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laturcotte1

Horse Meet and Greet HELP

laturcotte1
14 years ago

Our 39 yo blind pony (mare) Honey seemed lonely. She is exremely well mannered and calm. I spoke with the woman we rescued her from and she said she loved the boys. I found a 20 yo gelding mini pony Christopher with wonderful manners and the rescue brought him up yesterday.

When she gets close to him he will back up and kick her. When they meet nose to nose he screams, nips and twirls around and kicks the heck out of her.

This morning I noticed he has started to herds her; he will walk along side until he gets to her head then walks towards her, she will turn away but if she doesn't move fast enough he moves in nips and kicks. Sometimes he herds her right into the fence.

She is part Appy so is twice his size but he has taken to pushing her around. She is totally blind and sometimes doesn't see him.

My one and only concern was that I ended up with something that would "beat" her up, well I think we may have that situation. She already can't live without him, when she can't smelll him close she goes searching for him and geeze if she doesn't see him and gets to close he kicks her.

Now what, my husband says it's only been 1 day to let it go 1 week. Will he calm down? Do you think he will hurt her, when he kicks she knows enough to pick her head up but sometimes he gets her right in the legs? The person that brought him up said she will be able to hand it and things should calm down.

Can anyone give me advice as to what I should do? Does anyone know why Honey would be so attached so soon?

Thanks for any advice

Lee Ann

Comments (3)

  • yakimadn
    14 years ago

    If I had a 20 yr old crowbait to dump off and had someone willing to take it, guess I'd tell them anything they wanted to here.....

    Just put a fence between them and feed them close to the fence.
    We go through the same thing every summer with our stallion and gelding. Stallion stays by himself close to the mares until everyone is bred then goes in the pasture with the gelding until early winter stall time. Same ole story.. squeeling, biting, kicking..... We seperate them with a fence and pull up the bottom band between to posts. Thats where we put the water tub and hay (slid halfway under so both can reach)after a couple days to a week, they groom each other over the fence and it's time to let them together. If that doesn't do it for you, I'd pick the one you aren't attached to and do the 3 S's then get a sheep that sheds (no upkeep then).

    Dave

  • ladybug1
    14 years ago

    That would be really difficult for me to watch, and I am not sure I could. If she is blind, of course she is going to be attached to him. Horses are herd animals and dependent on each other for survival. In a herd, one horse is the lookout while others sleep, etc. She needs another horse since she cannot see. It probably wouldn't matter much what he did to her because he is her security. You might try what yakimadn suggested, but remember she can't see the fence either so you will want to be careful there. I wouldn't make many changes in the pasture of a blind horse - it is too dangerous to them. Of course, you could get rid of that one and try to find a more compatible pony. Perhaps one on loan for a couple weeks to try it out. Another thought is if you have a barn with stalls, maybe you could put them up next to each other, but where he could not bite her. Give each of them some turn out separately until they are used to being around each other.

  • pamghatten
    14 years ago

    When I had a horse, and we brought in another horse .. the meet and greet process was slow and took days. We never put the 2 horses in the same pasture together immediately, they would always be separate, but near, so they could get used to each other from a distance first.

    If you can't do separate pastures as suggested above, then at least put them in separate stalls for a while like ladybug suggests.

    Even after we spent a week getting the horses used to my new horse, we put them together and the intial contact went well ... and 3 days later the 2 ganged up on my horse and had him on his knees biting him all over. He was a mess of bites. It wasn't until we got a 4th horse, and evened out the number, that we could let them all out in the same pasture.

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