
There are very few things that worry me more than the putting horses together in the same field, even if they have already known each other across a fence. For some reason when you turn them loose together, they tend to just lose it for a while. I suppose it is the herd way of establishing the new social pecking order. In the wild they can do all this posturing and cavorting and have room to gallop away and sort this problem out without to much damage being done to each other. In the smaller paddock without the grace of room to move, those horses making the social errors can get their knees kicked off, get bit, or slip and ruin a nice set of legs with a tear or sprain. This scene here was all happening in a small space with very large,very fast animals on very slippery ground.
My first glance was to see Atlas sniffing towards the rear end of Robijn. Dumb. The definitive equine social faux pas. Sure enough, up came the rump and Robijn's two hind feet came flying backward in his general direction. She missed, but sent my heart rate even further up. Then off they all went full tilt, thundering down the field, mud splattering, hooves slipping and sliding. In my mind was the sight of the inevitable very large vet bill to come from this scene playing out.
I went to get halters for the mares, my first plan was to catch Robijn as she was the one creating the majority of the havoc, but, not to her plan. Then Atlas turned and came galloping full speed directly towards me. I figured I was to become one with the mud covered with his hoof prints. Just at my last moment of consciousness though, he slammed on brakes and put his head low for me to put the halter on, like he seriously wanted to get out of there and looked to me for rescue from the chaos.
After I got him out of the field and put in a stall, I fixed the fence, turned the juice back on to the hot wire, and got the mares back where they were supposed to go, every body began to settle down. Then as I was walking back from feeding Tony the pony I nearly tripped over a black thing that streaked by my feet. Following it came a very frantic Jack, the terrier, moving as fast as his short legs could comply, shrilly yelping at the top of his range. The other dogs vectored in from the barn and all gave chase to a poor cat who'd made a nearly tragic mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She made it up a tree in time but this further activity did give the horses one more excuse to lose it for a bit and it kept my heart rate up for another few minutes.
I did enjoy the solstice of the martini when I finally got back to the house. I decided too, that I will pay the insurance again, try to keep the hot wire on, and hope for more peaceful moments on the farm.
This was still in my mind as I went out to do afternoon feeding. From the carport I could hear hooves galloping and I figured that Atlas, my young gelding, was doing a bit of pre-feeding time excess energy burn. When I walked around the corner, though and saw the real situation, it was an "oh crap" moment. There were three horses in the same pen, where there was only supposed to be one. I saw that the not turned on hot wire between Atlas and his huge mom, Robijn, and elderly very pregnant mare, Joline had been knocked down and run over.
There are very few things that worry me more than the putting horses together in the same field, even if they have already known each other across a fence. For some reason when you turn them loose together, they tend to just lose it for a while. I suppose it is the herd way of establishing the new social pecking order. In the wild they can do all this posturing and cavorting and have room to gallop away and sort this problem out without to much damage being done to each other. In the smaller paddock without the grace of room to move, those horses making the social errors can get their knees kicked off, get bit, or slip and ruin a nice set of legs with a tear or sprain. This scene here was all happening in a small space with very large,very fast animals on very slippery ground.
My first glance was to see Atlas sniffing towards the rear end of Robijn. Dumb. The definitive equine social faux pas. Sure enough, up came the rump and Robijn's two hind feet came flying backward in his general direction. She missed, but sent my heart rate even further up. Then off they all went full tilt, thundering down the field, mud splattering, hooves slipping and sliding. In my mind was the sight of the inevitable very large vet bill to come from this scene playing out.
I went to get halters for the mares, my first plan was to catch Robijn as she was the one creating the majority of the havoc, but, not to her plan. Then Atlas turned and came galloping full speed directly towards me. I figured I was to become one with the mud covered with his hoof prints. Just at my last moment of consciousness though, he slammed on brakes and put his head low for me to put the halter on, like he seriously wanted to get out of there and looked to me for rescue from the chaos.
After I got him out of the field and put in a stall, I fixed the fence, turned the juice back on to the hot wire, and got the mares back where they were supposed to go, every body began to settle down. Then as I was walking back from feeding Tony the pony I nearly tripped over a black thing that streaked by my feet. Following it came a very frantic Jack, the terrier, moving as fast as his short legs could comply, shrilly yelping at the top of his range. The other dogs vectored in from the barn and all gave chase to a poor cat who'd made a nearly tragic mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She made it up a tree in time but this further activity did give the horses one more excuse to lose it for a bit and it kept my heart rate up for another few minutes.
I did enjoy the solstice of the martini when I finally got back to the house. I decided too, that I will pay the insurance again, try to keep the hot wire on, and hope for more peaceful moments on the farm.
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