So I get a frantic call from my mother that Daisy is acting "funny" and I panic of course thinking colic.  My mom then describes to me in a terribly frantic voice that after giving Daisy a couple heels of bread, she began sticking her nose in the air, squinting her eyes, making a sniffing noise and tossing her head. "She's making terrible faces!"   She thought she had given my horse enough bread to "choke a horse" and figured that she had sentenced Daisy to death by choking. 

After pulling my heart from the pit of my stomach,  I  told her that it's like giving a baby a lemon...they make faces.  Bread heels are not in Daisy's usual meal lineup, and knowing mom it was probably rye or pumpernickel or something crazy tasting anyhow.   No harm done, the horse lived.

Amanda

How scary/funny. 

This weekend my neighbour was on his way home while I was on my way out.  I saw him when I was driving into town and a few minutes later he passed me and cut me off.   He was frantic and said something was wrong with my horses.  They were all laying down.  Well I had just left the house and they were all stretched out sunning themselves enjoying our non windy/ 70* day.  He thought adult horses only layed down to die.  He is such a sweetheart and I love him for rushing to tell me, but it was funny as heck and I just couldn't keep a straigt face and I really tried. 

How's this::my neighbors were seen in a restaurant one Sunday we frequent.The guy said,"You know,I woke up the other night,and told my wife that I was dreaming the back yard was full of horses. and you know what she said?" I said,"No,what?" he said,"I wasn't dreaming,she said your horses had gotten out,and were in our back yard grazing,and apparently the dog was barking and woke her up."

One of us had left the gate unchained enough (we never leave the chain completely off) that it had gotten pushed open.The neighbors are about 1/4 mile from our place.SHe said she woke up,saw them,went out and grabbed a bucket and put some dog food in it.ANd they,all being fully aware of what a bucket's all about,followed her on foot back to our place,in the dark,about 3AM,and she put them up in the pasture.Never knocked on the door or called to tell us,just did it.

THAT'S NEIGHBORS!!!!!

How's this for neighbors (may not top the ones who returned the horses without telling)....go out to barn, 10pm for last feeding.  My Haflinger/Belgian is missing in action. The other horses aren't speaking as to her wherabouts.  After running around the property through 6 inches of snow until exhausted, I ran inside to tell the family (non horse people) within 5 minutes, we had 3 sets of neighbors out looking, and before I even got home from the next door horse neighbor, one had found her down playing in the creek.  He put his belt around her neck and led her back up to the pasture.  I was just blown away by the immediate and thorough response.  Everyone had their 4 wheelers ready for a real horse hunt.  Luckily Daisy was okay, but I've never seen such a big fat un-graceful horse escape such good fencing.  She can roll under the lowest wire even if it's hot. Even the mini won't try it. In this case she just plowed it down. Sometimes she just touches the hotwire for fun. She doesn't flinch.  Yes, it has a full charge as the tester reports.  I think my horse was born without nerve endings or something.  She's an odd one.  I've had lots of horses, but never one like her. 

Amanda

When I was growing up my first horse did something that my dad (who knew a little about horses) said,if he had not seen it,he would not have believed it.

I'd taught this little grade gentle as a dog horse to JUMP.I loved jumping,and my dad against his better judgement made a makeshift jump bar that I could raise just like I'd seen in the ENglish books.Boy,I should not have taught that horse to jump.

He started getting the idea to jump the fence when I'd go out to his little corral for a ride.We lived out in the country with no neighbors except for about a mile in either direction,so,he could travel quiet a ways.He did this one day,and disappeared in a short while.My dad and a man that worked for him went looking for the horse in the truck.My dad had a bucket with feed.He drove around a neighbor's driveway,and had pulled out real slow and was driving back down toward our place.The man with him said,'Look!" and,they did,and the horse had laid down in a bean field and was hidden,and had his head stuck up above the beans that were really tall by this time,watching them drive off.

Yes,it's the truth.Second time he tried it,the neighbor's wife stood in the back yard and watched him.Don't know if he was just rolling,or what,but,he sure looked as if he were peeking over the beans to see if they were gone yet!!!

My dad had a mule that would be home to eat her breakfast, jump the pasture fence be gone all day, jump the pasture fence, eat dinner and then hop the fence once more and be gone all night.  She never missed a meal an if you needed her for anything during the day you better lock her in the stud stall the meal before you wanted her.  That was the only one we had that was built from the ground to the roof of the barn.

She could jump anything she could put her head over.  No running start needed, she just "hopped" right on over.  The oddest thing I've ever seen.  If she ran twards a fence, she would stop, walk up to it and then hop it.  She couldn't jump from a run, my step mother decided that since she had seen her jump a 6 foot fence she would train her for hunter classes.  Couldn't do it.  She had to stop before jumping and it looked really hard to 'sit'.

A few years ago, hubby and I were working a 2-10 shift.  While we were at work, a drunk driver plowed through our fence.  When we got home that night, our very non-horsey neighbor was sitting in a lawn chair by the broken fence with a plastic grocery bag on a stick.  She was too afraid of the horses to try to put them in the barn, but would "shoo" them away from the opening in the fence whenever they got too close.  By the time we got home, she had been sitting there for nearly four hours.

Yeah, good neighbors are a blessing.

DANG!!!  THAT gal sure didn't grow up on a farm,did she? Yeah,you would have thought she'd figured it out on her own.Talk about a dummy.

It just means her husband was circumcised...

fun thread! 

Recently I had gone on a day ride with friends and when I returned to the barn, the owner was having a party out on her patio, they had completely blocked my access to the pasture gate, so I parked the trailer out on the road and unloaded my horse.  I always put a fly mask on him as I have drop down windows.  I walked him into the pasture and of course they were all watching us.  I heard one lady say, "look he has a blindfold on!"  Non-horse people never seem to figure out what fly masks are - I've had more people ask me why I blindfold my horse....

True story : long time ago when I was young, a friend and I were playing w/ horse statues in my room and wishing we had our own horse.  We heard a strange noise, looked out the back window and there was a saddled horse grazing in the back yard!  We ran outside, caught the horse and couldn't believe our luck!  We took turns riding the horse around the yard, but of course we wondered whose horse it was.  Back in those days you called the radio station to report lost/found animals and sure enough the owners called us about their mare.  They came and got her, but gave my friend and I $1.00 each (lotta money back in the 60's).  Seems their son and his friend were out riding double and she had thrown them and ran about a mile to end up in our yard.

About 6 months later we did get our first horse and for the next 8 years, lost/loose horses would show up at our place.  One pony we even had for a week before the owners finally came & got him.  One time it was 3 horses - you just never knew when they would wander over to visit...   

Crowleysridgegirl, Angelmay84, and Dwight-- what great "neighbor" stories!  Gosh, wish more neighbors were like that.

Oh my gosh, it just occurred to me that I do have some great folks in my area (not next to me) but around here.

One Sunday afternoon I was watching TV and got that feeling that something was 'wrong' so I started for the door then hear my little QH sound off.  When I got the door open some guy had just pulled into my drive and frantically asked if I had a brown horse cuz he was running down the middle of the street.  (First I had to see what horse was actually missing... I have a brown one and a red one.. I could see the brown one.... OH NO it was the red one! Yikes!)

Thankfully my keys were in my pocket and the halter was in the truck bed (nope I had NOT put it up where it was supposed to go.. was lazy and left it in the truck).  Tore down the street in the truck.  The guy had headed home but turned around and came after me.  About 1/2 a mile away was my happy looking retired racehorse running down the FM road... in the middle of the road.  He didn't take the route to the west were it was flat... not he went east where it was up and down hills... where oncoming traffic would not see him until they were on him.  By God's grace none of the 80 MPH folks raced over the hill.  Several cars from both directions approached and as they saw what was happening they stopped their cars to block the traffic.

Mr Happy Britches does not comprehend "whoa" so he just kept trotting/running past me.  He was having a grand old time!  After what seemed like forever, we finally caught him (he was getting a little tuckered so he stopped for me) we were about a mile and a half from home.  One guy even offered to walk him home on foot for me (I still had my truck).  I guess he'd been ponied a lot, cuz he thought it was great fun to trot home by the truck.  I'm soooooo thankful for all those folks that stopped to help.  That could have been such a tragedy.

Why do horses escape??! LOL,  It's not like we aren't good to them! 

I found a little gadget that clips on to the fence and will flash a bright light when there is not enough charge going through the wire to stop your animals.  It has caught fence failures several times for me. Daisy knows when that fence isn't hot, and she will try to escape over to greener pastures now that she knows how.  The little Mini horse could possibly squeeze between the wires, but the half draft....well...she mastered it.  At least she doesn't always break the fence on the way out.  BTW I have 4 strands of that electrobraid style rope.  Not a crappy horse-containment system.  She can limbo under it, or weasel through it.  Not a hair displaced on the horse, and not a strand of wire out of place. I thought someone was playing a joke and letting her out of the pasture.  Thankfully she's the easiest horse to catch.  But boy, after several escapes and thinking of how bad it would be if she was on the road.....I like my little fence light. 

Amanda