• curbstickle
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    1 month ago

    Its perfectly healthy.

    Aside from a deeper sleep, horses will lay down for a lot of reasons. The important part to note is horses are prey animals, so they have evolved to do a lot while upright. Laying down is actually a big sign of feeling safe, and something they may do in fields with other horses they get along with, in a stall if the bedding feels good to them and there is enough room, etc.

    The problems are when they are unwilling or unable to get up, that can be a sign of anything from an injury to sickness or a neurological issue.

    My wife is the knowledgeable one, this is just s bit of what ive picked up.l

    Edit: wife says if the description is accurate, just a silly horse being silly, and since Sugar looks well cared for… yeah just a silly horse doing silly horse things.

    • @marcos@lemmy.world
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      181 month ago

      Just to point out, but we have a word for “silly horse doing silly things”, it’s “horse”.

        • @MeThisGuy@feddit.nl
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          61 month ago

          and from what I hear will keel over and die any chance they get. I’m no expert though. but not being able to throw unwanted ingested items seems like a pretty big design flaw

          • curbstickle
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            71 month ago

            They are… oddly sensitive in some ways, and incredibly resilient in others.

              • curbstickle
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                31 month ago

                Can confirm.

                Expensive every month, expensive to treat, expensive to shoe, expensive to house/feed/etc.

                We are actually looking at property to do some farming, and a chunk of it will be for retired horses.

                  • curbstickle
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                    21 month ago

                    Well my wife is the one who knows her way around a farm, she’ll be running it, and I’ll be doing random manual labor as required.

                    Its been ridiculous finding the right property though… What used to be $300-400k only 3 years ago is now selling for over a million. Its nuts. So most likely going empty land and building cheap to start…

          • matlag
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            11 month ago

            In a wild area untouched by humans, there is not much “unwanted” you could get from grazing.

            • @marcos@lemmy.world
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              11 month ago

              There is lots and lots of “unwanted” food that will kill a horse in most natural habitats through the world.

                • @marcos@lemmy.world
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                  11 month ago

                  I really don’t know where you are going with this. They don’t go out eating plastics and whatever either. They get sick because they’ve eaten something contaminated (what happens way more often on the wild) or because they failed to distinguish the food (what also happens way more often on the wild).