You Can Lead a Horse to Water... |
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In the horse business you can learn from anyone and everyone. One of our "new horse" boarders was working her Arab on a rather hot autumn day when she decided to take a break. She wanted to water her sweaty horse, but he was a picky sort and didn't want to drink from the bucket which he was offered. Undaunted, the boarder quartered an apple, tossed it in the bucket, and the horse immediately went to the bucket, picked out the apple slices, and drank the water.
We cut three apples in half, showed them to the animals and tossed them in the barrel. It wasn't 30 seconds before they were all nosing up to the barrel checking things out. Shortly afterwards they were bobbing for the apple slices. It became more of a game for them than anything else, chasing the apples around on the water and trying to pick them out.
Not only did this experiment provide great entertainment, it solved the watering problem! | |
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We had recently installed a new water barrel with an automatic float
in one of the pastures and not only did the animals refuse to drink from it,
they wouldn't go anywhere near it. Even if we herded them over to it, all
they were interested in was making a getaway. We figured this would be
a great test for the apple theory.
Soon the barrel was no longer a "horse eating dragon" and before too long, the animals decided to
sample the water which it contained.