This message is from: Marsha Jo Hannah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > "Alison Barr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > how does everyone keep their Fjords occupied? Fj undoes gates > (including one spring loaded one that I have to wiggle and lean my > weight on to get open), unties himself, and jumps fences. We already > discussed Fencing, but how does everyone relieve their boredom? Allot > of my problems would be solved if I could relieve the boredom that > makes him do all these things.
One answer is to keep several Fjords, so they can manipulate each other instead of their surroundings. The good news is that my 2 geldings spend hours squabbling over who gets to stand/sleep in the stall, who eats out of which pile of hay, etc. The bad news is that, in the process, they remove each others' fly masks, bite out chunks of hair, and disarrange the stall mats and/or chew up the gravel in my corrals, as they maneuver for tactical advantage. (My old mare seems to divide her time between eating and napping.) Another answer is food. Sleepy can amuse himself for days, rearranging his stall mats, searching for one more sprig of hay under them. I've often threatened to build him a special V-shaped feeder, with heavy mesh smaller than his muzzle, so he has to extract his hay from it, one stem at a time. (Given how many "normal" feeders he has flattened, scratching an itchy rump on them, I've not figured out the engineering details.) Make sure you're feeding a low-quality (i.e. high-volume) ration, so Fj has to chew a lot to get his nutrition--- less grain, more straw. Good luck! Marsha Jo Hannah Murphy must have been a horseman-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] anything that can go wrong, will! 30 mi SSE of San Francisco, Calif. -------
