Survivor – Horse Edition

The weather has continued to be beautiful, high 60’s and low 70’s with bright sunshine. Lovely weather for running a farm. Some rain is supposed to be moving in over the next couple of days. For all the complaining I’ve done about precipitation the last couple of months I actually want it to rain right now. The grass is starting to green up and some warm rain will really help that process along.

As I go about my day on the farm I always have random things wandering through my head. Today I was thinking about a conversation, that Gwen the farrier, Amy and I had a couple of weeks ago. We were having a fun conversation about which of the horses here would survive in the wild if we dropped them off in the desert out west.

Some of the horses I am quite confident would never have a chance. They would take a moment to assess their surroundings, realize there was no human coming with their feed, no blanket would be put on in inclement weather, and generally none of their needs would be attended to for them, and they would just choose to lay down right there and hope the predator came sooner rather than later to end their predicament. My horse Lexi comes to mind. She would freak out, lose any and all ability to make a rational decision or follow her instincts, and start screaming for the wild cat to come get her and end this madness right now. She wouldn’t even follow along with the herd, she would be too busy having a meltdown to realize they had left. “What, I have to travel 20 miles to get to the water?? Oh. My. God. I want to die RIGHT NOW” would be her thought process. I think B-Rad, Baby, Buffy, Leo, Traveller, Cuffie and Trigger would be right there with her!

On the other hand I could see my horse Bonnie completely taking charge of the situation. She would be like a drill sargent organizing the other horses and leading them to a certain location (she would literally have specific longitude and latitude coordinates in her head) where she just knew the water would be, and then another precise track to follow for grazing. Clay, Chili, Sebastian, Ogie, Harmony, Lily and Homer are others that I have no doubt would make a plan and then execute the plan and enjoy the freedom of the wide open spaces.

The rest of the horses would neither be the leaders but nor would they refuse to even try without a human to attend to all of their needs. They would simply be good herd members, not making any decisions and going with the flow.

How would your horse handle it?

Leo and Homer hanging out and enjoying the sunshine. I put Leo in the no chance category, but maybe he would snap out of his meltdown long enough to just follow Homer.

Elfin hanging out; Elfin would be a good herd member and think it was all a big party

Apollo and Ivan; Apollo would be very confused by the whole situation but would just follow Ivan and it would all work out in the end.

Jason and Ivan hanging out

Chance, another good herd member

Teddy and Clay; Clay would take charge of the situation and keep everyone moving in the right direction and Teddy would happily follow along

Lightening, Lucky and Snappy, more good herd members

Buffy, Harmony and MyLight; I put Buffy in the no chance category, she wants to be pampered and does not want to have to work at survival. Harmony would be a herd leader and I think MyLight might also just get down to business.

A typical scene

B-Rad and Alex sharing a drink at the water trough. I put B-Rad in the no chance category, I think he would have a meltdown when he realized no one was coming with food, a bucket of water and his blanket. Alex would be a good herd member.

#herddynamics #randomthoughts