Just heard something dreadful

[Wally]

A lass down the road has just lost her old horse through colic. Long, sad story. But that's by the by.

He had to be PTS yesterday due to a long bout of colic, He was 24. He had food intollerance and could not take sugars or starches, hay and fibre only.

I just heard one of the school kids talking, how they all went to the shop and bought him sweeties and carrots and bread and fed him over the fence!

Now, I am not suggesting that this is what induced the colic, but.........

I know kids mean well, but they MUST be taught not to feed other folk's animals over the fence.

[julia gulia]

did the children know about his food restrictions ?

[eventerbabe]

absolutely right. why do people feel the need to feed animals that don't belong to them? was there any sort of sign up warning of his intolerances?

[KarinUS]

did the children know about his food restrictions ?

Probably not. But I am so with Wally on this. People think they are doing something nice but really nobody is to assume that they are allowed to feed other people's animals. It doesn't even matter if the animal has a severe food reaction or not.
I manage mine very carefully but one of them starts to crib again really badly if fed treats/carrots and it takes me a couple of days to get him back to normal.

[Wally]

Sadly the kids wouldn't understand about his intollerances,

None of mine have anysuch problems, but I may well out up a sign now. I did catch some tourists once feeding a whole loaf of bread to my hill ponies, not the best diet for fatties anyway.

[JOJOBA]

No-one on our yard is allowed to treat the horses, but to be doubly sure I stuck a sign on Jack's door saying 'DO NOT give Jack treats!!!'. Quite apart from the fact that he isnt the kids' to feed, he gets very bolshy when he's given treats and the last thing I need is him knocking a child unconscious (he smacks his head into you very hard when he's been given food and he's dazed me a couple of times!).
I agree it should be taught more - who was it on here who found out that someone had been tipping grass clippings over the fence into a starvation paddock :eek: - people think they are helping those poor ponies who have no grass, when in actual fact if they dont give them colic they will just give them laminitis instead.
Well meaning public :rolleyes: - like the other person on here who got left a rude note about the horrific cruelty of 'blindfolding' her horse when it was wearing a flymask!

xxx

[julia gulia]

I was just trying to figure out if the children did it on purpose, knowing full well he couldn't have the food or if they were just being thoughtless..and thought they were being kind. I agree that people shouldn't do it without permission....but it seems to happen a lot...doesn't it.

[Jessey]

I feel for your friend, so sad when an old one goes :( esp what feels like before their time.

Re the kids, its so hard, I think if you own a pone who has medical issues then letting everyone know is important and maybe even posting signs at the fence line is a good idea.

But from a kids point of view they aren't to know (unless they knew him personally of course) One of my earliest memories is my grandad taking me to the horses field with a pocket full or carrots for the horses - that is where my love came from - but he didn't know the owner and just assumed it would be ok (thankfully it was - we got to know the owner later) but if non-horsey folks take the kids where would the kids ever learn that its not ok to do these things if we as owners don't make it blatently clear.
If these kids are involved with horses, it could still be the same case that every horse they know can have these things and they don't know any better.
So how would you educate every child, unfortunatly I don't think you can but at least you can put notices up to advise of the results of their actions.

Not saying this is anyones fault here, a terrible accident by the sounds of it, but I would be so angry and devistated if it were my pony. Its such a difficult situation.

[Wally]

I'm not sure the two are connected, he spent the last two/three weeks in another field away from the shops and kids, so maybe not connected at all.

But this brought home to me just how much impact feeding an unknown horse over the fence could have. I had never given it that much thought, other than mild annoyance that strangers should feel it necessary to shove a stale loaf of bread at my horses.

[JOJOBA]

I'm not sure the two are connected

Lets hope not, it would be devestating for the owner to find out his death could have been prevented :(

xxx

[Peanut]

What a sad story. :(

[Jessey]

I sure hope not aswell, it does sounds like his secret sweetiees might not have helped with his management at best though :o

[Hero]

:eek: omg, how dreadful!:eek: !! Didn't she have a one of those signs that say 'PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE HORSES' etc?

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[Trewsers]

Aw how sad for your friend losing her horse. I too strongly believe other people shouldn't feed your horse over the door, I used to get quite annoyed on old yard because there used to be a woman who came weekly (she didn't have lessons or anything just used to bring her kids to see the horses) but she used to feed all the livery horses bread over their boxes!!!!!!!!!!! I politely asked her not to feed mine and another liveries horse whom I knew wouldn't be impressed. JOe certainly shouldn't be having bread - he's colic prone and my Storm is fat enough!!!

[teabiscuit]

I was just trying to figure out if the children did it on purpose, knowing full well he couldn't have the food or if they were just being thoughtless..and thought they were being kind. I agree that people shouldn't do it without permission....but it seems to happen a lot...doesn't it.

i remember doing it as a child - it was a real treat for me to get any contact with these creatures that i admired from afar, its so sad that something done so innocently might have caused damage.

[No_Angel]

Thats awful, lets hope they are not connected.

Unfortunatly signs dont stop people feeding horses, ive plastered signs all over my field and still find carrots in my field that people have thrown in. I know carrots arent that bad, but i just hate to think that someone would feed my horses something happened to them and i wasnt there to help them.

[becs]

If this may be another sad case of ignorance...

Why not ask the shop if they'd put up a sign for a few weeks - just generally saying that many horses have special diets and mustn't be given any titbits without the owner's permission. Try to make it positive but simple - eg please chat to owner if you want to fuss them? etc etc

[chev]

So very sad. :( And so hard to say whether there is a connection or not.

Have to say, whether there is or not, I still think people should be more aware of the possible results of their feeding other people's animals - and not just horses either.

A woman my aunt knew nearly lost her pony to colic after a well-meaning neighbour fed him grass cuttings. Friends who used to keep goats had similar problems.

Very difficult when people think they're just being kind, too.

[notpoodle]

one of my pet hates!! i dont know what is wrong with people, but some deem it perfectly acceptable to even walk on the yard and feed horses in their stables (including those with 'do not feed, this horse is ill' signs outside!!!). I mean, for pity's sake ... when i see someone's dog in their garden, would I climb over the fence with a sausage and slip it to the dog? no! of course not! cos its not MY dog to feed!!!

Julia
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[teabiscuit]

i'm pretty easy going about it, but my horses don't have any condition that it will affect, also i remember how much it meant to me when i was a kid
also the people that fed them were grandma's of farming stock with tiny kiddies, so they only tended to give carrots etc, the odd bit of bread

if my horse would be adversly affected of course it's be different

i've had teh grass cutting thing happen with townie neighbours, i know htey have no reason to know better but still.....
and they cut ragwort and left it - that got me really quite cross as yo can imagine :mad:

[julia gulia]

It doesn't make me mad....I think the thought is a very nice one. I must admit that I find it awful when people come to our yard to ride the horses and don't bring a thing for the horses:o Even if the horses can't have the treats..it is the thought that counts..a way of saying thank you to the horse :) I also agree that people shouldn't feed a horse without the owners permission but it is a tough call...one wants people to be kind to horses and all animals...but at the same time? they should be aware that it isn't always best for the animal...but their heart is in the right place. I think it is understandable and I for one appreciate their kindness... better than shooting them with bee bee guns:eek: Wouldn't be too happy about the sweeties though. Very sad and a very hard call. People just don't understand....

[Alfies-slave]

It is sad for the poor horse.

The public doesn't know, wouldn't understand or care about treats making horses nippy or food intolerances.

However, it is the owners responsibility, its all very well to blame interfering children etc.

But,

Everyone CHOOSES where they keep their horses. If you choose to keep horses in a field that the public has acces to then you are accepting the risks associated with it, both what people might do to your horse and what your horse might do to people!

If you have nowhere suitable to keep a horse, why keep it? No one NEEDS a horse.

[notpoodle]

i still dont see why random ramblers should feed horses. why isnt it enough to *look*?

a horse i looked after when i was a kid had to have major surgery after some gummibears were given to her and promptly started swelling up in her belly. there really is no need for that sort of thing! i mean, people don't feed stuff to sheep they see in fields either, do they?

I certainly keep away from random horses in fields. theyre not mine, so i don't go giving them stuff to eat!

Julia
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[Big Ears]

given that most fields have a road running past them, then it is pretty much impossible to keep horses without there being some public access, you just hope that the public might be responsible

mine are opposite the house and the number of times i have to go out and kindly ask people not to feed them, as one is a laminitic and also she tends to beat up the other to get at food, so they not only risk giving her laminitis but also Molly ending up with a fracture. they never get titbits from me as Rosie's nature is not suitable - she would be bargy and a pain if she felt she was due a titbit everytime she sees you.

some folks have been rather rude when i ask them not to feed my horses and i'm afraid i'm a bit rude back - on the other hand if i see children with the donkeys and it is time to come in, i will invite the kids to lead them to the stables and put them to bed and even have a little ride on them but i get very irritated by anyone feeding them without permission.

i don't go up to other people's pets and feed them crisps or other items and i suppose it would be nice if other folks respected mine in the same way - plus Rosie is likely to thump you with her head if she feels like it so i would rather folks stayed well away from her.

[The Flying Irishman]

For this very reason we have a sign on our gate which reads

we like carrots and apples but bread makes us poorly
thank you

it seems to work
imo prevention is better than cure

[Esther.D]

Sad news, is it anyone I know Wally? I don't recognise the description of the pony so probably no. Very sad.

[horsey1]

Sad but I am sure the kids did not know they were not to feed the horse, i would not think they would know any better

[Lgd]

Nasty and the wrong food can make a huge difference.

BJ (mates Fell Pony) is EPSM and the wrong stuff for him can cause a major relapse. It's Ok with it just being us now on our own yard, but she had signs all over his stable door when he was on livery yards. T the last one she caught some kids feeding him a donut despite the signs :eek:

[Wally]

The road runs through my land! I have no choice, I have often wondered about putting gates up at the start and finish of my land and making folk stop and open the gates...but I'm not sure the council would stand for it!....or the car drivers.

Since where we live there is a right to roam, I cannot stop tourists or anyone getting into the fields with the horses if they feel like it.

I DO need my horses, like I need my sheep and cows!

[julia gulia]

A friend of mine who runs a retirement farm for sixty horses had the same problem...she had signs posted all over her property asking people not to feed the horses...it didn't work so then she put up some "treat boxes" around the farm asking people to to put the treats in the box for them to have later on in the day. She had some fun signs made about some of the horses being on the weight watchers plan, some having restricted diets and some having as much as they bloody well pleased:D She seemed happy with the results...she said that people did tend to put the treats in the boxes. Her signs were very funny....she had some horsey caricatures of exaggerated obese horses in bathing suits looking glum, some of skinny horses in bathing suits stuffing their faces and one pic of some horses on their backs , with bulging eyes coughing and spluttering. Seemed to do the trick!!

[Porsche]

I agree totally, even as children we never fed anyone elses horses, and even now with the exception of my old girl, all my horses have their "Treats/Succulents" in the hard feed at dinner time.

Whilst at a livery yard my 4 YO bit one of the grooms served him right for feeding a youngster over the door dispite a HUGE sign on his door saying "DO NOT FEED TITBITS"

[Esther.D]

Just heard via the grapevine whose horse it was :( Poor horse, poor owner.

[Wally]

Can't keep anything a secret here can you ;) ;) :D :D

It was the big one near the shop!

[Nik-n-Kia]

Peeps from the caravan park on site of the farm where my boy is kept feed him carrots and apples but there is a sign on the fence saying to feed only these and to place them in the bucket attached to the fence rather than feed him from hand.

I don't mind but I don't want him getting to demand treats!!!

Nikki xxxx

[ISH]

That's really sad, poor horse.

I must admit to feeding other people's horses during walks with the dog when I was younger. Only the occasional carrot, apple or polo mint. Of course I wasn't aware of any danger - as far as I knew all horses ate those without any detrimental effect. As I got older and started taking lessons I used to buy a packet of horse treats for the RS horses and for the couple local to us. Though I soon worked out that feeding treats each time just made the horses follow you across the public footpath running through their field :rolleyes: So I stopped doing it.
I know the lady who owns these horses and she was OK. Though there were some village kids feeding them stuff that really shouldn't be fed to horses. She started leaving a bale of hay outside the gate so that people could feed them some of that if they wanted to treat them. I think that was a good idea.

Of course now I am aware of it I never feed other people's horses without asking (can't afford it anyway, my own costs enough!) My horse is on livery so I don't have general members of the public feeding her thankfully.

[Dolly_Brat]

What really annoys me is when i go into the field to catch my loan horse and some passers by with children stop to stroke the horses and feed them carrots, while i am in the field creating huge fights on the fence line near the gate and im trying to get out before getting kicked.
I have on occasion told them that its dangerous however halfway down the track when i look back they produce another bag of apples and carrots.

Also one of the horses in our gelding field is very young and quite nervous and when he doesnt come to the fence line due to the other bigger, more dominant horses they actually throw the carrots and apples at him!! Making him more nervous.

We have signs about keeping dogs on leads and such but none about feeding the horses.

[smaggi]

At our old house our the kids in our neighborhood used to feed apples to our horses over the fence. The horses would lean over the fence to get the apples. We asked them to stop, but they kept doing it. There was barbed wire fencing around the pasture. One day a neighbor called to tell me she saw the kids with the spples and one of our horses got hurt. Dancer had about a 7 inch rip at the base of his neck. He got it trying to pull away when the alpha horse was chasing him from the apples. The kids were so scared they never did it again.

I hate barbed wire with horses. We moved to new place with 20 acres about 3 years ago and we are still replacing fence trying to get rid of barbed wire.

[traced]

Very sad :( -

I do think warning signs are important

Having said that, people still do what they want. I had a gelding who had to be on long term box rest, which made him quite grumpy. I put a sign on his stable door saying 'please leave me alone'. The problem was there's a public right of way through our yard and people walking through would still would try and touch him, some lifting young children up to look over his stable door.

[Big Ears]

and they are the very same people who will sue your a.. off if he bites them!

[CharlieBrown]

I have the same thing with my horses. Opposite our stables is a new housing estate. I have one horse who is a laminitic who i came close to losing last year, and a mare who chokes if she is fed carrots or eats food whole. The people in the housing estate, especially on a sunday after dinner, feed our horses potato peelings and other peelings, grass cuttings and we have even had 2 young girls even riding my cob (he's such a gent, and loves people, he'd do anything for a carrot). I worry sick, i have even put a sign up before but people ignore it!

[Coaran]

This is so sad but very typical. I had my two in a field near a beach. Despite signs not to feed them tourists were actually going and buying them bags of carrots and horse treats and all manner of junk. My youngster got into the habit of nipping as she was looking for food. It was then MY fault.. Some of them do mean well but it usually has an adverse affect.

[*Sez*]

Apologies, I think this will be long-winded! :o I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with at least some of the things I am about to write, but I can only speak from my own experiences. :)

I am eternally grateful that my horse lives on a huge yard. He is away from all the footpaths and bridleways, and away from the road, and fortunately I have never had a problem with him being fed in the field by strangers. The only instance we had was when the owner of one of his fieldmates went in and started feeding his pony polos, despite the four other horses milling around wanting to get in on the action. In the end, it caused such an argument between the other horses (and by all reports I heard that he hit out at mine to get him away from the polos) and Salsa double-barrelled him with his hind legs. I felt awful that my horse had hurt him, but he shouldn't have been so stupid as to go in a blithley start feeding his pony (who was near the bottom of the pecking order) with four other horses loose around them - especially not to start swinging one arm around to chase them away, and handing over sweets with the other. I'm sure most of us will have at some point taken a treat out to try to catch our own unruly animal, and been horrified at the stampede heading our way and never done it again.

However, we do get a lot of well-meaning guests (and still even the occasional other livery owner who really should know better) that think it's okay to hand-feed him treats over his door. It sets off his weaving, and he then starts being bargy and nippy, and it drives me crazy. I recently had to ask a friend who had come to see the horses not to feed him over the door, but asked her help me mix his dinner and added her treats to his feed. The only thing he is allowed by hand is his Horselyx in a plastic tub - it worked wonders to keep him distracted the last time I was pulling his mane! It tends to encourage licking, which I object to far less than having a chunk taken out of me and doesn't leave a bruise :rolleyes: .

I think it is a very difficult situation. When I was a toddler, my parents used to take me out into the woods and we would go past several fields with horses in. I remember I once got upset and screamed because I was told I couldn't have the chestnut pony :o . My parents went riding at local schools and were allowed to feed titbits, so it didn't really occur to them that their well-intentioned treats might harm another horse, or just generally annoy the owners :o . When I got older, and encountered my first really nippy horse and realised that it was actually a direct result of being fed treats, I stopped feeding other horses by hand unless I had permission. Almost losing a finger is a wonderful incentive! What makes it more difficult is that you can put up as many signs as you like, either polite "Please do not feed us - your treats may make us ill" signs, or blunt "DO NOT FEED THE HORSES" signs, and some passers-by will still think that it doesn't apply to them, and quite often have no interest in finding out that they're doing something that they really shouldn't be.

I was thoroughly frustrated when I went to Beamish Museum a few years ago and caught a gaggle of children and parents feeding barley sugar and toffee to the heavy horses. I actually saw one of my parents showing them the correct way to feed them :eek: (we'd not long since had Jacob and I think they were just being proud to be horsey :rolleyes: ), and had a minor nuclear meltdown. I pointed out the large notices, had a small rant about the risks of colic, and general daftness of feeding people sweets to animals and aforementioned parent of mine has never done it since. Unfortunately, I imagine that a similar group of parents and children congregate around the fence on a daily basis with a selection of Jubilee Confectioner's finest Cinder Toffee, Black Bullets, Rhubarb & Custard and Liquorice Sticks :rolleyes: .

It is very nice for the general public to get an exposure to horses, especially kids who otherwise wouldn't get a chance to, but I tend to think that the safety of all concerned (including the owner of that sugared up horse ;) ) has to come first. I expect that if someone was banged by a swinging head, bitten or kicked in their eagerness to feed treats, they would instantly point the finger at the owner of that "savage creature" :rolleyes: .

I would hate to come across to walkers, passers-by and those people who's children only want to see the horses, as one of the elitist "thou shalt not touch my horse" types, and I'm sure that many people who don't own a horse who reacts like mine think that I'm just being difficult. I know some horses are fine to be hand-fed treats, but I prefer to be safe rather than sorry. Aside from the fact that horses are blooming expensive things to buy and keep, let alone when they require massive vet bills for colic or an accident caused by fighting over treats at the gate, there's such an emotional investment that goes into them, and I know that I hope that the day I lose my lad is a very long way off. I really feel for Wally's friend who has lost hers so tragically, regardless of whether it was linked to these children's treats or not.