The Eggs Are Nice

Poultry, goats, dogs and sheep may be a handful, but their effect on horses is invaluable.

When you drive in my yard, you will be met by three to five worthless dogs.

The dogs are followed by at least a couple of cats. There is always a blackbuck antelope right there in the mix, too. Following suit is a flock of ducks, a sizeable brood of chickens, roosters, guineas and usually a turkey. A goat named Cholula bounces around when she gets untied. Behind our fences, we have zebus, Corrientes and Brahmans, and sometimes there’s a bottle calf. Did I mention the sheep? Often, a whitetail doe wanders in for some scratches, and there are always ponies of many sizes tied out and around.

Perhaps you are wondering to yourself, “Why?” I ask myself the same thing many days. I don’t even really like chickens, truth be told (though I keep repeating to myself that “The eggs are nice. The eggs are nice,” when a hen pops out of a manger and scares the heck out of me late at night).

So, by now, you know that we ride for a living. We do not farm. But I hardly say “no” to anyone who brings me something new to feed, and there is reason behind this. See, these animals serve a serious purpose beyond the entertainment factor they provide: they are so good for our horses.

We are a place where horses come to learn things. They grow up, fill out, stretch their comfort zones, learn the simple (and sometimes the more complicated) things in life and get ready for the next step. Well, most “next steps” in the performance horse world don’t involve a turkey or a blackbuck, but they do involve a lot of odd things happening. Anyone who has attended a show, rodeo, trail ride or any other flavor of equine events can attest that there is no such thing as over-preparation. And all the footprints and animal mayhem around our place hopefully help colts and sensitive horses get more seasoned and settled to all sorts of stimulation.

Wild situations make for tamer horses. The animals we have underfoot and overhead seem to have little rhyme or reason to their actions, and they help horses learn how to be ok with a little chaos without anyone being in real danger. Having a goat nibble grain that’s spilled by a colt’s feet might just save a toddler who gets a little bit close when he wanders near that horse sometime down the road. The noises and movement behind our gate hopefully mature a young horse a little quicker and make them more comfortable with change.

Another bonus? All the little footprints around our outfit help keep snakes out of our yard. And the ducks, chickens and guineas really do a number on the bug population. Did I mention that the eggs are nice?

We have a friend who trains rope horses for the futurities, and he will bring a touchy horse over once in a while simply to tie up in our barn and get exposed to all that our little place has to offer. After enough face-to-face time with a male guinea trying to get your feed and learning how to ignore the clatter of children hand painting ponies, a skeptical horse often gains a new perspective on their job. Those banners on the side of a roping arena don’t seem so scary.

If this isn’t your jam, I don’t blame you. Little dogs bark. Antelopes fluff up a loose alfalfa bale unnecessarily. Goats are simply full of shenanigans. Bottle calves bawl, and ponies are wiley. Poultry is hard for me to tolerate in small amounts, much less the way they rule the yard around my outfit. But between the lack of snakes, the reduction in bugs and the improvements in our horses’ spook factor, I guess I will just keep saying yes every time my friend brings some over that she’s hatched in her incubator.

And yeah, the eggs are nice, too.

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