The idea to foster a horse was based on good intentions, and a desire to spend more time with Odin the Mustang out on the trails this summer. Which means leaving Bragi the Mustang all alone at home.
Horses, all herd animals really, do not like to be alone.
They evolved to feel safer in numbers in larger numbers. Since my horsemanship goals these days outweigh my riding goals, I decided to respond to a social media post from a reputable rescue for foster homes.
A few years ago I had applied to be a foster home after I lost Beege so that Odin wouldn’t be by himself. At the time, there wasn’t a need for foster homes which is how I ended up with Bragi the Mustang.
This time, however, the response was immediate and I had a foster horse delivered a couple Saturday’s ago.
Meet Sparrow, a 22-year-old retired Thoroughbred who raced under the Jockey Club name, Proud Texan, in the early 2000s. He’s a little ribby in this photo as he was rescued from a starvation situation and spent the last 5-6 months in rehabilitation at the rescue.
Sparrow also is sway-backed so is not a good candidate for a riding horse. This suits me as I already have one riding horse and Bragi is just starting on the path to become a riding horse. I work full time so barely have time to ride Odin. I’m not sure yet how I’m going to manage when Bragi is ready to ride.
I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, the introduction (with a solid fence between them) to my geldings went well.
Sparrow is the one with the star on his forehead. Odin shows interest later but was stand-offish at first. This is normal for him.
Having a third horse increased my horse management workload by about 50%. Sparrow requires high calorie meals. My mustangs are on the chubby side so require low calorie meals. There’s 50% more poop to pick up and barrow over to the covered pile. I talk about this during a recent podcast episode.
I turned Sparrow out into the round pen so he’d have soft sand to roll in and have a place to run around. He enjoyed that quite a bit, especially sharing Odin and Bragi’s breakfast.
That turnout situation went well until Odin and Bragi walked away, then Sparrow would get anxious and pace. Not good. More management.
The second thing that happened was that Bragi developed a painful abscess in his left-front hoof:
Poor Bragi was truly miserable for a few days. He was not in any condition to be face to face with a new horse as they run around, sniff, squeal, sort out their pecking order.
When Sparrow had been here for 10 days, Bragi was feeling better and my trainer was coming to help me work with Bragi. We decided to use the last 20 or so minutes of my session to introduce the horses.
As predicted, there was running, posturing, and herd order: Odin is definitely the leader, a polite leader but leader nonetheless. Bragi was acting the most stud like, puffing up, posturing, wanting to keep Sparrow away from Odin because Odin is Bragi’s friend and no one else. So says Bragi.
Sparrow is at the bottom of the pecking order although he defended himself when either Odin or Bragi would get too personal. I was glad to see that because it’s less likely that he will get trapped in a corner and beat up.
Horses, even geldings, can be jerks.
The new routine is for them to eat their breakfasts separately, turn them out around lunchtime, pick manure to keep an eye on them for any shenanigans then leave them out.
That was fine until I came out a couple hours later to see Sparrow standing by himself in a corner. The mustangs were at the other end of the pasture ignoring him. Strange…
Sparrow followed me into his own pen, seemed relieved to be in there. I found out why a few minutes later when I started the evening feed routine.
Bragi started chasing Sparrow up and down the fenceline, even though they were separated and trying to herd Odin to the far side of their pen. Bragi’s cow-cutting maneuvers were truly amazing and Sparrow fell for it even though he was completely safe from Bragi.
I took Bragi out of his pen and started focused training exercises to distract him from Sparrow.
Even though I worked with him only for a few minutes then worked with Odin for a few minutes, it was enough to reset his brain at least for the moment so Sparrow could settle and eat his dinner in peace.
I wasn’t sure what to expect the next morning when I came out to feed breakfast and what I found was that Sparrow and Bragi had apparently made peace with each other overnight as they were conversing through the fence.
My plan for peaceful turnout was to put Bragi in the round pen and let Sparrow and Odin hang out together since Odin will only bother another horse if he’s challenged. I haven’t had to do that yet but it’s only been a couple days.
The last time I let them out together a stray dog came to the pasture and wreaked a little havoc on the herd. Odin and Bragi are not easily harassed by dogs, in fact I’ve seen Odin go after them. I suspect that Sparrow lost his marbles and ran through the electric fence to the recovering west pasture. Odin and Bragi took advantage of the down fence to graze on fresh spring grass.
Not good for chubby horses. They can suffer metabolic issues on high-sugar grasses. Luckily, Harley the cat sensed the kerfuffle out back and alerted me to something amiss. Then I saw the black dog coming from the creek between the barn and house.
Harley, the watch cat, starting his rounds in the shower.
My guess is that the horses had only been on the pasture for 15 minutes. Sparrow immediately came back to me, knowing he was in the wrong place and wanted to be in his safe pen. Odin and Bragi on the other hand were not as remorseful. Odin easily came with and Bragi only came along because I was leading Odin away.
The fence is fixed, no harm done. My project today is to bolster that fence a little better because I don’t want them to get any bad ideas!
Such adventures! Who knew?!