to wonder why, when you’ve been asked not to do something, you’d go and do it anyway

[Ellybellyboo]

This is driving me slightly bonkers

We have horses, along one side of their field is a public footpath and we’re having issues with people feeding them

I don’t mind the occasional carrot but now the weather is getting better more and more people are using the footpath and the horses are being fed more and more crap - I’ve caught people giving them sandwiches and crisps, and once a sausage roll!

One of our horses is retired and it’s a struggle to keep her weight down, they both get bargy and bitey if they’re hand fed too much as every time they see someone they think they’re going to get given a treat, plus they fight if one thinks the other is getting something they’re not

We’ve put up signs up everywhere asking people not to feed the horses - they were ignored.

We then put up electric fence to keep the horses away from the locked gate - so people climbed over the gate

We changed the signs so they were less polite, put up CCTV and more electric fencing to try and keep the horses further away from the gate and the hedge and people are still climbing over the gate and now chucking stuff over the hedge

I’m loath to fence them any further away from the hedge/gate as they’re already losing half of their field

I’ve caught several people feeding them, I’ve asked politely for them to stop it and explained why. I’ve encouraged fuss not food, I’ve offered to put the treats in their feed buckets for them and 75% of the time I’ve had nothing but rudeness and abuse in return

I’ve found a Dad actually in their field with his toddler son once, been called a stuck up bitch, told by a woman that she was going to carry on feeding them whatever as her children like to see them and that I should keep them in their stable if I don’t want people to feed them

It baffles me. Why can’t people just leave them alone?

It’s like people think they have some sort of shared ownership or something - except when it comes to the vet bills

I would get legal advice on this.

I would definitely get legal advice, I mean... what would have happened if the horses hurt that poor kid that was taken in by the father?

Could you contact your local newspaper to see if they’d run an article containing photos of cctv images of the people jumping the gates to feed them? This provides a consequence, our local newspaper did this when people were caught on cctv littering.

Folk are ridiculously entitled and selfish

There's a lovely local piebald that I go to clap/chat to. I always worry his owner thinks I'm feeding him- I wouldn't dare! He loves a good neck scratch though.

Hoping I don't get pounced on... I clap him from public land, don't open gates, he's friendly!

I also highly recommend brutal signs with photos of dead horses from gastric rupture or twisted gut. Whatever makes the toddlers cry and the parents turn their kids away and stop feeding the horses.

Do this

Seriously, people are so fucking entitled. The one saying she was going to carry on feeding them whatever as her children like to see them She'd be the first to raise merry hell if she let her kids' fingers or feet too close and they got stood on or bitten.

Is it generally ok to give them healthier stuff like carrots and apples? My ex loves taking the girls to feed the horses and takes a bag of chopped up apples and carrots. I always told him that he shouldn't as you don't know if they're on special diets but he didn't listen...not that that is a big surprise but hey!

Am I being a bit over cautious by being worried or should he not really be doing it?

@TescoValueUserName you shouldn’t feed or touch any animal without the owners permission.

@TescoValueUserName no, it's not okay and what's really not okay is chopping the treats up. Horses will bite through whole carrots and quartered apples but will chopped can kill them. They can choke so easily it's scary.

Thanks. I agree with you but he would never listen. I always said he shouldn't do it unless he had checked with the owner first to make sure it was ok but like always, he apparently knew better.

When I say chopped I mean quartered apples or carrots chopped in half, not chopped into small pieces. Not that it improves it much!

Tesco I know he means no harm, but any animal in a field is actually going to be on a carefully worked out diet of feed, hay etc to keep them at optimum health. Feeding them extra, even veg, throws that out.

They don't just get left outside because the owners can't be bothered to look after them properly.

Return the favour by giving their children fizzy drinks, blue slush, and sour mix haribo. See how they like not being in control of the diet of what/who they are looking after.

When I wasn't allergic to horses I used to feed them the grass they couldn't reach on my flat palm. It never occurred to me to bring food. Poor horses.

@TescoValueUserName
Many ponies suffer from a metabolic condition called laminitis and they absolutely cannot have apples, carrots, or anything like that. It could kill or leaves them absolutely crippled and in agony at best.

My mare is on a very carefully calorie controlled diet which cannot be deviated from. She is muzzled to stop her having too much grass - so even people picking long grass to feed her is just as bad. She cannot have anything other than what is weighed and measured.

I think that old saying, "Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints"

...should be modified with "Bring nothing but yourselves, take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints"

In a just world you would be allowed to employ the services of a sniper.

I really can't believe that anyone would feed a horse a sausage roll FFS.

I guess you need to work towards the lowest common denominator, pretty sad.

I also highly recommend brutal signs with photos of dead horses from gastric rupture or twisted gut. Whatever makes the toddlers cry and the parents turn their kids away and stop feeding the horses.

I was coming on to make a similar suggestion. Put them on sign posts inside the field, so they can tear them down. Spread a little bit of pig muck under the hedge and they’ll not want to hang around. 😁

The horses near my childhood home always had a horse poo pile somewhere in the field... perhaps it should be right by the gate and along the hedge to make people want to walk by faster?
Spread it around a bit, get some cow pats to make the scent a bit more... plentiful. Chicken poo/duck poo may help too.

I once caught a girl who was visiting our yard feeding a stabled pony bits of grass. I was horrified to find she had got it from the areas on the yard we had just had sprayed with weed killer. FFS, there was hay right there in the stable block but she wanted to give it "fresh green stuff".

Now signs go up after weed control.

Who the actual fuck thinks it's ok to give horses sweets? The mind boggles.

This pisses me off too. I once caught a woman feeding my (on a diet, prone-to-laminitis) pony bloody Soreen by the fistful. She wasn’t even apologetic about it.

I find the only thing that helps is properly aggressive signs. I’ve had one for a couple of years now that says ‘Feeding the horses is HARMFUL and causes ILLNESS AND DEATH. Anyone found feeding the horses WILL BE PROSECUTED’ (with a fake camera on a post). Sadly not very friendly, but it has helped.

Who the actual fuck thinks it's ok to give horses sweets?

people who have seen horses being given sugar cube... so assume both are an acceptable "treat".

Don't ask...

Spread a little bit of pig muck under the hedge and they’ll not want to hang around. Oh, that's a good idea. I think it needs to be pig or similar (dog? lion?), not horse –horse poo doesn't smell bad at all because they don't eat meat or anything well not usually

Apart from the health implications of people feeding horses, it can encourage bad manners too. There are horses in fields near where I sometimes walk, but I don't stop to say hello to them any more, despite being a horse fan, because they go straight for your pockets and get nippy when they realise you don't have any food. I think a lot of people feed them and they've just come to expect it.

Sorry to hear of your hassles. Our local park has idiots who feed the deer all manner of crap, as well as blocking in the stags so they can take a good photo. There are plenty of signs, but also occasional "sob stories" in the paper when one of these knobs gets hurt by a deer. I've tried telling people to move away when i see them, but mostly they're too near and I won't take DS that close to wild animals to warn a bunch of idiots.

Snipers aren't a bad idea, shoot to maim only.

There are plenty of signs, but also occasional "sob stories" in the paper when one of these knobs gets hurt by a deer.

This happens in Scotland now and then with highland cattle. People try to approach and pet the calves because they’re cute and end up fired by angry mothers.

muses about possibility of kitting out horses with massive stabby horn contraption