Horse awareness

[lnieland]

I have a situation I'd like to share or get insight on. My Earth horse and Jue/Yin mule have one corner of their pasture with hot wire. After I took down the wire and enlarged their area to give them more shade, (only about 10 feet), my mule immediately went to the new grass, but my horse would not go cross over to the new area. There was the obvious grass line where the ungrazed area was and I tried to coax him with alfalfa and hay, but he couldn't be convinced it was safe. He is a calm horse and very curious with new objects presented to him. What is going on? Do horses have a spacial/fear sense or memory of their boundaries? I was facinated at the difference in how the mule and horse reacted to that change. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Leslie

[mward]

Leslie,
Very interesting. I have never seen a horse do this. I would have expected an Earth horse to dive into the grass. With a Metal horse this would not have surprised me so much as they do learn by repetition. Let me know if your horse overcomes his concern and starts grazing. Madalyn

[kbauer]

Will the Mule let the Earth horse in to eat? My Earth horse would have been in there immediately eating the new stuff

Kim

[lnieland]

Madalyn, I'm pretty sure my horse, Clyde, is Earth. His head NEVER raises from grazing all day. He's not interested in anything else but food. To answer Kim's question, yes, Toby/mule shares. In fact, Clyde is dominant around food. I'm going to put out their feed in that spot tonight and note what happens. But so far, Toby seems to like that shady spot and I have not seen Clyde under the trees at all.

Thanks for the responses. I'll keep you posted.

Leslie