05.05.07
Horses Come Running to Dinner Bell Videos
Our three horses have been conditioned to come to the barn for their twice daily feedings when we ring a dinner bell. They learned this when we associated the bell-ringing with their grain feedings.
We try to make our horsekeeping as easy as possible, and because they are often as far away from the barn as they can go, we save ourselves tons of time and a long walk by ringing a really loud bell to signal them to come home. It probably helped when training them that the bell sounds a little like the clanking of coffee cans together (we portion their grain out in coffee cans, like many horse people do.)
Running thru snow to their dinner bell, mid-February video!
Oh yeah, they have to each go into their own designated stall before they are given their grain! Sometimes there is a little bit of musical stalls horseplay between the brothers, but they know the drill and sort themselves out! (Catch Glendale at the end of the video shifting into his own stall at the corner of the barn.)
We shut in Glendale the yearling til he finishes his grain, because (being a growing boy) he gets the most quantity, and his mother or brother will try to steal his after they finish their own; but by the time he is two he will be eating about the same amount as the others and we shouldn’t have to do that anymore.
After grain is finished, they share haypiles wherever we throw it, sometimes in their stalls, usually outside on the peastone gravel. I believe in feeding hay off the ground rather than from a hay rack or net, as it allows the horses’ nasal passages to drain in a natural way and potentially wards off heaves or haydust congestion.
Horses running back to barn for dinner, and Peaches playing with a stick! End of March video.
I will admit, in summertime when they are in the grass and getting a lot to eat, sometimes they are reluctant to come to the barn just for grain, because it means leaving their grass heaven! At those times we just have to go get them.
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See my other videos of horses, dogs, snowboarding etc., on this blog (search term= video,) or go to YouTube.com and use search term= Horsepaintings (my username.)
