Since I’ve moved the horses to the back pasture I’ve noticed that I have the laziest horses on Earth. I keep looking out there and most of the time they are asleep. They didn’t sleep that much in the front pasture. Maybe because there is more grass in the new pasture so they don’t have to work so hard to get full and can spend the time sleeping. My horses are serious about their afternoon naps. In the summer they go out at night and come inside during the day to avoid the flies. They spend all afternoon sleeping hard. I always figured it was because they were up all night. But apparently they just believe in the power of the siesta.
The other thing I noticed is that they are not obeying the first law of prey animals – when most of the herd is sleeping, always have someone awake to act as a lookout. I know that’s the rule and I’m not even a prey animal. But today, Spirit, Prize, and Nugget the neighbor horse were all sleeping so soundly that they totally ignored the lawn mower. Not one of them was watching for hungry mountain lions. Not that mountain lions are likely to show up in the pasture but we know there is at least one unidentified large carnivore hanging around. Come to think of it they weren’t too upset about it sleeping in the barn with them so I guess they just aren’t too worried about becoming someone’s lunch.
