The Art of Natural Dressage

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 Post subject: Re: Homemade Horse Toys
PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:27 am 
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Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 8:18 pm
Posts: 4941
Location: Alberta
I don't know...I think a nice, large teddy bear might be VERY entertaining!! :funny: :funny: :funny:

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 Post subject: Re: Homemade Horse Toys
PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 7:48 am 
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Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:05 pm
Posts: 2888
Location: Natal, South Africa
I made carrot popsicles and apple popsicles - it was great! They thought it was weird but they enjoyed them.

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 Post subject: Re: Homemade Horse Toys
PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:21 am 

Joined: Tue May 19, 2009 8:29 pm
Posts: 233
Location: Kuusamo, Finland
well, after a few weeks the tire and apple bobbing are a huge success :applause: the tire is usualy thrown out of the paddock each morning empty so i guess they have been tossing it around during the night. i did a bit of despooking with the apple bobbing and put a big tarp on the ground, held down with big rocks along the edges and put the water barrel in the middle. within 10 seonds both of them were standing on the tarp - the same one they wouldn't even walk close by a few days before! i also put a few plastic bags on fence poles around their favourite spots they like to hang out, and what do you know, suddenly plastic bags rustling and flapping in the wind aren't so scary anymore. :funny:

Next i want to put something that they have to walk through (like a sort of string curtain) to get them over the "strange things touching their face" fear...

Heather


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 Post subject: Re: Homemade Horse Toys
PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:12 pm 
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Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:32 am
Posts: 3270
Location: New York
This is all totally cool!

I'm finishing a gallon of orange juice so I can bring it over and put treats in it for Circe. Watching that fab video of the Icelandic, I'm needing to think about the surface in her paddock -- I'm realizing that my instinctive reluctance about this has been about letting food drop directly on the ground here -- it's so sandy and we have ongoing issues with sand colic...

She's also been playing with a mineral supplement bucket I just left in her stall....

And she's been bobbing for apples. (I talked to our ranch manager and mentioned that I was doing this and she laughed uproariously and said she'd seen Circe going after one in her water -- didn't know if she'd dropped it in there or I'd put it in there to torture her... :funny: I said no, no, to AMUSE her!!! There's a difference!! )
:funny:

Thanks so much for the pointers to the reflective "mirror" material Susie -- I've seen this used in theaters but didn't know it would hold up outside. When I get a moment I'm going to figure out how I can create one for her (need to build and affix a backing for it somewhere in her paddock...I can see her now with her own stand-up mirror in the corner...next, a bureau...) :yes:

I think a big teddy bear might be totally entertaining, Karen! :funny: My dogs have three "Frankenbears" that they carry around -- dubbed such because while Orion (the boy) gently and lovingly carries them and licks them, Willow (the girl) is our resident canine chipper shreader, so I'm constantly stuffing stuffing back in them and sewing up war wounds... Circe might adore her own stuffed animal...

We play with tarps in the arena, but after a while she just shreds them -- first you sniff, then you stomp, then you lift, then you flick, then you twirl, then you wear like a toga, and then you begin to systematically rip it to bits because it makes SUCH a cool noise! :twisted: ) so I've not wanted to put one in her paddock. (I'm not totally convinced she wouldn't eat the fragments.)

But I love the idea, Heather, of the hanging walk through things...I see the student apartments of my youth with the 60's echoes and their hanging beads... :razz:
:)

Leigh

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 Post subject: Re: Homemade Horse Toys
PostPosted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:28 pm 

Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:58 pm
Posts: 1622
Location: Western Cape, South Africa
That reminds me....a seriously sturdy branch can be wedged in the corner of a paddock that they can walk under and scratch on. The trees and bushes are the first place our horses head for to get a belly or bum rub. If you can find one that has branches at belly height they love to rock back and forth with their bellies over the twigs.....mini massage!!!! :funny:
Just make sure it is something they can eat..........

For Heather: an old bicycle to exlplore (while you are there) and progressing to noisy kids cycling past the fence line..............and finally at liberty in circles around them!!!!!

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Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon


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 Post subject: Re: Homemade Horse Toys
PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 4:37 am 

Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 5:49 am
Posts: 1
I get supplement bottles and stab a hole in the bottom. Them I use hay string and hand them up. High Spirits (the horse I ride) loves it. It is free and he loves it so much! :applause:


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