To ask you to please not feed horses you don’t know

[lastqueenofscotland]

Out walking after work this afternoon and saw someone with some young children feeding a horse in a field leaves and various crap picked off the ground.
I’ve hear stories of people who’ve dumped grass clippings on the ground horses have eaten these and got colic.
My previous horse was a blimp and was on strip grazing/already grazed down fields and I once caught someone feeding him slices of bread
Please don’t do it, horses can’t vomit and get very ill if something doesn’t agree with them.

No it's no different . You feed either with shit that's not good for them , and they'll either turn into hyperactive nutcases , get ill ,or die . The only difference is you cant clear up vomit from a horse .

Butterfly how is it a bit different ?
If you dont have permission do NOT feed anybody else's pet. Simples.

He's ok , but he has a lifelong scar . As would the perpetrators if I found them

Came on to say thanks for raising awareness- I knew grass clippings could be really dangerous, is it to do with them having started fermenting- and to suggest a sign which I see you already have, OP.

I'm quite shocked to see people have ignored signs, climbed over a second fence and cut off muzzles. I honestly don't know why people always think they know best.

My lovely trusting boy had someone walk up to him in his field and slash his neck open. Twenty seven stitches

Wtf! What is wrong with people???
Is he on now?

*Gertrude
*
I agree, you shouldn't feed other people's pets without permission - but I think this is a lot more likely to occur than people feeding someone else's child without permission, therefore it's more accepted; people feed other people's dogs, and ducks on the river etc. People don't expect to be making these animals ill.

Someone fed my dog carrots through the fence.
Turns out he is allergic to raw carrot.
Poor sod was covered in itchy hives and it cost us ££.

Butterfly005
Completely different..... because if your child gets aggressive over a treat it doesn't weigh 750kg with metal plates nailed to its feet........Ever had a horse go for you? I saw a lady with kids trying to feed a herd of horses with apples in a bag. They all mugged her and she had to run for it dragging the kids. It was so dangerous and she didn't have a clue what she had done wrong. Idiot!!
If it's not your property leave it alone. How hard is that to understand??

As an equestrian myself this annoys the hell out of me. I wish people knew that their kindness can kill our horses. I've had people in the past feeding grass clippings & potato to my horses. It's not as though you would go up to someone's dog that was in their garden and start feeding them is it so people shouldn't do it to horses!

I agree, you shouldn't feed other people's pets without permission

There we go then.

Perhaps what people don't realise is that horses can't vomit.

*Fibbke
*
Yes I think you may have missed the point

Actually @sophlouu98 people have done just that.
Not got horses myself but my Uncle / cousins have and caught a family in the paddock with the youngest pony trying to catch her " so the kiddies could have a go" Fuckwits

NRTWT

Not even carrots? or grass from right at the fence or gate they are standing at?

@FancyAPint No.

Completely agree with this! My lot are by a public path and it really scares me!

(Although if anyone can get close enough to my tb who has been turned out of the summer due to my pregnancy and now thinks he’s feral I’ll shake their hand🙄)

@Processedpea my friends pony has equine metabolic syndrome, basically horse diabetes. You’d never know to look at him but polos could kill him!

Someone in our village had to put a sign up on the fence her horses were in. "please don't feed bacon sandwiches to the horses".

What the actual hell...?!

Definitely not carrots. Grass from the edge of their field is unlikely to hurt them but grass from anywhere else could have been sprayed. Never grass clippings.

Just don't feed them, its not hard.

And a child the other year lost a thumb because her mother thought it a good plan to go and feed strange horses in a field www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/horse-eats-girls-thumb-after-7715188
Please don't do it. I don't want dhorse to become ill; I don't want dhorse and his mates kicking lumps out of each other because they're jealous; I don't want your or your child to be injured because you got too close in the wrong way and I don't want to have to deal with the behavioural consequences if dhorse starts to regard humans as vending machines ( pull/push the right lever and a carrot appears) since I've spent years teaching him to be respectful in the presence of food.

Carrots have a really high sugar content for horses . My little old welsh pony can't have one because the risk of laminitis is so high

Everybody thinks it's just a carrot, it's just a handful of grass but all the carrots and handfuls of grass add up

These analogies about feeding someone else's kid - it's a bit different really, isn't it...

It is in that you’d need to feed a kid something pretty toxic to make it seriously ill, whereas horses have incredibly delicate digestive systems with very limited gut microbials and can’t be sick, so even small variations from their usual diet can be incredibly dangerous or even fatal to them. So imo it’s much worse to benignly feed someone’s horse than their child...

One of our fields has a footpath running through it.

Someone tagged me in a facebook post of a dad holding his little girl sitting on my horse in the field.

The ultimate cf! Little girl had no hat and looked terrified. Dhorse is a 16.3, sharp eventer who has been known to rear. They must have lured him with treats. Arseholes.

Gosh I didn't know this. Not that I've ever fed an animal. I know you said you've had signs. What about if your horse wears a blanket for the winter that you write a massive sign on it that says "if you feed a horse anything, including grass, it might kill it. Don't"

FancyAPint Yes, please don't feed horses carrots. All the horses I know seem to have mad, complicated diets because things like carrots make them ill (or fat - and then they end up with arthritis and have to be put down).