A Terror of Chickens

This past weekend the indoor arena at the barn where I ride became temporary housing for some chickens (and ducks) whose normal quarters were invaded by possums (is that right? I didn’t know that possums prey on chickens). There are several empty stalls near the entrance to the arena and one was made over to house the chickens, including two roosters. The birds seem to have adjusted well to their new surroundings, but the horses are BESIDE themselves.

Buddy is terrified of the chickens – the noises, the reddish glow from their heat lamps, the smell. He panicked on Sunday – his first exposure to them – and then again on Tuesday when I was out to ride again. On Sunday we had winds in excess of 25mph ALL day, which rattled the metal roof and walls of the building and caused large chunks of ice to slide down and crash outside. It took me about 15 minutes of hand walking my horse friend to get out some of his jitters – enough to put his bridle on and walk him over to the mounting block (near the chickens!) and leap on with a hope and a prayer that he wouldn’t bolt out from underneath me before I was settled.

He didn’t run, but I could tell he wanted to. There were 2 other riders/horses in the arena with us, which helped a tiny bit, but he was still snorting, stopping, and on high alert our whole ride. We ended up down at the far end of the arena trotting circles for 45 minutes with another rider whose horse was also not coping well with all of the weird noises. They’d also recently dragged the arena (a heavy metal chained contraption that they pull behind a 4-wheeler to redistribute the substrate/sand footing) and there was a clump of sand or a rock or something that hadn’t been there before and OH MY GOD, it was going to MURDER us. Buddy shied at it every time he saw it. Fortunately, his shying is a gentle sidestep, and since I knew what was bugging him and where it was going to happen, it wasn’t too hard to anticipate.

Tuesday was worse. We were in the arena alone. Buddy wouldn’t even LOOK at the chickens when we came in, and he immediately set off dancing and prancing. I had already bridled him before entering the building so I wouldn’t have to deal with that, too, but it still took a long time for me to feel he was settled enough to tolerate a rider. I’d been on maybe 5 minutes when someone arrived to try and deal with the sliding door – it had iced over and was getting stuck open or closed. So, the door kept being opened and closed with intermittent banging and clanging as they tried to chop up the ice, and meanwhile the chickens (roosters in particular) were going crazy. I could NOT reassure that horse that things were ok, so I got off and led him back to his stall and gave him his carrots and peppermints. He was still jumpy even in the main barn. Poor guy.

I was all incensed afterward, because there’s nowhere else we can ride to get away from the chickens – outside is all frozen over and the footing is too slippery to trail ride or even just take a couple laps around the hay field. And people were laughing because even good old reliable, unflappable Buddy was scared. I just felt bad for him, being as anxious as he was, and not ready to trust me that things were going to be ok. Not funny, really, if you’re the person trying to ride and soothe the miserable horse.

So, today. Every day is fresh, at least, with no worries. Buddy was happy to see me when I brought him in from his field – breakfast, after all, was waiting for him in his stall. I groomed him, and saddled him and made sure we could get into the indoor arena (door was iced shut again), before I tried bringing him over, and I turned on the lights in the chickens’ stall so they’d be easy to see and maybe not so frightening.

A friend of mine has been working with her horse to desensitize him to having his feet handled – important for picking out/cleaning his hooves regularly, and especially important when the farrier has to handle him to trim his feet. They focused on positive reinforcement and offered him lots of treats as they lifted each of his feet. He didn’t rear up or take his feet away or exhibit any of the negative behaviors they were trying to eliminate. I thought perhaps Buddy might respond similarly if I gave him treats while he experienced the terror of chickens. So I stuffed my pockets with treats and tied him up in front of the chickens’ stall. He danced and pooped and dug a hole, but he also stopped fretting occasionally and actually looked at them (YES!). And when he stopped and stood still, I gave him a treat. And when the roosters crowed and he seemed about to move, I gave him a treat. And after about 5 minutes of that he was more focused on me than he was on them and it was clear they weren’t bothering him so much.

We moved into the arena then and I put on his bridle – he stood still and did not try to bolt, even though the chickens were still making a ruckus. He listened to them carefully, but was not as scared. There was still lots of nervous tension in him when I got on and throughout our ride (there was still THE ROCK, after all, and he’d gotten no treats while facing THAT down), but he was so much better. And it really didn’t take too long to work on it. Our friends joined us a little while later and he relaxed some more with another horse in the arena. And at the end of our ride, he stood quietly when I got off and didn’t immediately try to leave. I tied him up at the end near the chickens and untacked him and then left him (with supervision) to get some more treats to reward him. These were also accepted calmly (or, if not completely calmly – because they are TREATS! – at least with the usual excitement/enthusiasm). So, a good day and a good ride.

I think we’ll have more work to do when I’m out again on Sunday, but I feel much better (and more optimistic) about our progress with this little obstacle. GOOD BOY, BUDDY.