a few ?'s: sleeping, rolling, socializing, behaviors

[horse_apples]

Do many of you catch your horses sleeping? The closest I have come to seeing mine sleep is occasionally my younger horse will be resting her chin on the rump of her mother and act surprised to see me. Usually once a day they both have a good roll in front of me (most often after they've been brushed) and try as I might, I can't sneak up and try to get them to stay lying down. Is there a way to teach your horses to lay down? Maybe I played with My Little Ponies too much

How do I know who the boss horse is if I notice both of them shove each other away over food and attention? They always go to each other if the other calls for them and neither seems to be boss.

Both horses have grown so thickly covered in hair, it's amazing. The silvery parts in their coats are almost all black. I keep teasing them telling them I would like rugs made of pony fur.

Some days my younger horse (a 6 year old mare) will be very moody. She always does what she's told, but she does it with attitude and won't come running to my whistle or acts annoyed when I want to pet her. Other days she comes running, grunting and oofing along to the sound of the barn door and follows me all around.

My husband and I have been training them to walk on leads and once in a while take them out of the pasture and along the wood lines. I let them both meet my Dad's horses through the fence (they can see each other across the road all day so I figured they'd like to get a close sniff). My Dad has a halflinger and a shetland and all the horses seemed interested to meet each other. Coming around the other way, I let them meet the Appalooza in the next field over (the naaaybor's horse who they also can see from their pasture). My older mare and her instantly started to nuzzle muzzles but my young horse made a high pitch whinney and wanted to hoof at the bigger horse, so we took her away from the fence. So much for meeting the neighbors!

 

[MiLo Minis]

Unless your horses trust you implicitly they will get up on their feet when they hear you coming. On good warm summer days when they flake right out on their sides less trusting souls sometimes get lazy and will lift their head on your approach, take a look and be just too darned comfy to actually get up but if you were to go right over to them they would still likely throw themselves to their feet. Horses are flight animals, their best protection is to run, and they consider us predators so they really don't want to be caught by us off their legs but over time when they come to learn that you mean them no harm they sometimes get a bit lazier about it.

There is a way to trick train them to lay down but they don't do this because they love you, they just do it out of training and conditioning and I don't feel they REALLY enjoy it. I use laying a horse down as a last resort for dominating a truly aggressive horse and it does take some of the "spirit" out of them.

If your two horses are mother and daughter matured there really is no true "boss". The dam, if she has a more dominant personality, will likely be the inherent "boss" where in times of danger she would take the lead but when there are only two they tend to develop more of a "friend" relationship on a daily basis.

While meeting the neighbour's horses and making friends sounds good it really is NOT a great idea. Disease can be passed by "nuzzling muzzles" and you don't know where those horse's muzzles have been. I would stick to letting them "know" their neighbours by catching scent of them and calling to each other from a distance. Yes, if they are within several hundred feet of each other they can still pass airborne diseases but why push it by actually letting them touch each other.

It sounds like you are really enjoying getting to know your horses and I congratulate you on your wanting to get to know them better!

 

[wingnut]

We see them sleeping from our kitchen window/deck. Generally, when we come outside, they either here us before we can get too close or one of our dogs alerts them to our impending arrival

Our three youngest sometimes stay lying down (in the legs tucked under/head up position) for at least a couple of minutes, especially if they think we're coming to feed them. Our 10 yr old mare rarely lies down to sleep and is the least likely to continue to sleep with our approaching.

And while our 10 yr old mare is the "boss" with our yearling being clearly #2? The boss picks and chooses when she wants to put the others in their place. She was so bad when we first got her (she came second after our yearling) that we thought we'd have to send her back. She was exceptionally hard on the yearling and it broke our newbie horse owners hearts! And when each of our 2 weanlings came, she was quick to put them in their place but wasn't quite as hard as she was with the yearling. Then the yearling had to put her two cents in too. And I could not believe how "tough" our first weanling became when the 2nd weanling arrived two months later. I love watching them and observing their behaviors. It's actually quite entertaining.

Now, they've been a herd for just about a month (since the last weanling came) and they've all settled in with each other quite well. I was out there during feeding time last night (it's raining and I have to referree feeding time when it's raining so they can all eat inside where it's dry) and was so pleased to see how well they were doing. They truly do work it out themselves after a space of time.