What is my mare trying to tell me?

[rockdoveranch]

I have a 10 year old Quarter Horse mare. In the last few years she has become a lovely lawn ornament on 12 acres living with our pigeon lofts. I cannot play with her anymore because of health issues. She is fed twice a day and has plenty of grass to graze on, has a mineral block and is wormed regularly. She also has a small pond that she loves to go into when it is hot. The water goes over her back. She is beautiful when coming out of the pond running around with her tail and head up.

She was very vocal all day today doing a lot of neighing which is not like her. Her head was high and she was trotting all over the place following noises like vehicles going down the road. As far as I know, no one's horses or cows were out. When that happens she is running the front fence line and watching down the road.

She came up to be petted when we walked along her fence line with the dogs this evening. She usually does not do that unless we have a child with us or she is wanting food to magically appear in her bucket.

Any idea what she was trying to tell me?

 

[mydakota]

It sounds like she is wanting companionship. Maybe she heard or smelled some horses in the distance?

 

[michickenwrangler]

She sounds lonely. Horses are herd animals. See if you can find a nice, older, unwanted horse to be a buddy for her.

 

[patandchickens]

Quite likely she *is* rather lonely.

However if this is sudden new behavior as of yesterday, it's not like she'd have woken up one morning after several years and suddenly ONLY THEN realized she was lonely

I would bet you dollars to donuts that she smelled/heard/saw something of great interest or concern during the day. Could be any number of things. A horse in the distance, or coyotes/loose-dogs, would be my first two guesses; but there are plenty of other possibilities. Any chance a distant neighbor has got new horse(s), or someone was trail-riding down the road earlier in the day?

Horses are notorious for hearing, or seeing in the extreme distance, things that we ourselves do not necessarily see or hear (or anyhow *notice*). And if something excited or worried her, then she could very easily have held over that behavior til you saw her.

Or is it possible that someone driving along the road might've stopped and petted or fed her?

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[rockdoveranch]

Thank you all for your posts!

You all got me to thinking. It is a 3 day weekend and it could be that the people with the track of land next door are there and have children with them. It may be that children had been loving on her and she is looking for them. She adores children and the rare occasion we have children here is the ONLY time Star will come running to the gate. When I call her she pokes along.

When the neighbors are not here, which is most the time other than deer hunting season, another neighbor puts their horses out there so Star hangs out with them on the fence line out in the trees.

We have had her since 2004 and even though I know horses are pack animals I really think she would not do well with another horse in her space. We are looking to find her a new home. I have sent emails out to people I know with horses to pass around to their friends. I have a vet tech friend who is in veterinary school now and who has horses, and her sister-in-law, a teacher at the school, has horses. We are considering just giving Star to one of them. I would rather find an incredible home for her and give her away than sell her to someone I do not know.

 

[Ariel301]

They have extremely good hearing, so she could have heard something even a quarter or half mile away that was worrying/interesting her. I used to have a Spanish-Barb mare that was raised on the range until she was a yearling, and when I rode her on city trails in college, she would alert me to bicycle riders or joggers on the trail that were still so far away I couldn't see or hear them. I had trained her to step off the path and let those things go past, and she got to the point where as soon as she heard them, she would step over, and then stand and wait for 10 minutes until they got to where we were.

 

[Horsiezz]

Get her a little mini horse for a companion because it sounds like shes lonely and probably saw a horse in the distance. Mini horses are cheap and easy to take care of. They dont require much food.