AIBU to yell at the next person I catch...

[Pleasedontfeedme]

Yes it is a clickbaity title but hopefully what I'm saying might educate people who weren't aware...

AIBU to yell at the next person I catch feeding/throwing food and treats into the field where my old semi-retired pony is supposed to be happily living out the rest of his years?

Ok, I already know I'm being unreasonable but lockdown has made the footpath at runs along the perimeter of the field busier than I have ever known it.
OP (old pony in this instance) has some health complications now and has to have a pretty strict diet these days, he also seems to get fat on thin air and owing to his age and an old injury meaning he can't work off the calories like he used to and so a controlled diet is crucial in keeping him healthy. Yet EVERYONE keeps feeding him, I was only there 30 mins or so today and in that time I spoke (politely I might add) to 2 families giving him apples, carrots and treats, which may seem harmless but each one is akin to giving a toddler and chocolate bar (best comparison I can make). Fine if one person does it, but I'm not their 24/7 to stop everyone else and it's making poor OP a ticking timebomb, I worry I'm going to go see him one day and it's going to be his last, to put it bluntly.
I've got signs around the field saying please don't feed him, I speak to people and try and educate. Some people are really lovely about it and apologetic, others I've asked time and time again. Its not just apples and carrots, some people are throwing random kitchen waste in which is not suitable to be fed to him ( some foods cause colic or horses bolting food down can choke) and some people throw grass clippings In (again can cause colic). Before people suggest, he can't be fenced away from the path, plus from previous experience it doesn't deter people anyway ( I've caught people having a picnic In the field, sharing it with him before).
I just want the public to realise that whilst feeding other peoples people's animals may seem harmless, they might have specific dietary requirements or even just the owner doesn't want you to (some start to bite or it can cause injury if there's a couple of them getting aggressive over food).
I've started posting on local Facebook groups in an attempt to educate (near us one horse has died which was shared widely across Facebook as a result of being fed something she shouldn't have) and yet people are still doing it.
So yes IABU to lose my shit with the next person I see but hopefully the message will reach more people by posting on here.
(Sorry it was a bit of a long winded post!)

Yes I had this issue. My horses were elderly and both unlevel and deliberately kept on the slim side to help. In the end I put up a sign on the gate saying "These horses are elderly and on a nutritious balanced diet fed twice a day to assist their health issues. Please stop feeding my horses because you could kill them. If you have an issue please call me Cinderella on phone number'. It did stop but I think perhaps people may have thought they were not being looked after. By putting your name and contact number it's a bit more personal. You can also rig up a camera via a spare mobile to see who is doing it.

It's so rude and downright dangerous. How about putting a sign up saying this pony bites? The ignorant people obviously don't care that feeding your pony might might cause him harm, but they might rethink giving him treats if they think that it might cause them harm.

People don't feed or pet other people's horses because they think 'poor pony, he must be hungry', they do it because it gives them pleasure and in some cases they actually don't care about the consequences.

I have a mare I've had since she was totally unhandled. People would get in her field and mess about with her. She learnt to chase people with her teeth bared.

Every time you interact with a horse you teach it something. If what you're teaching it is that humans can be pushed around for food, or that they run away when chased, etc, you're setting up potentially lethal problems for the owners. These are half ton animals that can kill with a well placed kick.

Please, please, please leave other people's animals alone.

Sometimes it's the case that they think the animal is neglected/lacking food. If the pony is on poor pasture, they may think they're doing a good thing.

Someone cut the forelock of one of ours thinking that they couldn't see out, years ago. I don't think her intention was harm. Sometimes people can be receptive and you can educate them a bit.

YWNBU if a simple request has been ignored then fire away. Fancy the woman saying she did it last year so it's fine. It's your pony, if you say it's not fine then it's not fine...End of story.

Maybe put a sign up saying there is hidden surveillance and that anyone caught feeding the pony will be charged with his vet bill/some sort of offence as he has specific dietary requirements.

Oh and also whatever they did to my mare, they made her so head shy I couldn't get a headcollar on her without risking injury to her and to myself, so I couldn't catch her at all. I had to get her into a very rickety stable to restrict her movement enough that I could put one on, which was really bloody dangerous, then it had to remain on for almost the whole of the following year while I desensitised her to it again, in order that I could still catch her for things like farrier treatment and worming. I then had to put many many hours in again teaching her it was ok to be caught. And this was a horse that had had no negative experiences with humans before, and that I had already trained to be caught nicely some time before.

Horses are incredibly sensitive - they're in a permanent state of hyperarousal due to being prey animals and they really shouldn't be handled in any way by people who don't understand them. Even just patting a horse between the eyes or on the nose might upset it...horses can't see there. My pony wouldn't care if you did this, he's fairly phlegmatic, but my gelding is highly reactive and dangerous to handle if he doesnt know you. He would freak, and might just run you straight over if you tried that.

Mine are on private land, behind 3 locked gates and with a driveway and treeline separating their field from the footpath. I've still had calls from the man who lives there telling me that people have been in with them, and turned off the electric fence to climb through. I've still had people throw all manner of shit in for them to eat

If my current 'please don't feed the horses, they are on regulated diets and you could make them.very ill' signs don't work, my daughter's beloved pony could get laminitis. Should that happen, I wonder how many casual carrot slingers would be prepared to sit with my heartbroken 12 year old and explain that their kids' desire to feed the pretty horsies trumped hers to not have to see hers put down cos his pedal bone had rotated catastrophically.

This was posted on our local Facebook page. Might be worth sharing/printing off...

Also...if a horse looks thin, maybe ask on local facebook groups to find out why before steaming in feeding sugary stuff like apples and carrots. Yes, sadly there are a lot of genuinely neglected equines. But one of my old loan horses looked like skin and bone by the end due to incurable gut issues and he most certainly was being fed properly. The rations he was on would have inflated a healthy horse to Hindenberg proportions in a week. Anything not in the list of food he could actually digest could have killed him as he would colic badly at the drop of a hat. My daft gelding is a bit thin at present as he's a stress head so prone to ulcers, so really needs people to a) not stress him out by trying to interact with him - he doesn't like it - and b) not give him food that will aggravate his stomach and undo the work I'm doing with very carefully managed feeds. I can't stable him to keep him further away from people, he hates being confined and will jump out. My friend's 35 year old mare was skin and bone at the end too. Happy enough but just not absorbing her feed properly and had no teeth so couldn't chew well. She'd have died of choke if fed an apple.
And a genuinely neglected genuinely hungry horse needs forage (decent quality hay) first and foremost, lots of fibre, with protein and high fat introduced gradually- nothing too rich to start- a nice linseed mash and a decent chop, maybe a balancer for multivitamins, bit of linseed oil maybe. Not sugar...you wouldn't give a malnourished kid a mars bar every day in lieu of proper food, it's the same thing.

Generally, if you can see that the field is maintained (manure picked up, ragwort pulled, for example) and the horse is reasonably kempt, hooves trimmed, has a frequently refreshed source of water etc, there's a reasonable chance there's a reason the animal is thin that has nothing to do with lack of food, and giving anything additional could do way more harm than good.

www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/two-horses-die-after-lockdown-walkers-picnic-in-their-field-713242

www.echo-news.co.uk/news/18405476.owners-heartbreak-putting-horses-ate-dumped-grass-cuttings/

These are two of the most recent cases.

YANBU

At our yard, we’ve had to move them all back into their winter fields as they’re further away from the public footpath.

Massive pain in the arse as we’re having to put hay out, plus the fields aren’t being rested for next winter

We’re still finding people trespassing to feed the horses though. Most people nod politely when you speak to them, but then carry on regardless

I really don’t understand some people’s mindset with this. They're utterly determined to do whatever they want with other people’s property. Not your horse, don’t feed it.

@Springerswatch
^^I really don’t understand some people’s mindset with this. They're utterly determined to do whatever they want with other people’s property

I think it’s a combination of things.
We have a footpath crossing our land. Historically, people have trespassed into the adjacent fields and rivers and somehow now view this as their entitled ‘right’. They don’t understand that a public right of way is simply that, and that our obligation is only to provide a clear and unobstructed path - which we do. We have installed stock, agricultural fencing and clear signage, yet this has been viewed by many as an affront to their right to the land surrounding the footpath.

When I politely ask them to keep to the footpath, I’m told they have always done it....or that they grew up in the town (inference being we haven’t, and don’t know local ways). Or I’m just told to fuck off.

The sense of entitlement and stupidity is immense and outweighs the genuinely nice local sentiment which appreciates the efforts we have made.
Last week we had lots of rain, yet I could still see people waking the footpath in white trainers (then climbing into the adjacent field).

I’m actually thinking about moving the footpath 5’ across the stream and fencing it off. We’d have to make a bridge, but it would be a lot safer. We’ve got to do some drainage work as a bit of the footpath is boggy, so that could be an excuse to move it.

This is a rough diagram, but that’s the plan. Then I could just fence the far side of the river off. I’d sacrifice that strip of field for peace of mind.

Oh heck, it’s upside down! Try again!

We’ve had a lot of problems with mountain bikers on the land too. They ripped the top piece of post and rail off the kissing gate and left it on the ground of the horse’s field with a 6” nail sticking up ( was easier to get the bike through the kissing gate without it!). They shouldn’t be on there at all.

Some people just can’t bear to be told no.

A couple of years ago a friend of a friend/acquaintance type woman kept nagging the shit out of me to let her DD ride my DD’s pony. The child had had a few lessons at the local riding school but was barely off the lead rein. DD’s pony is lovely but she’s not a beginner’s pony by any stretch of the imagination.

She was so abusive and rude when she finally got it into her thick skull that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Told me I was clearly jealous as her DD was going to be a much better rider than my DD and I was a nasty piece of work for upsetting her DD.

The woman wanted to organise for her DD to “help” my DD by riding her pony a few times a week.

I was baffled by the whole thing, how could anyone be that entitled? I was honestly open mouthed by the whole thing

I'm shocked at how widespread the issues is, clearly it's not just people not knowing the harm they are causing and people sense of entitlement is the bigger issue
This morning I discovered the remnants of some cabbage leaves some one has thrown into the field, when you Google if horses can eat them it tells you no... there is no hope.

@Springersrock

You've posted that before on other threads about this and sadly I'm not, (and I doubt anyone else who has or have had horses, is surprised by it,) even though it's so unbelievably cheeky and wrong.
This type of thing has always been an issue around horses, as long as I can remember, in line with loose dogs worrying sheep (they're only playing!) Or cattle and gates left open for animals to stray, and the age old argument about horses on the road and treating them with respect.
Part is just not knowing, well intentioned ignorance. Part though is jealousy that someone has something that's deemed by society to be a trapping of wealth and status, and buying into a stereotype that isn't true about horse owners any more than it is about any other sections of society.
The RDA and other societies have worked hard to make being around horses more accessible, especially where there's a therapeutic advantage, so there's more awareness in general around them, but, what's that saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"?

@Honeyroar really don’t recommend putting a footpath by a river. We have huge poaching problems as well as dogs, kids etc being thrown into the river. Ours is a protected area, but people just don’t care. It’s so depressing.

It’s already right next to it. I’d just be stopping them onto the opposite bank. It’s only a stream, and would mean I can then fence the river off, which I can’t do now without stopping the horses access to where they drink...

Swopping not stopping

We've had a few weird facebook posts about horses recently.

One woman who is new to walking round the town but with the gym closed needs must, apparently (we're really rural, loads of well kept footpaths, whole bloody forest, etc) and she is ACTUALLY HORRIFIED at the condition one poor horse is being kept in. He has no grass, just bare scrub land - she doesn't seem to believe the explanations, keeps thretening to call the police, RSPCA etc

One group of lads posted hilarious pictures of them feeding a horse a sausage roll, must have done it 3 or 4 different times. Owner of the horse used the posts well, sent them the vets bill! One parent was so incensed at the horse owners cheek he took to facebook to tell everyone what she had done... and got his arse handed to him!

And one horse owner telling the owner of a flock of rare breed sheep to get the flock "orf my land". Land hasn't changed hands in over a century. We think the horse owner has been ripped off, but he is not taking it quietly. Unfortunatley he is blaming the real owner for his woes!

All that aside, we do have quite a few posters up explaining why feeding horses can kill them. Some people complain cos the posters scare the kids... and on an on it rolls!

And that's before you get to dogs and sheep... and cows...

The footpaths in the Snowdonia National Park have posters up warning dog owners to keep their dogs on a lead. Graphic pictures of mutilated ewes to reinforce the message. Yet people still let them off.

People don’t think anything applies to them personally nowadays.

This is our footpath in question. You can see the current path on the other side of the river, whereas if I made a bridge they could come along the bit to the right of the river. There’s practically a stile there ready if I sawed off the end of the post and rail next to the stone bridge. The second photo shows it from the other direction, it would veer slightly left after the walkway then we’d make the bridge where the rushes are and it’d come out on the left of the bridge not the right. What do you think? At the minute the path hits the road in a huge puddle due to an engineering fault.

I like the bucket / box idea.

Also you must feed him at some point, if it is the same time each day could you advertise it and take charity donations? Do some education and hand out leaflets.

Unbless people are driving from a long way away word should soon get round, and it will be the kids that pass the word on.

Unfortunately I'm not there at the same time each day, plus when I'm working I can be there at odd hours... people have thought he was abandoned before now as pre DD I used to check him at 4am on my way home from work and then just a quick check through the day and no one ever saw anyone seeing to him (presumably he puts his own muzzle on and off and tops his own water up)
I do like the box idea so I may give that a go and see if it works