Our feeding routine is a little different these days. With three horses, all of which have different nutritional needs, it’s not as simple as it was with one horse. Still, it’s not three times harder.
First, Moonshine gets her half-scoop of Purina Strategy. As alpha-horse, she gets her ration first. Next, Valentine gets his one and a quarter scoop of Strategy. He likes to hang out up on the hill until the feed hits his bucket. Then he bolts from the top of the hill next to the barn straight for the gate at full speed. He’s serious about supper time. Finally, with Moonshine and Valentine in their stalls, poor bottom-of-the-totem-pole Sinbad can eat freshly tossed hay without being run off. He doesn’t get any grain, just hay, by order of his owner, who is a vet. And don’t worry, we put the daily hay ration in three piles so Sinbad is getting plenty. Fifteen minutes later, when Moonshine is trying to eat her wooden stall (she cribs), I know to let her out. Valentine takes longer, though. Not only does he eat more but he has a bad habit of sloshing the feed out of the bucket and onto the stall floor where he would spend the next ten minutes vacuuming his stall if we didn’t stop him. Yup, he sucks the Strategy pellets off of the ground. This of course increases his chances of getting colic, since ingesting sand is apparently a factor.
Our horses have all kinds of bad habits and this is yet another one. So I guess we’ll be looking into one of those feed buckets that makes it hard to slosh feed onto the ground.
Of course we try and stop him from doing it but he won’t budge without some force. And since it’s hard to push a 1300 pound horse who doesn’t want to move, we often grab some old hay twine to make an impromptu halter and lead him back to the pasture. This works surprisingly well.
Any of you have a horse that vacuums?
I don’t have a horse that vacuums but my aunt does. Her horse Dolley eats right off the floor until another horse nudges her away. I took your advice and did a blog about interesting things about me. Check it out! I love the fact that Valentine is like a vacuum cleaner. Too bad he couldn’t come in my house and clean everything up!
I love your blog so much that I write about it in my blog as much as possible!
The one mare at our barn cleaned every one else’s messes up. And the old horse at our barn will suck every last grain out of the dust he can find. We always tied the alpha horse first and feed him and untie him last so everyone gets a fair chance at their buckets.
Hey,
I am a friend of Helen’s and I just want to say that are so good. I have a few horses of my own so maybe I could give you a few tips (not like you will need them). I read Helen’s blog and so I read your’s and I really enjoyed it. I hope that we can grow a friendship that you and Helen grew. I hope that you will and hope that you and your horses will be going for a long time.
Thanks for the replies Helen, Elise and Caroline! Hey, if you have any tips for us, we’re open to suggestions. We still consider ourselves newbies but we’re learning.
My horse doesn’t really vacuum so much, but she does have a really bad habit of throwing her head around to warn off other horses and sending half her food flying. We had a round feed bucket with a lip that fit over to keep more in the bucket and less on the ground. They have the “lip” at Dover Saddlery (and I’m sure lots of other places): http://www.doversaddlery.com/super-feed-saver-lip/p/X1-28041/cn/201/
It does help keep her feed in the bucket.