Training Tips

QUESTION: I read your answer to others on your web site about the horse misbehaving to them when it was feeding time. Would your answer (plastic bag on a stick) or a version of it, work with a horse that is very aggressive to the other horses in the pasture? She tries to guard all 5 feeding buckets. However, she is pretty agreeable when we are working with her. Her problem only seems to show up at feeding time and towards the other horses.

REPLY: Yes, what you read there on my site here should help:

Horse Aggressive at Feeding time

However...I'd like to add something there for your situation. I personally don't think putting out feed buckets for horses without separating the horses manually first is a good way to feed horses. It's instinct in them to respect a herd pecking order and that the higher pecking order horse gets access to the food first. That's the rules of a herd, naturally. So...you're playing against their natural instincts there when you put out 5 feed buckets in pasture and hope they are peaceful about it; they won't be. The lower pecking order horses will always get the shorter end of the deal there. What I advise, and what we do here at our training center is: when we need to supplement feed the horses, we call them in and put them in separate stalls while they eat, closing off those stalls so there are no pecking order games, and they can each eat in peace; then when they are done eating their supplements, we open the stalls and let them back out again. If you can't stall briefly for that (or don't have a barn with enough stalls), then I would recommend haltering and tying them for that feed bucket time, keeping them tied far enough apart there as they eat. So...you're better off separating them for that feeding time somehow when you bucket feed, and let them each eat in peace. For hay feeding (especially during winter), place piles of hay in several locations in the pasture so that they aren't fighting over one hay pile, and peace will be better kept all around, and all horses fed well, equally and nonstressfully.