When we brought Honey and Bae home, we kept them separate from Mairsiedotes because we were not sure how well they would get along, and Mairsiedotes, being only a year old, is much smaller than the older horses.  So we alternated which horses stayed in the corral and which stayed in the pasture.  This allowed them to interact through the fence without the risk of fighting.  After a while we saw the horses would prefer to stand by each other by the fence in the hot summer sun than stand in the shade away from each other, so we put them together and watched them all move to the shade.

Thepecking order was established, of course, with Honey as top mare, Mairsiedotes as second, and Bae on the bottom.  Things were all right though, until we stopped letting them into the pasture due to rain and mud.  We kept the horses in the corral because the corral has a base of hog fuel and fir shavings to keep their feet out of the mud. And we want to keep them out of the small pasture to keep the small pasture from becoming a mud pit.  Unfortunately, the small corral was not big enough for the three of them to abide peaceably together and Mairsiedotes was getting the brunt of Honey’s nips and kicks.

Knowing this problem cannot continue, Cheryl and I finished Mairsiedotes stall today so she could rest without fear tonight.

Cheryl said Mairsiedotes laid down (in her stall) for the first time since the pasture became off limits.  Then when she was done resting, she stood up and went near the other horses who were both standing near her stall wall.  They wanted to be near each other, and could interact over the short wall, but Mairsiedotes could feel safe from Honey’s picking on her.