Advice please

F

fidgeuk

Well-Known Member
Joined
10 September 2010
Messages
203
Visit site
Tonight, my horse properly bared his teeth and lunged at me from behind his stable door - luckily i dodged out of the way before said teeth could connect.

But this behaviour has me worried. He's always been protective of his food and can stamp a foot or snake his head but over the last 8/10 weeks its definately got worse.

When he has his dinner he is now lashing out with his hind legs, occassionally hitting the stable wall. Threatens his neighbours with barred teeth - The horses are stabled in an american barn type stabling,with bars between all the boxes, so they can all see each other. it seems to drive my horse mad & he goes for the other horses even when he has his haynet.

He has also recently started to cow-kick when i do his girth up - although seems fine when ridden. I do get the odd bucking fit but they are few and far between and seem to be when he's excited & full of beans.

Could what i've described be Gastric Ulcers? Can his grumpiness & nastiness be down to Ulcers?

Any information or advice would be great

thanks so much :)
 
It could be ulcers but it sounds like he is not happy in the stables, they do not all like the barn systems as there is no privacy and some feel threatened.
The first thing I would try is putting something across the bars on both sides so he can eat without being looked at, just a rug hung on some string would help give him an area of privacy. See if that helps, is there any chance of a quieter box, maybe at the end of the line so he only has one direct neighbour, although there will still be others in front.
 
Has he had any new neighbours in last few week which could have changed his behaviour?

Might be worth putting boards half way up the bars so he can't see his neighbours? The reason I say that, there's a mare on our yard who continually kicked the partition even though horse next door didn't do anything. Boarding up the bars between the two has really helped. She now only kicks out if neighbour dares to put head over door and look at her :D :eek:
 
Putting something over the bars is a good idea - i'll have to find some old rugs & tie them down - he's a bit of a rug muncher as well. We moved to our current yard a year ago this month, prior to that he was in the end stable of a row of normal wooden ones, so enclosed.

I have tried feeding him round the back of the stables and he does seem better, less kicking & he's more tolerant of me being there. Doesn't explain the cow-kicking he does when i do his girth up though! Or do you think that could be a spillover from this.

Maybe i should consider moving yards, for me, its great but obviously not so for poor Jack - i feel like a rotten mummy now :(

Thanks for your advice, will defo try your idea out
 
I obviously do not know all the details so excuse the simplicity but could he be grumpy cos he's a little bit hungry ? ;)

Not the usual weather so horses that would have been chucked out by now to munch grass day and night are being kept in.

Rugs up at the sides, less hard feed and more hay to munch at leisure so his belly feels fuller.
 
If he is so stressed with the new stabling arrangements he may well be starting to develop ulcers. The only way to tell is to have a word with your vet and get him scoped. The suggestion of boarding off his stable seems to be the answer if you don't want to move away from your current yard.
 
None of our horses our out at the moment due to the weather, not moving into the summer paddocks yet and there not being a huge amount of grass in the paddock coz its been grazed all through the winter - although i do feel he'd be fine out 24/7. The winter before last he had to stay out because the gangway to his field was so poached that when it froze it was too dangerous to risk leading the horses over it - hence i moved yards - the mud was unbelieveable.

Anyway i digress. I usually feed adlib hay, however, he developed a cough following the dry weather we had (can anyone remember that??) and so he's been on haylage, the cough has gone and there's always haylage left over in the morning. He's fed Topsec Balancer for fatties coz he is a very good doer and a handful of chaff - definately not overfed hard feed :) Maybe its the haylage? Hmmmm,maybe i should soak his hay, cover up the sides of his stable and see how we gofrom there? To just get rid of the dust how long should a net of hay be soaked/watered?
 
Is he grumpy when you groom him?

If he's a rug shredder you could buy couple of sheets of 3.2mm standard or perforated hardboard and use that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top