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The Chaos of Feeding Time in a Stable

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.

You know, I don't know if you've ever had a chance to be at a stable or a barn during feeding time, but it can be pretty chaotic. One of the reasons for that is horses establishing leadership, their hierarchy, or their pecking order. One of the main concerns, or one of the main things up for grabs that horses fight over, is food. It's their survival, so it's a big deal for horses—both in the wild and domestic settings. This carries through for domestic horses, particularly those that feed on forage and are not turned out on pasture.

Now, we have this dynamic where horses are vying for food. The leaders, a lot of times, they’ll run off the lower on the pecking order horses, and they’ll, you know, the leaders will eat all they want. And I mean, they control this whole, they control the feed, right? They control the, the leaders control all the resources, but the food is probably, if it’s probably the number one resource, okay, that the leaders control. So now, like I said, this carries over to domestic horses.

Introducing Humans Into the Feeding Dynamic

Now, enter human beings into the mix, right? So now we have a stalled horse, and here comes a human with a bale of hay. Now how is this going to go down? Who is the leader in this situation? Somebody’s gotta establish leadership. And how’s that gonna happen? And who's gonna be dominant and who's not?

And what does that mean? Who's going to be respectful? So that's why at barns or stables feeding time can be pretty chaotic. Okay. It can be pretty rough. It can also be a very peaceful, respectful situation. Okay. And I've had a chance to see both. I'm going to tell you an experience that happened here at our stable here at Stable Living a while back.

Frustration at Feeding Time

So we have several people that feed our horses at our barn or in our stable during the course of the week. And I was getting, I was seeing, and I was getting frustrated reports from our team that feeds the horses. And I could see the horses were frustrated. And the people would, our guys and gals that would go in, that they would feed, and they couldn't figure out. Like the horse is not, he's not complying. I come in here, every time I come in here, I gave him the same information, the same communication, I have the same boundary and he's not complying. He's not like, I don't know what the problem is here.

And you could see that the horse was disconnected. The horse was, there was a lack of communication, obviously, but you could sense that the horse was getting frustrated. You could just tell because there was just a disconnect, a major disconnect. And our people were increasing their responses, trying to change the consequences and filling all this frustration and everything wasn't going smooth, okay, in this process.

A Communication Breakdown

Because we have a process laid out that basically where we communicate to horses, “Hey, we're the leader in this thing.” Okay. In a very respectful way, “We're asking you to move out of our area while we come into your feed area and fill up the feeder. And then when we leave, then you can come back.” Okay. But inside of that, it just wasn't working. Okay. And, and, everybody involved in this thing, like I said, including the horses, was not having a good time in this chaos.

And this frustration, frustration, and the stress continued to increase over a period of time until I, until we discovered what the problem was. Okay.

The Root of the Problem

And here's what the problem was. My team was not aligned on our system or on our response. didn't have a, we didn't present a unified front to the horses.

So here's what was happening. One person would come in and communicate one thing in one way and give the horse a certain cue. Okay. And that would have a certain boundary established of where I want the horse to go for how long until I leave to a certain point. And then if not, the consequence was different. And so everybody was not on the same page, and so therefore the horse every time somebody came in and stall the feed the rules were different.

So you can imagine the horse is completely confused like what the hell is going on in this can't you people? I don't know every time somebody comes in here to a whole new set of laws rules, Commandments, if you will, right?

So the horse is super frustrated. I, it's very unfair to the horse. There's no way this is gonna be a win-win situation. Nobody's happy, right? And the stress and the everything and it's just a chaos.

The Simple Solution

So once we were able to establish this, hey, pretty simple solution. Let's make sure we're all on the same page. And so we broke this down into, I mean, step by step pieces. I mean, we broke it down to the most finite detail that we could go through and made sure that everybody completely understood, and they could demonstrate that we could be on the same page. And I'll just describe what that looks like in a little bit.

Establishing a Clear Communication System

So we come down the barn alley, okay, with a feed cart that carries about a hundred-pound bale of hay at least in it. And we come up to the stall door and we unlatch it, but before we open it, we click two times, "click click" like that. That is our first cue or our first communication. What that means is, if you could relate that to translate that to horse language, those two clicks mean, "Excuse me, Mr. Horse, I'm hereto feed you. I'm requesting that you respectfully, I'm requesting that you respectfully take yourself out of the front part of your stall, out of where the feeder is, and stay in the outside round or the back part of your stall until I'm done feeding here." And voila, pretty soon when we had the same communication, we also had the same boundary, okay? Because everybody before had a different boundary.

Well, we established a clear boundary. We even established, what does that mean? Does the horse's neck come over the boundary or just his feet? Because that's not the same thing for a horse, right? And so exactly where's the boundary on every single stall, right? And so, what if his toe crosses over, you know, an inch? What does that mean? Did he cross the line, or does it mean we give him an inch, right? And so we came up with a clearly established boundary. And when do we let the horse back in? As soon as we turn our back to walk out, as soon as we get all the way shut, when we latch the door? We went through it in finite detail and we got aligned on the same page, okay. We also got our consequences aligned with how we communicate with the horse.

In other words, if I respectfully ask you and you ignore me, I need to increase the pressure a little bit. So then I'm going to step towards you, and I'm going to, you know, maybe, and then I'm going to raise my hand towards your hip in order, in an effort to drive you. We got aligned, okay.

The Results of Unified Communication

In very short order, and I mean within a couple of days, everybody in the— it was a totally different situation, right? Our team, what I can hear from my team and what I can see, they were getting different responses from the horses than they were getting before, and the response was a respectful compliance, a willing partnership, right? Because just about all those horses wanted to get along, they just didn't know the rules, right? They didn't want to suffer consequences. They just didn't know where the boundaries were because the boundaries were not the same. That was a different boundary all the time.

So, you know, this also happens in— this also happens in all— it's not just feeding, right? This happens with horses in everything. This happens in riding, okay? This happens in handling of all different ways with horses. If who was handling and riding a horse and feeding them, all of it, right? If I communicate to my horse a different way, okay? And if I have different asks, different boundaries, different consequences, all of it— if I'm changing the rules all the time about how I'm asking you to be as your leader, you're pretty confused, okay, as a horse.

And let me just tell you the outcome. I mean, the riders and handlers aren't getting what they want, right? Somebody else goes in there and they do it a different way, and then we ask them, and it's just— it's chaos. And just think about the horse for a minute, okay? Just think about the horse. He's not the one that gets to make the decisions. He's not going to be the leader in this thing. And so he is set to suffer the consequences of how we behave in this. So it is extremely important with horses that we present a unified front, that we are consistent and aligned with how we treat horses.

The Importance of Unified Leadership in Parenting

And so this isn't just an idea with horses. This is a proven principle. And I think you know where I'm going here, right? I think you hear me knocking and I think I'm coming in, okay. I think you know what I'm talking about here. And this is research-based. This has been proven in research.

Let me see if I can find it real quick to see. I've got it right here somewhere. Maybe hold on, coming to you. I think it was the National Library of Medicine printed, published an article that said, here's the summary. It says, "Research indicates that children benefit significantly when parents present a unified front. Parental conflict has been linked to negative outcomes in children, including increased mental health issues and behavioral problems. Conversely, when parents collaborate effectively and maintain consistent approaches to parenting, children tend to exhibit higher levels of well-being. This unity provides a stable environment, fostering a sense of security and belonging, which is crucial for healthy development."

So this idea— we've all heard this, right? We want to be aligned and unified at the top and unified as the leaders that we need to be for our kids, but we don't always quite get it done, right? And sometimes we can make excuses because of our family dynamic.

The divorce part of this thing— he's not gonna agree with this, so I'm not even gonna try, things like that. Or the step— inter-stepparents, right? My step-parent, my new wife or my new husband, or their new wife, or— even worse, right? Their new wife and their new husband is not gonna go along with this. And so a lot of times, we don't even try, but this is forreal.

The Impact of Unified Leadership

And this is a big deal, and it makes an impact, and it makes a difference, okay? Just like it did to those horses, the same thing happens in our families, okay? And here's the thing, okay? With our families, inside of our family, all the imperfection that life is, right? With all the beautiful imperfection, we're not gonna have alignment on everything. It's not gonna happen.

But here's the deal. How many times— I think you could agree with this— how many times have we not made the effort? Have you not made the effort? Have you thought, hey, there's no way I can get this? Hey, that's going to take too much time. I don't, you know, whatever. I'm just not even going to go for it. Because, I mean, it's a sacrifice to go for it.

You have to be— first of all, you have to be willing and open and try to understand the other co-parents, parent, or parents in this scenario, right? You have to have the openness and the willingness to spend the time and the willingness to understand and the willingness to communicate until you can understand and hopefully come to some sort of an agreement so that, for the benefit of these kids, we show up as unified— as much as we can be— leaders in this situation. They desperately need it, okay?

It's way more, it’s extremely important. I think it's way more important a lot of times than we realize because it's really for their mental and emotional well-being, right? So that they're not confused. So that the rules aren't always changing, right?

And so, like I said, we're not going to get it 100% of the time, but just being able to take the time— first of all, let's just begin with having the awareness, okay? When you recognize that, when you recognize, hey, we might not be in alignment on this— because we know what kids are going todo. They're going to go for what looks to be the easiest, whatever adult will give them the easy way out or the thing that they want the most.

And so, when we recognize this, if we're willing to go take the steps and do the sacrifice that it takes to be able to see if we can come to an agreement, here's the thing— 100% of the time, we're going to have a better result. 100% of the time, if we're in alignment as the parents and leaders, we're going to have a better result with our children. So that's the deal.

So that's how important it is to at least be able to recognize it, have the awareness, and then be willing to take the time to put in effort to go through it, okay?

The Chaos of Mixed Messages in Parenting

Parenting is— you know, the truth is that parenting can feel just like that chaotic barn did there for a while. When parents aren't united and kids are getting mixed messages— one says no, and one says yes, and one enforces consequences, and one doesn't, one lets it slide— what's the result? Confusion, frustration, and eventually chaos for everybody involved.

And sometimes this chaos and stress build and build and build. And sometimes these decisions last a long time. The things that we're influencing our kids on last a long time inside of their lives, you know? Who among us can't remember things that happened to us ages ago, right?

So, like I said, it's not going to be perfection. It's not about perfection because we know we're not going to get an agreement all the time. But it's just about making a commitment. It's about making a commitment to communicate, a commitment to be consistent about it, okay? Even when it feels easier to let things slide.

And a commitment to make an effort to be clear. Even when you're not entirely sure that your approach is perfect, just a commitment to be as clear as you can possibly be. Because the alternative is going to default to— without unity, the alternative is going to default to confusion, frustration, and chaos, and really, worse. That's just the beginning. It doesn't get better, right?

The Power of Stability and Predictability

So think about this today— a stable, predictable leader, okay? Horse trainer, horse rider, horse handler, horse feeding system. What it equals is more peace in the barn. It equals more peace in those horses’ minds and hearts and more peace in our hearts at the same time. So it's worth it. It's all worth the effort, okay? Just one more thing to be aware of.

Hey, if you're listening to me today, that means you care, and you're doing what you can do, and you're on your way. You're doing a good job as a parent. At least you're trying, and that's what really matters because you cannot fail as long as You Don't Ever Stop Chasin It.

Thank you for taking your time to join me here today on The Horsemanship Journey podcast. Don't forget, if you haven't yet, sign up for our free weekly parenting tips— You Are Destined For Greatness. You can find that at thehorsemanshipjourney.com. We'll see you next week.