Baby Quirk or Something Worse?

Good lord, you can’t possibly think I was being serious did you?

You’re not that important. Relax.

Speaking of semantics, (and I may have missed this) but did the OP ever actually say that the arena used for turnout was an indoor?

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I’ve been watching my stallion and gelding with some interest lately, as they have a roughly 100x100 sacrifice area with a gate to multiple acres of mixed pasture and overgrown orchard. Which is open as the default setting.
They haven’t left the sacrifice paddock in days, if not weeks, and a significant portion of that is free of prints.

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That’s helpful, thank you!

Good point!

If saying someone is behaving like a dick is sexist, what is the proper female equivalent?

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Labia?

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:joy:

You say this but then get upset when people bring up winter ice causing no option for outdoor turnout outside so the horses are given ring time to stretch their legs.

To me turn out is free leg stretching time. It can happen in an indoor. It can happen in an outdoor (riding area). It can happen in a paddock. It can happen in a pasture.

My horses have been like @Ghazzu describes above - the vast majority of the sacrifice area has no hoof prints at all (we have plenty of snow, they would be obvious).
Are we now going to say that turn out only includes areas that are special enough that the horse actually does move around in them?

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Pastures must be x acres, have non-freezing footing, and heaters so that horses won’t stand around doing what horses do in winter - conserve heat and energy to maintain body condition.

My horse would actually like this. She is out of luck because Canada. Blame Canada. She went out in a small t/o this weekend for the first time in several weeks (injury) and came in ANGRY, practically dragging me back to her stall. “Unacceptable!” (it was fine last summer when she had to be out there for a nasty hoof abscess) “COLD!” (she was born and raised in a slightly more cold area and is blanketed to the nines) and “I don’t want THESE friends, I can see my REAL friends over there!”

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??? I didn’t get upset by it at all. I recognize that everyone has to make compromises and you have to adjust to what your horse needs.

I moved my horse somewhere with less ice so he could safely go outside in the winter, because he didn’t do well on just 30 minutes of arena time. Lots of other horses at that barn did just fine with it and they are still there.

The issue was the OPs horse is not doing well with arena time only. I am not the poster who extrapolated that to all horse owners must move their horses somewhere where they can be in a pasture all day.

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Acting like a pussy.

Some will say that it’s meant to mean pussy cat, as in pussy footing. But left with no additional context, it has morphed to mean something else. And it’s offensive, particularly when you have the option of saying non-sexual related things like “you’re acting like a jerk.” or “you’re acting like a wimp.”

But I guess when one has spent a lot of time calling everyone and their brother racist or privileged in some shape or form, it’s hard to swallow the same medicine. :wink:

Nope pussy doesn’t work for me, it’s a word we use often in the UK, and means exactly to pussy foot around, “stop being a pussy and get on with it”

To be a dick, or If being posh, a Richard, means more being annoying or obtuse.

I find it interesting that people find it sexist, I had never thought it so, but then I don’t go around looking for sexism in every throw away comment, more interesting to be examining why someone might refer to be as a dick, rather than complaining it’s sexist.

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(Trust me, this is all facetious. It’s just fun to throw stuff back at people when they’ve spent the last several years aiming the shade your way…)

I thought of this thread when I just looked outside. We got lots of new snow last night so I looked to see what the horses had been up to out there. There is one path from their paddocks to the water trough and from the water trough to the hay. A couple of small trails to manure piles around the hay. The horses are for sure not using the whole area. Darn them. Don’t they know they should be using every inch of their turn out space?

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But even that is interesting, as you are quoting me, I presume you are talking to me, there is nothing that says we have gone from a direct conversation to addressing the group a large.

So, I do not remember ever aiming the shade your way, likewise do not remember ever doing this…

Maybe I have, but I don’t remember doing so, so maybe I’m being a pussy in feeling you targeted me, but doesn’t stop me believing you are being a dick about it.

DISCLAIMER: no I don’t actually feel attacked, I read it, thought “is that aimed at me” decided it wasn’t and moved on. I find it usually helps to do that, or the whole thread gets sidetracked :rofl:

But I can break my own rules

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I thought everyone knew this. If you start watching in late fall, you will see their chosen area shrink and then expand again come spring. I think of it as the horse version of hibernation. All excited to get out of the barn … and then once deposited in the field, “Nope. We must conserve our caloric output. Need fat stores. Do not move farther than absolutely necessary.”

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I only said that when her ears were already closed. Initially I expressed genuine concern and shared my thoughts and experiences with the behavior she was asking about.

I do think a lot of us get in this habit of anthropomorphizing our animals to explain atypical behavior and that’s what I saw was going on with the OP so that’s why I pointed it out.

I usually don’t engage with the poster but this one was just such an unwarranted ridiculous attempt to derail my point. I’ve been in hot water over plenty of controversial issues on here but “turnout is good” is definitely the dumbest one I’ve caught flack for. I do admittedly make a habit of engaging in uncomfortable conversations on welfare issues, and social issues on this forum and others and that makes me wildly unpopular with half of the community. I make no plans to stop doing that even if I went to another forum or changed my username so IMO there would be no point in leaving because there’s always going to be people on the internet that can’t play nice. Some are just a reminder to be careful. It’s one thing to participate but I just don’t think sharing photos of where my horse lives would be wise given all that I’ve seen/ been though on coth.

I think this is totally dependent on the individual horse and situation. Mine is turned out 24/7 but I have friends who only have theirs turned out for a few hours 3 times a week. That wouldn’t work well for my mare but her horses seem happy so I’m not going to judge. Obviously not everyone is going to have a large grassy field with pasture buddies, that they can be out for as much as possible but I think we should try to mimic that as close as we can.

I’m shocked, shocked I say!

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:sob: :sob: :sob: I’m the victim! :sob: :sob: :sob:

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Side note, my rescue pup came from Kansas and apparently he was a stray out there. A few years ago he had to have xrays done at the emergency vet for some GI issues. The vet came in after looking at the xrays and asked me if I knew he’d been shot with a pellet gun before? Sure enough there’s a lead pellet still inside of him… :flushed:

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