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This might be a bit off the wall,
but I hope you can help. We have had horses here at our farm off and on
over the years. Since all of the kids moved out and took their horses a
couple of years ago, our barn has been empty. Just recently we decided
to offer stalls and pasture to boarders. When our first potential
clients stopped by to check out the place, they noticed that we have a
pot belly pig that more or less has the run of the barn. We were
surprised how much these people were put off by the little pig. The lady
told us that it's dangerous to have pigs with horses. When I replied
"Oh, really?" she explained that horses naturally hate
pigs--so they shy or panic, or refuse to go forward when they spot a
pig.
Have you ever heard of this? When we
had our own horses, we didn't have this pig. I can't remember ever
running into pigs anywhere we rode, so we really have no clue whether
this lady is right. We never even considered it. Thanks for any advice
you can give us on this. Marcee and Albert
Yes, more often than not, horses
that haven't been raised around pigs or have not had a chance to get
used to pigs might have a fairly strong reaction at first. They blow and
shy; some even panic. Most experienced horse owners interpret the
reaction as greater than the reaction a horse would normally have to an
unfamiliar species. For example, you also hear about the rare horse
which has grown up without seeing a dog, deer, or cow, and is initially
wary or fearful of those species. But they usually don't seem quite so
fearful as with pigs. Another species that seems especially scary to
horses are llamas. From time to time you hear about ordinary sensible
trail horses flipping out when they first encounter llamas.
On the other hand, horses which are
raised around pigs or llamas generally get along fairly well with them,
as well as they would with any other familiar species.
People wonder whether perhaps the unique
odors of these species play a role in horses' reactions. Here at the
University of Pennsylvania's research farm, last fall some pigs were
kept for a couple of months in a barn near pastures we use for ponies.
This spring when ponies were first in those pastures, the pigs were no
longer there, but a noticeable swine odor remained. For the first few
days in the pasture, we noticed that whenever the ponies neared the area
of the pasture adjacent to the swine pens, some would shy and snort as
if fearful, gazing toward the source of the remaining pig odor. They
tended to avoid the area for a couple of weeks. That made me think that
there might be something unique about pig odor. (Now that would make for
a good student experiment, wouldn't it?)
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