Leaderless

A light, freezing rain has been falling all day.

Although I opened all the pasture gates so the horses could choose to go take shelter down in the cedar thicket or come around to the barn and go inside the run-in bay, instead they are standing outside: cold, wet, and miserable.

Without their boss-mare Char here to lead them to shelter, the rest of the horses apparently can't get organized enough to figure out what to do. Maggie, the oldest, knows that something should be done, but waits for someone else to decide what that something is.

Callisto tries to lead the babies to the cedar thicket, but they all get distracted halfway there, and stand around dripping in the pasture instead.

Finally, about 2 minutes before we went out to give them an early feeding, Maggie figured out that she could lead Callista around to the paddock where the run-in bay is. Unfortunately, from that paddock, she could SEE that we were putting hay in the hay feeder, but she didn't remember how to go back around the other way to actually GET to the feeder.

The babies all came galloping when I whistled, but Maggie and Callista had to be led around the back way until they remembered how to go around to where the feeder was.

Once the hay feeder is empty, we'll see if any of them remember how to come back around to shelter again!