Childhood dreams and adult reality.

When I was little I dreamed of having herds and herds of pretty horses running around.
Now that I'm an adult (in theory anyway) I've realized that I have too many damn horses! (At least for our facilities)

We have the feed barn/shed with two stalls where Sam and Nora (the permanent horses) eat.
We have another shed/barn with two stalls inside the round pen- attached to the side of the other barn.
There's a bucket attached to the round pen and there are one (now 2) feed pans outside the round pen. Normally the newest horse or lowest ranking horse, gets to eat in the round pen so I can lock them in if needed.

I mainly notice this around feeding time.
Feeding two horses: a breeze, quick, painless and cheap
Feeding three horses: slightly more work
Feeding four horses: slightly annoying as it requires waiting to make sure they're done before  I can let the others out.
Feeding five horses: nightmarish. It's like a merry-go-round from hell. The trio (Loki, Blue and Moose) are constantly right behind me and they won't go where they're supposed to. Yesterday it was fine, today they refused to do what they're supposed to and nobody ate where they're supposed to. It was maddening and ridiculous and I refuse to do that every feeding time.

This isn't the first time this has happened and I don't put up with it long. So how do I get order? I could halter everyone and lead them in and then lock them in. I could, but that would take a while.

So I do what I read in a Mark Rashid book a few years ago.
I will feed grain to whatever horse goes to their proper spot and stays there without causing a fuss- and no one else. They'll all get hay, but not grain.
It doesn't take them real long before they figure it out. First one, then two and then eventually all of them. Then they settle down and eat like nice, polite creatures.

In the book when he'd feed the herd they would practically run him over every day and he got tired of it- so he didn't feed any of them that didn't walk in nicely. The old, lazy horses went in and got their food right away. The next day it was the same way. The next day horses started watching to see what the others were doing to get in. Then more horses did it, and more, until eventually every horse walked in without pushing.

Horses are smarter than we give them credit for- and boy can they problem solve when there's food involved. Like figuring out how to unlock the doors to the feed room....


I feel like a parent with too many kids. I might also just be cranky since I just had to blanket everyone.