To wonder why people see large animal as public property?

[lastqueenofscotland]

I have two ex racehorses. Both slightly institutionalised, if you understand horse behaviour they are fine, but they aren’t docile or all that tolerant. They are also huge.
Both can be quite aggressive over food so we do not hand feed them at all.
They live with a family member of mine ina field on the edge of town. We’ve had a lot of issues over the 2 years they’ve been there of people trying to feed them anything and everything, ham sandwiches, and very concerningly on one occasion, a binbag full of grass clippings.
As one of them is VERY aggressive around food and the other has turned into a hugely fat blimp since his retirement from professional sport we put up signs on the field asking them to not feed the horses. This was largely ignored so we got some electric tape fencing and put it about a meter inside the post and rail. (With signs pointjng out this was electric)

Today someone has knocked on my aunts door fuming that her daughter has had an electric shock trying to feed the horses.
When my aunt politely pointed out that the blimp and the thug really don’t need anymore food this woman goes off on one about how we are stuck up snobs and her daughter enjoys feeding the horses so she will continue to do so.
What the fuck is wrong with people

@Pengggwn why would the electric fence not be legal? What an odd question.

This is such maddening and arrogant behaviour. What kind of idiot person ignores a sign and an electric fence?

I suppose with some people it starts with feeding the ducks in the park - in many cases the ducks are merely there to entertain the humans and who cares (or even thinks) if bread is unhealthy for them.

You see it on the New Forest with people feeding birds and ponies anything they like and causing mayhem :(

Somehow people need to learn how to communicate with animals with bribery. And if the animal doesn't want to spend time with you without a food bribe then so be it. Be a peaceful companion from afar.

Horses generally love a good scratch and that is a much better and safer basis for building a relationship than food bribes.

Not sure what the answer is OP. Except spelling it out even more cleary in words a child can understand.

*communicate WITHOUT bribery I meant... obviously!!!

Just a thought OP, perhaps it would help to put up a sign that says legal action may be taken against people and tresspassers who ignore the sign and feed the horses as their actions may result in injury or distress to the horses.

And put up dummy CCTV and signs?

You shouldn't have to of course but it is something to try maybe... Maybe contact your local paper and see if they will run a piece that can educate people and help them see the risks?

Some people just don't want to be told though.. :(

@Littleredhouse the thing is, for most horses, one carrot, cut correctly, wouldn't necessarily be a problem. But health wise a) if everyone who walked past fed a treat then that could potentially cause the horses serious illness or even kill them and b) whole vegetables/fruit or veg cut certain ways can cause choke in horses which can kill them. Also people feed stuff that can cause colic (brassicas etc) which can also kill.

Behaviour wise, horses that are aggressive around food or who expect humans to always be carrying treats are dangerous. And nobody has the right to teach someone else's (large, potentially lethal) animal dangerous behaviours.

Thanks for the replies - I won't be feeding any carrots then, especially after reading about the choking thing!

Yea And the choking thing can be worse for the young and the old.

Someone in Durham lost a beautiful 8 week old foal because he choked on food left in the field. My filly will choke on anything that hasn't been cut up but fortunately lives with a Hoover who clears up anything that gets thrown far enough to clear my triple fencing (which I was 'mean' for installing according to one woman as she 'liked feeding the horses')

My friend's old horse had no teeth at all by the time she died. She could eat the mash she got fed every day but anything solid would kill her.

Unfortunately, the young and the old often look a little lean (young cos growing plus it's better to keep them lean to avoid joint stress, old cos, well...old) so people can think they're 'helping' by feeding them when they really, really aren't.

oh god i feel your pain OP. mine are in fields at the edge of a village. i have a very fat pony and a thug 17.2 hunter, who i have finally managed to convince that biting is a bad idea. the amount of crap is unreal and people were actually climbing the gate to go in with them which is such a bloody stupid idea as hunter can be a sod, very big and prats around. i did signs, electric etc and then they resorted to throwing cooking apples into the middle of the field for them!!! i caught a couple and my friend spread the word a bit.

the food seems to have stopped - now i have the delightful problem of strangers posting photos of my horses all over social media to contend with!!!! aaargh!

Surprised about grass as you can see horses nibbling away in the fields - I used to pick a handful of grass from my side of the wall & give it to the horses on the other side.

I have never understood why anyone thinks it’s ok to feed someone else’s animal without permission. You don’t know if it’s on a special diet or how many other people have come past that day with something bad for it like a sugar lump... you wouldn’t just go up to a stranger and start feeding him, would you?

There’s a gorgeous piebald pony in a field near us and he has a party trick - if he sees people coming, he gallops up to the fence and paws the grass for a treat. Luckily he also has a wall-eye and between that and the galloping he does look a bit wild, so most people are scared of him and scuttle past. but I do see random people feeding him sometimes . I don’t know who the owner is, so I don’t know if they know.

@tigercub it's grass clippings from lawn mowing that are dangerous, they start to ferment very fast after being cut, which makes them dangerous for horses to eat.

Handful of grass from the other side of the wall is different as it isn't fermented but you still don't know if the owners of those horses want them to be hand fed.

My pony is very food aggressive and being in the field with him and my big horse can sometimes be very dangerous. Big horse is young and flighty and on one occasion when the pony wanted to attempt to mug me for (non existent) treats while i was mucking out their field he ran at big horse who ran away from him, scared, not paying attention, straight into me, knocking me flying onto the ground. Big horse had to jump over me to avoid standing on me.
I have spent many hours since trying to get the pony to be less pushy, and someone starting to hand feed him over the fence, even just grass, could undo all that and potentially get me killed.

I've got an oldie who breaks out in crusty skin lumps if he gets too much sugar - and that includes sugar from carrots and parsnips. Fortunately we're quite remote, down a dead end and have no children in the village.

@littleredhouse my horse is allergic to carrots! If you don’t know the history or the owners haven’t ok’d it don’t feed the horses! We’re lucky we only have one very isolated footpath near our fields so we don’t get this but my horse has so many allergies it’s unreal and such a mission to keep under control at the best of times!

There’s a busy public footpath right past our field gate so the horses were getting fed a lot, despite huge signs. Double electric fencing seems to have stopped it

DD’s pony is a dickhead with too much sugar. We give her the odd carrot/polo, but if everyone who walked past her field gave one she’d be off her rocker

We have to strip graze her sometimes as the spring grass blows her mind - again, the odd handful is fine, but if everyone who walked past her field gave her a handful it’s a lot

Also, hand feeding makes her bite so any treats go in her feed bucket. DD sneaks her the odd polo, but not on a regular basis so she doesn’t expect it.

I also want to know what she’s eating - she drops weight easily so we need to keep an eye on it - if she’s having a load of stuff that I don’t know about, I can’t take it into account when making up her hard feed.

All the horses end up hanging round the gate as every time someone walks past they get a treat so it gets a bit pushy and bargy- nightmare when you want to go in and get your own horse out and have to fight you way through a bunch of horses expecting a carrot

I have never understood why anyone thinks it’s ok to feed someone else’s animal without permission

Alas, it's just a symptom of a bigger problem. Many people just dont engage their brains and THINK. Lack of critical thinking is endemic unfortunately and we see examples of it in most contexts.

Ramp up the volts

Well I wouldn't electrocute people! If the fences make a really buzzy noise though...

Penggwyn, electric fencing is what you normally use for horses. It's far safer for them - if you use plain wire, they can run straight through them and kill themselves.

who think carrots, apples and mints are perfectly fine as part of the equine diet... there must be a lot of them on here reading this and keeping quiet. I wonder if this will change their behaviour?

I’ll own up and say I thought apples and carrots (not mints) were fine for ponies. My mum used to take me as a kid and feed these to a group of little Shetlands (in the 80’s) I’ve offered a carrot to a horse when I was with my child a few years back but after reading this thread I won’t.

However, I have NEVER fed or approached a horse where there are signs. I can read.

This drives me crazy! I am so sick and tired of people treating my animals like I run a free petting zoo and encouraging dangerous behaviour in them to boot! When I was a child, we were taught that we were NEVER to feed another person's animal without permission but these days adults have such an unbelievable sense of entitlement. You want to feed a pony? Buy your own fucking pony and pay all the bills and do all the fucking work. But read the signs and leave mine alone! And I am not a snob. I have children so have a range of small ponies that they have grown out of but can't bear to part with. I am perfectly happy to take a pony out of the field and hold it for a child or adult that wants to pet it. I have no problem being asked!

Well I wouldn't electrocute people!

Our electric fences have bright yellow warning signs along them at regular intervals. And it buzzes when it’s turned on

If someone is silly enough to get shocked by it then that’s their look out.

Plus, you have to climb over the gate/fence to get to it so they shouldn’t be trespassing in the first place

We had our horses behind a double fence to stop this. Strip of electric tape on top of the main fence, signs to warn passers by, then another fence (electric or post and rail) around two feet in to prevent people leaning over. Signs every few feet warning not to feed the horses. Job done. I know how ridiculous and entitled some people can be and it’s infuriating. Not just horses either. The number of people that will try and feed my dog—who has various allergies—is very frustrating.

@LitteredHouse
Thanks for the replies - I won't be feeding any carrots then, especially after reading about the choking thing!

Please don’t feed the ponies ANYTHING! Your DS’s desire to feed the ponies is not more important than the potential health and welfare implications for those ponies (and for your DS should he get bitten.)
You could cause the ponies serious problems

Your DS’s desire to feed the ponies is not more important than the potential health and welfare implications for those ponies

This comment as well as the accusations of ‘entitlement’ are unfair.

It’s not a sense of entitlement, but a genuine desire to do something nice for an animal. Misguided yes. Entitled no. Except for the CF that knocked on OPS door of course.

For anyone reading this who isn't aware- horses can't be sick without medical intervention.

If they eat something that disagrees with them for whatever reason, they can develop a condition called colic, which is very painful for the horse and often requires expensive veterinary intervention to resolve and in some cases can lead to the death of the horse.

Horses are adapted to a really low sugar diet- sparse steppes grazing- which is why they can thrive in places like moorland with very little human intervention. Even the sugars in the very green grass which is more developed for feeding cattle can be too much for them- this can cause them to get painful metabolic conditions such as laminitis, which the owner can usually manage- but not if lots of passers by are feeding high sugar foods like apples (for a horse, any fruit and veg is high in sugar as it's not a part of their natural diet).

Hand feeding can also cause horses to become aggressive, e.g. if a footpath runs through their field.

If you want to interact with horses, their are many riding schools and petting farms which will allow you to do this (although many won't let you indiscriminately feed the horses for the reasons described above).

Horses are expensive animals to keep and they sort of cross the line between working animals and pets. In some cases, if they become unable to work (e.g. due to laminitis) they may end up being PTS if the owner is unable to manage this in their current set up.

OP, could you run electric tape across the gate, or wherever they are climbing in? It will be a PTA for you, but might discourage people climbing over, and if the habit gets broken for a few weeks, you may be able to get rid of it in the future.