Sorry to break in with this on a very much Sherlock-only kind of blog- I promise not to make a regular thing of this, but this is something that’s happened TWICE now.
This is Beyli. He’s a two-month old foal and he’s adorable. He belongs to a friend of the family.
So adorable, in fact, that a member of the public spent a nice afternoon feeding him. You feed the ducks and that’s ok. right? It’s a nice thing to do.
They fed him turnip. He choked and gave himself a stomachache as a result.
The problem is that horses can’t really burp and horses can’t vomit. Their digestive systems are fine-tuned and when they go wrong, they go really wrong. Colic in horses is difficult to treat and in Beyli’s case, like many others, proved to be insurmountable. With pain medicine not working, after 4 hours of doing their best with no improvement, the vet called time on his suffering rather than let him go on to a very slow and painful end.
A horse needlessly suffered and died because someone fed him the wrong thing. They weren’t necessarily malicious, they were just hugely ignorant. And worse, they were hugely entitled. There were already signs asking people not to feed the animals. As I said, this has now happened TWICE to the same family, and they’re by no means alone.
PLEASEDon’t feed horses that don’t belong to you.
Horses can have disorders, diabetes, allergies and dietry requirements and you have NO IDEA if what you’re giving them is acceptable or not. Even ‘safe’ things like carrot and apple could be ‘wrong’ for this particular horse. Grass clippings? Not okay. Grain? Not okay for a horse that hasn’t been regularly eating it.
Don’t assume. i have seen walkers pull up random plants and offer them over the fence INCLUDING TOXIC, DEADLY weeds like ragwort. I’ve seen horses offered dog-biscuits and bread. I’ve heard of horses being regularly fed by strangers thinking they were being under-fed, when the horse in question was on a vet-given diet to control weight and other conditions.
Don’t feed horses that don’t belong to you even little treats and things like sugar cubes because it gives them bad manners. They start biting and harassing people. It’s bad for their teeth and too much sugar is terrible for them.
In some places if the owner has liability insurance, if you can be identified, YOU will be legally responsible for the vet’s bills. And if you’re thinking ‘well, they’d never identify me’, then that’s besides the point.
Please. You wouldn’t feed someone’s dog without asking, I hope. You definitely wouldn’t feed someone else’s child.
TL;DR: Don’t feed other people’s horses. You can make them SERIOUSLY ill. Treat animals in fields like animals at the zoo: you’re welcome to look, but don’t meddle with their care.
