Hello, has anyone got any suggestions as to how I can keep my horse in its field?
She is a 15hh Dales who doesn't like being on her own. I always ensure that she is never left alone in her field, there is always at least one other horse with her. The problem is, her best friend has started to be brought in at night for a while and she can't cope with it. This morning she was in a totally different field to where I had left her. I put up a 5ft electric fence some time ago which seemed to work for a while. It is plugged in to the mains, so it hurts! She has now learnt how to jump it. I can't put her in her stable at night as the block where hers is consists of three, the other two horses are out, so that won't solve the problem either. In the past she has pulled fencing down in her desparation to be somewhere else, I really don't want this to happen as she will then allow all the others to escape as well. Has anyone got any other ideas?

Hi..
Is there any chance you can change your routine if only temporary to avoid her stressing out..it must be hard as we all have our own routines and try to look after our horses in a way that suits us..its difficult if she still does it even with another horse in the field as that defeats the whole "herd" aspect..maybe a bond will grow in time with the other horse?..I hope you can resolve the problem...a trickey one!
Maz

put another horse in with her if you can. horses are naturally meant to be in a herd not alone

No chance anyone would be willing to swap stables with you so your mare can be close to her friend?

I can relate. My boy is so attached to the two mares he lives with that our routine always has to be decided by whatever those two are doing. It's a pain sometimes. Those two had to stay in all week last week, so of course he had to stay in with them, because he was too much of a big giant wussy pants to go out without them.

...Really wish I could think of something to help, but eeeek. Tough situation.

Horses do get really attached to their friends. It's sad to me that some people don't care about that, and just split them up all the time sending them from home to home. Must really hurt them to have to leave their friends behind, poor things.

Anyways, I hope you work something out soon. Good luck! x

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Heather

I can relate also, we have a min shetland with our welsh/fell mare and they wont be seperated, they have got to the stage where they can be the other end of the field from each other but you cant take one out without the other and the shetland is typical and can be an escapalogist and gets into the little supposed fenced off paddock, this is wire strands and she puts one foot on the bottom one and her head under the next one and pushed her way through, the other used to race around the field yelling. we had a highland once on loan for one day as he was used to more space than we had at the time and he tried to escape so he went back asap.


As said could you not swap stables with someone so he could be in at night with his friend, they do get attached to each other, ours have been with each other for close on 10 years

jenn

Thanks all for your replies - it's good to know I am not the only one to have these problems!!! She seems to be forming a bit of a bond with the other horse in the field with her now so for about a week there hasn't been any issues, it's just a bit of a pain to have to be reliant upon other people (and horses) all the time and fitting in with them. Since my posting though, she has removed and snapped a few wooden fence posts out of the ground! I asked Monty Roberts about this once and his response was that I should put up a 7ft fence and if she jumped that, he'd buy her, other than that it was a lost cause!!! If there was anyone I didn't want to hear that from, it was him!!

Thanks again everyone! I guess it's something I'll just have to put down to her being 'just a horse'!!!! However, any more ideas will always be gratefully received! x