DominoSky

OK since everyone else has been crying wolf and when my horse does get out people think I'm fibbing them too... If one of yalls horses got loose and you couldn't find it what would you do? Who would you contact? What would be your search method? I can't see putting a lost ad in the newspaper like you would for a dog. lol But is their any way to get the word out there to many people that a horse is missing so they will know to look for him instead of just calling animal control when a strange horse is in thier pasture or front yard?

Ok, so I got a mustang about a week ago from a friend for me to train for the summer. He was in a great fence(strong, tight wove wire) and never tested it, but today he got out! And not just got out, from his tracks I can tell he climbed over it once, jumped back in, then climbed out again and left!(something must have scared the h**l out of him!) He had been out about 30 minutes by the time I noticed. I got help to find him, we looked for 6 hours until it was way too dark. Someone saw him about a mile from my house running full speed thru their yard. We tracked him from their house for a ways, then the trail just ends! Explain how a 1100lb horse can suddenly not leave a trail in the woods when me and another friend can track animals really well. But anyways, called search off for the night, starting again in the morning. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might go about finding him? I have stopped everyone I saw that lives anywhere near me and gave them my number. I'm going to my vets, animal control in the morning(both were closed when he got out this evening) and I called my local 911 dispatch to notify them a while ago. Any other suggestions? And once I find him any idea how to catch him and get him back home? Can't touch him yet, but he does come to grain. I live in the mountains and from his tracks he is not staying on the roads, just going randomly thru the woods. Anyone know what else to do? Please help!

Ok so me and a friend have already done a few birthday parties for people we know. Taking horses to them and leading kids around on them and letting the kids pet them. We are thinking about starting to advertise locally and starting to do parties on a more regular business. Does anyone know what we would need to do to start a small business doing this? Liability insurance costs? Waiver forms? How much to charge per party? We have been charging $100 per horse(been bringing 2 horses).

And yes the horses we take are very well trained and about as bomb proof as a horse can get. We have gotten them used to balloons and other things they might encounter at a party. The 2 we use now are full size horses, but if we starting doing this more we have a pony and 3 minis that we will train and despook to start using them.

Thanks in advance!

Ok so me and a friend have already done a few birthday parties for people we know. Taking horses to them and leading kids around on them and letting the kids pet them. We are thinking about starting to advertise locally and starting to do parties on a more regular business. Does anyone know what we would need to do to start a small business doing this? Liability insurance costs? Waiver forms? How much to charge per party? We have been charging $100 per horse(been bringing 2 horses).

And yes the horses we take are very well trained and about as bomb proof as a horse can get. We have gotten them used to balloons and other things they might encounter at a party. The 2 we use now are full size horses, but if we starting doing this more we have a pony and 3 minis that we will train and despook to start using them.

Thanks in advance!

I have a TWH that I bought back in November. I know very little about the breed (I'm a quarter horse girl) but she was a rescue that I couldn't pass up. Her preivious owner did his own shoeing and he really messed up her feet. She has marks where she has abscessed on 3 different feet. Her hooves are very weak. I have her on bioten hoof supplements now and a good farrier that is good with shoeing TWHs. She wears keg shoes(no weights or anything).

She wears her back shoes paper thin in just a matter of weeks. Her right back foot is worse then the left but they both get wore down fast. She was shod 4 weeks ago and right back shoe has wore completely off. Like the outside half of the shoe is so thin I can bend it with my fingers. I had to pull it becuase the nail heads were wore off and couldn't hold it any more. She is rode on pavement some but she will wear them down when she is just in the pasture too(its not rocky).

Is there anything I can do to either get her to gait different so she don't wear them down as fast or a different way to shoe her? Her feet are still in such bad shape from the previous owner that there is not much foot to work with. Any suggestions at all? I know nothing about shoeing walking horses so anything at all is new to me. I've tried researching it but can't find anything for just pleasure horses. All the info is for show horses and I'm not showing her. Any just basic info on shoeing and how different techniques/shoe weights affect the horses movement is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Sorry that this is so long but you have to know a little bit of her background to understand the question.

Ok so just over 2 months ago animal control gave me a 3.5 year old QH cross filly that had been abandoned. She had almost no human contact and absolutly no training prior to me getting her. She's very smart and progressing very well in her training(she rides as well bareback in a halter as me 5y/o gelding does). She was in the pasture for almost a year by herself before I got her. Now that she is at my barn she can only go in one paddock as its the only wove wire fence and she runs thru electric fences. She is turned out be herself most of the time as the wove wire pasture is too small for more then 2 horses. When she is by herself she constantly paces the fence line closest to the pasture with my other 3 horses in it. When I go to get her from the paddock she come running to me, and once I'm handleing her she calms right down and listens to whatever I am telling her. She is not distraced by the other horses at all.

If I put her out with one of my other horses she gets along fine with then, but will not leave their side. She will not come to me at the gate unless the other horse does first, but if I walk up to her she leads away from the other horse with no problem, but once I'm working with her she gets distraced a lot easier. If she is the last one that I bring in at night she will listen to me fine but she will be so tense and scared that she will be shaking all over. Its like this horse is terrified of being abandoned again. I know horses don't think like that, but she acts just like a 4 year old not wanting to be left at day care. If I turn one of my other 3 horses out with her one day and a different one the next day she will almost completely ignore the new horse in with her and will still pace the fence closest to the horse she was out with the day before. So right now she sees me as her only buddy and listens great, until she is turned out with another horse then she panics worse when alone and doesn't listen as well to me.

So my questions are: Would it be better to keep her with the same horse every day and let her buddy up real well with that one horse? I think she would quickly get really buddy sour over that one horse but would it be better to deal with that later instead of trying to prevent it now? Do you think she will eventually learn that she can stay with me with as her buddy and then go back to a pasture with a buddy?

Should I turn her out with a different horse every day? That way she wouldn't learn to rely on just one single horse for a buddy?

Or should I keep her by herself for a while longer? Do you think she will eventually relax by herself?

I know horses are herd animals and I would much rather she be able to go out with my other 3 horses but until she learns to stay in an electric fence thats not a option(if she was to run thru it and get loose I would never catch her again). I also think that she would very quickly get so herd bound that she would be completely unmanagable if I tried to lead her away from the other horses or work her alone. She is just so tense she shakes all over unless I'm right at her side or shes right next to another horse.

So does anyone have any suggestions on how I should be turning her out? Or any other idea as to how to get her to calm down and not be so tense when shes alone. I know she will calm down more as she is here longer but as smart as she is and as fast as she learns everything else she is not calming down much at all in regards to being alone. Any idea greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Ok first off I am going to ask the vet about this tomorrow but was just wondering if anyone else had ever experienced the same thing with a horse.

Last November I bought a TWH mare. She is now about 3.5 years old. When I brought her to the new barn of course she came into heat like all mares do when moved to a new place. She went out a week later. Then over the last 3 months she has come in way more often then every ~21 days like mares are supposed to and stayed in longer. The last 3 weeks she has not come out at all. She will not leave the other horses alone (mares and the gelding alike). There is not a stallion at my barn, and its in the winter when mares are supposed to be in an-estrus. She is in a pasture with two other young mares and a gelding. I have never seen a mare do anything like this. I have owned dozens of horses and I worked at a vets office for 5 years and never heard of anything like this. She is in perfectly good health otherwise. Has anyone else ever seen a horse do this? Ive researched online and can't find anything. Any ideas or comments are appreciated!

She was abandoned and animal control gave her to me. I know her dam was a Quarter Horse but any ideas as to what the other half might be? She is 3.5 years old and 14.1 hands although she was never fed good quality feed so she might have grown taller if she had been. She has a lot of action at the trot and naturally seems to collect herself and set back on her hindquarters while moving and stopping. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

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I have 2 horses that I am moving to a new pasture next week. Where they are at now has very little grass. The pasture I am moving them to is about 3 acres and has thick grass that has just started the new spring growth. One horse is a 16y/o QH/TB cross and the other is 5y/o Paint. Neither of them have ever has any weight problems or any laminitis. They are both at a good weight. Right now they are each getting a full scoop of grain (14% protein) and about 20 lbs alfalfa hay every day. I plan on not feeding them any grain or hay for the first 2 or 3 weeks at the new pasture so they aren't comsuming any more starch or sugar than I can possably help. Will this change in diet possably cause laminitis? At the new pasture I have no way to limit their grass intake. There are no stalls to put them in so they will be out 24/7 with only a run-in shed. So my question is does anybody have any good ideas how to help prevent them from foundering? They are both very healthy so is there a big risk of foundering? They are deffinetly not used to lots a grass though. If I was to give them each a gram of bute every day for the first week to maybe help prevent any inflamation would that help? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance!!