What is the strangest non-equine animal you've seen at your stable or barn?

Just because im an Aussie and want to be different! We get heaps of fox's, snakes and dingoes and other wild dogs but the most common encounter would have to Kangaroo's.

I was taking my uncle's new OTTB for his first ride and we where heading out to the paddock and a very large (6 foot nearly) Red Kangaroo jumped the fence and nearly ran into us. Of course the horse was not used to these animals and tried to bolt, he's never gone close to the fences with the scrub on the other side again.

But in the end the horses get used to them, because they are just everywhere, and compete with the horses for the grass.

The place I board at currently houses peacocks, llamas, and a wide variety of injured/rehabilitating wild life. In her back yard/garage area, she has a huge pool/tank which houses two baby alligators that are waiting to be transported somewhere else.

Besides her variety of wildlife, I've gone down early in the morning and went to see their sweet barn cats - they have about 50 that come and go. A majority of the cats were there eating - and so were a bunch of raccoons! I just about fell on my behind as almost all the cats and raccoons looked up at me at the same time, before going back to eating the cat food. I was surprised that the raccoons didn't run off, and that the cats and raccoons got along enough that they could share eating out of the same bowl. None hissed or made any sort of aggressive or defensive movements, just peaceful eating. Needless to say, I just turned around and went about my horse business while they ate and left them alone.

At my last barn there was a family of wild boars that would come right into the barn and dig in the trash EVERY night. Sometimes the babies would wander into the back pasture by themselves. They were cute, but the adult ones are SCARY.

I also saw a fox there. I turned my horse out in the pasture, closed the gate, turned around to go back to the barn, and I saw a flash of red run by me. I got a better look at it as it ran away and it was definitely a fox. It was the first one I'd ever seen in the wild.

On the trail I've seen a lot more...

- Gopher tortoises all the time

- Armadillos, all the time (I like to chase them, haha. I have to canter to keep up!)

- Boars every once in a while

- Three coyotes

- A couple deer

- Alligators all the time

- Squirrels CONSTANTLY

- A few rabbits

- A few possums

- One family of bobcats (only saw them once)

- Sandhill cranes (I like to chase them, too, haha)

- Lots of turtles

- Lots of snakes (black racers and cottonmouths)

- Millions of birds

At one barn I rode at, they had a group of fainting goats...it was really funny because one day they got put in a paddock near the arena, and every time that I rode by they would stiffen up and topple over.

There was also a barn that a friend of mine boarded at that also had Emu and Ostrichs, which always totally freaked the horses out.

This is the weirdest thing, I think...at this one barn I boarded at several years ago, the lady had taken in an injured monkey from someone (who abandoned it I think). Anyway, the monkey had a cage near one of the tack rooms, and sometimes the lady would carry it around in one of those baby packs when she cleaned stalls.

Haha, well this wasn't at the barn...but when I woke up to go to the barn there were PEACOCKS in my backyard..two of them!! This isn't normal for us canadians. I've never seen one except in a petting farm haha. Peacocks don't live here...they must have escaped from somewhere lol. Hmmm, there wern't too many creepy things at the barn, but there have been huge rats scurrying around the tack room. One time I was sitting down against the tack room wall, and I could feel the rat moving though the wall it was soo creepy I ran out of the tack room screaming haha. I've also seen one behind a tack trunk. I've also found about a dozen millapieds once under a rug or stall mat (can't remember). This one is normal, but it's kind of weird. At my old barn there was a turkey farm up the road, and one of them escaped and it got into my horse's paddock, so we came out to see why my horse was all ancy, and there was this huge turkey wandering around him haha. This one is more of a funny story, because it involves a garder snake (harmless, VERY common here!). Once I was walking beside my horse on a trail, and all of a sudden I go to put my foot down because I'm walking and there is this long slithery thing, so I run off as fast as I can screaming my head off and I trip and fall head first into the ground, haha. Must have been funny for my friends. When I got up my horse was like...let me see here..."so you all of a sudden drop my reins and run off screaming at the top of your lungs, trip over a log, fall on your face, because you saw a tiny harmless snake? geez...humans!!" LOL.

Well, not counting trail rides (Rattle snake, anyone?), at the barns I have worked at I've seen:

1. Exotic rooster (Swap meet is less than a mile away?)

2. Peacock (Swap meet, again)

3. Pot Bellied Pig (Swap... eh... yea)

4. Skunk who moved into the hay barn. Not good.

5. Buck deer (Injured, hung around humanity til he felt better. Ate the bushes down)

A rat ran over my hand once, and a family of them moved into our house trailer years ago, when I was pregnant. After that, I declared war on all rats. Poison may not be the nicest thing to do, but when it comes to rats.... I'll do it.

A mountain lion!

I was out on my horse's very first "trail" (we were walking along the dirt road that follows the barn property) and I saw a cat playing in the pasture. Aww, a kitty cat, I thought. And then I realized that the kitty cat would have to be dog sized - and it definitely wasn't a dog.

Long story short, it was pouncing on things (birds?) and pacing the tree line. I haven't seen it since but it has only been two weeks...

well i moved to a new stable a few months ago and a bit after that we got a new friend living there. a rooster. When no one at first really knew where he had come from me and my friend went to knock at a neighbourse door, for someone had suggested it, but they werent home. So now months later the roosters still living there, happy as ever to be free and loves following people around, especially when there near there stables. He is so adorable and we now call him Rodney.

I have chickens and a rooster we all call "Leo". Leo is a large light brahma with quite the personality. He is supposed to stay in the chicken coop but as soon as he sees us riding up the road he somehow gets out of the coop and runs straight for my sons Paso Fino "Ginger". He jumps/flies up an sits on her butt while we are riding. Then when we get back he will jump up in Gingers stall and camps out for the night. She shares her grain with him. Then we catch him in the morning and put him back in the coop. I think he is the strangest animal I have ever seen.

Once, while turning my horse out into a pasture, a huge bat came flying down and swooped right on top of my head! Living in the South, bats are rare, and this one almost careened into me!