Do we humanize our animals?
I will be the first to admit that I sometimes speak on behalf of my animals and add some that the animals absolutely do not think or mean, but sometimes you can wonder if they are not a little clever in any case. I only have 3 horses left and if you, like me, have been used to having 20-30 horses at a time, 3 feel like very little.
Now, however, I have more time and surplus for them and at the same time I have made it easy for me, as they can go out and in as they pleased, so I do not have to clean the stable, it is done with a machine.
Right now they are grazing and I have done so the stable is connected to each paddock (there are 3) so I will only open and close a little here and there when I change paddocks. I have no young horses anymore so the risk is not so big that they go out, but every now and then what happens they go wrong and I must also admit that I am not strict with turning on the power.
The funny thing is that they themselves feel abandoned if they end up on the wrong ground and usually gossip when they come from the herd. In some places I only have a string left without electricity because if they go through there, they just enter a new paddock, so the risk is not so great that they get lost.
The other day I had them in the “outer garden” which is a bit away from the house, so I hear their footsteps when they “knock” of flies but not so loud. I woke up early in the morning (always when the horses are most active) because I thought their footsteps were quite close to the house, but I didnt care. Then I heard a whining but still thought I was too sleepy to go out, as they had not escaped anyway. I could hear they were right next door, but a few minutes later there was another whining. Yes, I thought, I’ll get to see what happens and went out into the yard.
There were 2 of them on the wrong side of the fence from the pasture they were released in, but were only in the other pasture, but Maersk who would never dare to go over a chalk line stood in the “real” pasture and gossiped on the others.
They were not 3 meters apart, so it was not because he had been left alone, no, he would simply telling me that something was not right, so I had to come out and make sure that there will be order in the herd.
When I came, he was standing and looking at me, like, what took you so long? I had to push the other two back in place and set up a wheelbarrow, so I could be allowed to sleep for a few more hours.
