Frustrated - "everything seems fine until it isn't"

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And I would note to make sure of very secure fencing. I know of a facility where a mini stallion escaped from his pasture and into a field of full size horses, one kick and he was dead.
 
When this topic comes up we always have one or two people who say it is OK and their BH has lived with their mini for eleventy years and they are just fine and they love one another. The point that flies by everyone that says this sort of thing is that ALL horse kick at something. A fly, in annoyance (rather than anger) or just for fun when running around. If another BH gets in the way of a little kick like that it might bruise it or send it lame for a couple of days. If a Mini gets in the way of a playful kick it will kill it. So, what I always say is, if you can bear to come down and find a dead mini or one with a broken leg then fine, go ahead. I had my minis and even my stallion, in with my 14.2hh Arab mare and I had no problems, BUT now I know better and I would never, ever take such a risk again.

If you have not had a problem it is always that you have not had a problem.........yet. When you do have that problem your mini will very likely pay with it's life.
 
.....and the fact is a rescue should hold itself to a higher standard...they are setting a very visible example of how good management compares to abuse or neglect (and not all abuse or neglect is intentional....sometimes it is caused by just plain lack of knowledge and good sense...ignorance), a rescue needs to be an example others can follow,.....Marty I am sure would second this.
 
Rabbitsfizz, your post is pretty much what I posted for her viewers but none of the people commenting would even consider it and certainly not the rescue owner. I gave up trying to educate and explain when I started getting nasty, rude comments.
 
I have one of my little gelding because of a mishap with drafts. [Although, I get conflicting stories as to what happened, the first story said he got hurt out with the big guys. They lost him after a few days, and I was asked to take Jasper so he'd have friends his own size.] They do talk over the fence, occasionally, but they are not out together.
 
I am nursing a horse that I recently got that had been out with the big ones. I can only hope he will be okay. NOPE NOPE NOPE...Not sure i would interject my opinion on anyone else but as for me and mine NOPE
 
No way would I put my little man in with his 15 h buddy, they can communicate over the fence just fine. It's not just the possible kick. I watch my boys "grooming" each other over a fence. I would hate to have Seven hurt by his big friend while they are grooming each other.
 
My mini is out with my 26yr old retired show horse and they get along marvelous. My mini actually bosses my big one around especially when he wants to play. But on the flip side we took time to introduce my big boy to my new little boy by having them in adjacent areas to see how they would interact, then a small paddock then turning them out together. My big boy is a wuss to begin with and is called bluff when he tries to act tuff. If they didnt get along we would have never put them together. My bigger boy also use to be our babysitter for our weaned TB babies as well and was so good with them. Then again I wouldnt stick my mini out with a random horse I didnt know or large herd of big horses either.
 
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Well I can tell a horror story of being able to reach each other over the fence too that ended up in a fatality. I left an alleyway of at least 3 or 4 feet between fences of big ones and little ones so the big ones cant reach over or through and grab a little one, like what happened to a filly I sold. Their big one broke it's neck- they were in pens next to each other.
 
HG Farm - So sorry about what happened to your little girl. I have heard of other cases of that happening too.
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Marty, pinning would be wonderful. I hope by these comments that some people are made aware of the dangers of keeping mini's and bigs and take action to keep their mini's safe. The rescue I tried to warn had no interest in passing that info on to their 20,000+ followers
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I want to thank you for bringing this topic up. Until I joined the forum, I never thought about how dangerous this situation could be. At first, I was resistant to the thought that there was anything wrong about housing a big and a mini horse together, as I had done it without incident for years. But hearing all your stories has made me think it through differently. My mini is currently out in a paddock with a small shetland, but when winter comes, the barn owner where I board will want to put them out with all the big guys and the round bales like she does every year. I was already feeling worried about this, because while my mini keeps getting older (18) the horses here keep getting younger and younger and bigger and bigger! I love the HUGE Friesian yearling, the almost 17 hand appy and the three huge saddlebreds who play fight with the drafty pinto pony, but my goodness, this is just not the right company for a mini horse, even one who knows how to get out of the way! So thanks, everyone!

Now I just need to get up the strength to take a stand and not be made to feel like I'm being unreasonable. I hate confrontation. Wish me luck.
 
Perhaps you can print-off this whole thread to share with her, or even selected posts with the stories of minis seriously injured by full-size horses, especially those stories in which the injury was "just" a playful kick, rather than an intended kick.

I honestly never thought much about it before having the minis, but it just didn't seem like a very good idea; and the stories I've read here confirmed it.
 
I no longer had horses but when I did my bigs ran with my minis without issue. They also had 10 acres and were older horses. Would I always do this, no. But in some cases it works.
 
We gave a Mini donkey to a friend to guard his Shetland mares.

They killed him with one kick. And these were SHETLANDS. I couldn't imagine the damage a biggie would do.
 
Ok so what size should you not put with a 36" mini.

My daughter and I are looking for a pony to go with our girl any where from 36" to 48"

Would that be too big to put in with her?

I would prefer smaller but as it will be my daughters she wants a larger one.
 
Rhondaalaska, If your mini is 36" then I would think that anything up to 48" should be playing it safe. Thank you for considering this in your selection for her.

Max's Mom, thank you for reconsidering your little ones housing, I hope the person you board with understands this, especially if you tell her that many mini's have been killed when pastured with large horses.

The stories told here of small equines lost because of interactions with larger ones is heartbreaking.
 
Field of Dreams, this is exactly my point...Closer in size doesn't make a difference in some cases.Big on Big or Mini on Mini can even hurt each other. Even exact same sized horses can hurt each other.

My old QH mare was kicked in the jaw by her half sister (very closely matched and bred similarly on the non-related half) when they were youngsters, the other horse cornered her and slit an artery and cracked the jaw bone. That mare almost died in my arms in the pouring rain, but since I was standing in the barn and heard it happened we were able to get the vet out quickly enough that she lived 20+ more years. She lost so much weight you'd have thought she had been starved. She looked awful.

Her first colt died at about 9 months old from sticking his head in a fence, panicking then breaking his jaw in 3 places & puncturing his lung with a broken rib. No other horses were involved, he was pastured across the fence from others with no common fence lines even. The next foal born (different mare, few years later) ended up with a broken pelvis from her dam pushing her into a fence post (my sister was standing there and heard the crack when it happened) in a pen that I had completely redone before the mare foaled, baby proofed completely from terror of the last colt and his freak accident.

Yet the next one dropped her foal early and by surprise before we had brought her into the 'foaling pasture' and we found the filly in the middle of farm equipment from going under a non baby proofed gate That foal is still here and though I want to wring her neck most of the time and I'm knocking on wood saying this, oddly enough she's the kind that doesn't get into trouble. Her half brother, grandson to the mare that almost died in my arms, I love to pieces and he regularly tries to blind himself, in fact just this week he had another scratch near his eye.

Horses are an accident waiting to happen no matter how we bubble wrap them. The ones you like the most will be the ones that try and kill themselves daily. The ones you don't care for end up living forever without a scratch.

I've had more trouble with the wrong personalities than I have with size differences. That same mare I first mentioned went on to be 'auntie' to nearly every horse we ever weaned until she died, including the gelding I'm keeping with my B mini now. This was also a mare who would lift her feet to avoid kittens playing with her tail. She'd cock her head and check before she'd put her foot back down. As a kid I'd fall asleep in her stall at horse shows and they'd find me laying down with her. A total sweet heart of a mare. Yet in a herd with the wrong mare, it was a constant battle. Which brings me to another point, I also find the closer they are on the pecking order the more likely there is to be fights. It doesn't matter if they're young, old, dominate or weak willed. Too close on the scale and there are usually problems. Would I put my dominate mini with a dominate big horse?NO! I don't think I'd want to put her with even a dominate mini. Another reason she ended up in with the big gelding was from the fights she was having with an A sized gelding (and oddly enough she was on the loosing end of most of those battles.)

So no I would NOT put a mini where it doesn't work, but with this teddy bear of a gelding who can not go with the other big horses because they run him thru fences and terrorize him, it works for us. I'll take my chances where they are because both those horses will definitely get hurt/or hurt another in the other pastures with more closely sized horses. I don't just randomly stick horses together, I watch them closely for disagreements and move them as needed.
 
Field of Dreams, Thank you for sharing, so sorry for your loss of your little guy. It shows that even a half size difference can be dangerous and deadly for mini's, let alone a size difference of 3-4 feet or more.
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