 |
Re: [RC] Moose now elk - heidiI have a neighbor whose horse was attacked and pretty badly gored by an elk a few years back (when she was boarding her horses in a large pasture). I guess it was ruting season and he was being territorial, but I was surprised to hear they would do that! Some dry summer morning my horses will have a small herd of elk standing on the other side of their dry lot watching them eat. Makes me nervous, but so far no problems. I do think the elk jump the fence to drink out of the tank in the pasture during dry summers when water is scarce. Has anyone else had an experience with elk attacking horses? I hope this is a relatively rare occurance, I rather enjoy them! I have about 140 elk that frequent my upper fenceline in winter, and will come down into the barnyard at night and eat any hay not covered up. Yes, occasionally a raunchy angry old bull will get nasty with a horse, but it IS fortunately fairly rare. My sister did lose a real nice young bull calf a few years ago who was hornwhipped by a bull elk--happened during the rut, and I imagine the calf got curious and the bull attacked him for getting into his space. Calf had several ribs shattered and was rolled down the mountain. I free-feed my mares in the winter on big bales, and I was pretty concerned about the elk moving in and running them off their feed--I underestimated old-timey Arabian broodmares! They actually put "guard mares" along the fenceline that go stiff-legging around in front of the hungry elk like dogs parading in front of strange dogs--and if the elk get any closer than some imagined perimeter around the hay, the signal goes out, all the heads go up and the tails go up and it looks like a cavalry charge. And the elk go runnin'! Spike bulls are notoriously idiotic--kinda like Junior High boys who haven't figured out how to live with hormones yet--and last winter when the mares ran the elk off, one spike bull ran the wrong way and killed himself getting hung up in my driveway fence. He tried to jump the fence and came down with his cloven hind foot on the top smooth wire, which flipped him over and broke his skull, and interwove his hind leg into the top two wires. I had to drag him out of there and fix the fence--ugh. I've known of situations here locally where an old bull will move in on winter feed like that and run the horses off, though--and occasionally a horse WILL get gored. Heidi ============================================================ Locks do not prevent theft, they only deter those in doubt. ~ Robert Morris ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
|