We have a feeding strategy for our horses. The “ladies” (senior Fortune and her 5yo daughter Firefly), are fed in the shed and they get soaked pellets and sweet feed. The gelding is fed a little outside, and Holly our rescue is fed around the corner. On these cold days when the ladies are enjoying their warm water soaked pellets, everyone pretty much stays put. But, if they feel as if they don’t get enough grain or just want to see what the other horses have, then we start to have musical buckets.
Because I’m not currently feeding supplements and everyone gets mostly the same food, then it really doesn’t matter if they eat each others’ food. All horses are well fed, regardless of where they eat.
The way to avoid musical buckets is to isolate each horse in a pen and feed it there. However, that’s just not practical for us, or for a great many people, and so we do the best we can by spacing out buckets and giving each horse an assigned place to eat.
Either way, it’s nice to look out the window and see the horses eating. Happy horses. That’s the goal.
