Are horses upset on yards....or is it the owners?

R2R

R2R

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Just wondering - so many people stress about horses settling into new yards, not liking current yards etc - how much of this (honestly) do you think is in the head of the owner?

I know some horses dont settle, but I have to say I have never had a problem with any of mine through my whole life. They also go on trips and holidays to friends yards without any issue!

So as above really!
 
Yes, I think a horse moving from one location to another would inevitably feel unsettled and a little upset initially. Some horses may not demonstrate this outwardly as much as some other more highly-strung individuals might. But a move for anyone, be it a human or equine, is a stressful thing to go through.
 
I think it depends on the horse greatly... Like us, some people will feel upset and awkward at a new place, surroundings etc and horses can be the same. Some horses are super sensitive to 'changes' and thus these are the ones which will get upset, but some horses don't bother. But like one poster said, some horses feel worried but go into themselves more and don't shout about their worries.

I think if horses move to a yard wheres there lots of other horses, they will settle well as of course they feel secure with the other horses.

I agree with you though that horses will pick up stress if the owner is stressed whilst the move is in progress... again this will depend I suppose on how sensitive the horse it's owner and picking up stress around them.
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I think it is more unsetteling for the horse to move home and have a new owner. On the show circuit horses move around the world all the time and tend to be ok as long as their groom is there with them. I think as long as they recognise a constant such as an owner or groom then they seem to cope quite well. If they are eating well and not picking up any unusual habits then that is always a good sign.
 
Depends on the horse. A particularly stressy TB I used to own would never have been able to cope with going away on a holiday. Even shows could trigger him off, although he was an ex-racer & must have moved around then.

He was also much better when I took him away from a busy livery yard to live at home with just one other. For him, less was best.
 
I know when i have put my horse on yards where they have stables overlooking lots of activity she stresses massively, but will happily settle anywhere with a small Amercian barn arrangement - the number of horses or other facilities are irrelevant
 
Agree with Legaldancer, some horses definatly prefer smaller yards and some prefer yards with plently to look at. It does depend on the horse but i think some owners do try to put human characteristics on horses and so maybe miss read the real signs of how the horse is feeling?
 
We moved yard a few months ago, when we got Twizy, Tiwzy settled in lovely but mums horse didnt for about 1month, although millie went to her new home the day before we moved so i think that could of had something to do with it, grada(mums horse) wasnt naughty just looked very sad
x
 
My old girl was kept on her own at home for many years. She moved happily to a yard of 3 with me. We then moved to another year that started out with just 6 & she was quite happy there. But as she got older & the yard expanded to over 15 she became less happy & went right downhill. So I moved her up the road to a small quiet yard with no kids/dogs running about & she improved heaps & was very happy for the last 3 years of her life. She never had a problem settling as long as I was there. When we first got her a 4 year old she took 18 months to settle.
The other horse came to us from her breeder at 4. She had never been of her own farm in her life. She settled within hours & was eating drinking & laid down the first night. She was always happy & never unsettled. So it does depend on the horse I think.
 
Horses, like people, are individuals. Some like busy yards, others like quiet ones. Some like individual turnout, others like herds. Some like mixed groups, other prefer single sex.

However, I also think that if a person doesn't enjoy being at a particular yard, the horse can pick up on it too.

One yard I was at, my horse hated being there - they grazed all the horses together in a herd (26 mixed) and he really wasn't happy. The yard was too busy, he got stressed and worked up and constantly paced his stable. Since then I have kept him at small yards (maximum 12 horses) where they turn out in small groups. He has never been as stressed, and is happier being in a small herd where he can boss everyone about (all talk, no action - if a real alpha horse came along he would be bottom of the order!)
 
Mine are stressed out by new horses being introduced to the herd as my mare is a tart and the gelding is over protective.

The mare also box walks when it's turning out time and things go out before her.

In general they are not stressy types although I suspect the mare might be if on a very large, busy yard as she was a rescue case and is wary of strangers.

On the whole my two are pretty adaptable though.
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I agree with others who say some horses prefer busy or quiet yards or small or large group turnout (Personally I don't think having mixed sex is an issue unless a horse is a rig).

I don't think any horse apart from the odd badly socialised one would be happiest living alone or not being able to have physical interaction with other horses when turned out.
 
I think it also depends on how well the horse has bonded with the herd they are with. We moved our horses together and they were turned out together in their stable 'herd' (of four) we then moved them again to our own place, they noticed the difference when they moved and seemed more settled when they got here, but that may well have been because we could spend more time with them.
 
My horse took 3 months to settle down, and that was only because he had finally bonded with the horses that he goes out with. If he hadn't have bonded I think we'd be looking at a lot longer at trying to settle him.

Routines help when settling new horses in, however I do agree that sometimes owners can be a bit "funny" when settling in their new horses - let a horse be a horse and adapt themself to the environment rather than having an owner meddle around with them! I knew someone who bought a very "frisky" 4 year old, and on arrival of the horse didn't turn it out or put it in a stable to smell, adjust and get used to his new environment, she groomed him, and wondered why he was jumping around and being fidgety! give a horse the chance to do what is natural to them first!!
 
I think some owners are paranoid but some horses struggle to settle as well. People and horses are all different. My old boy would go anywhere and settle straight away, so I never really thought Arch would be any different. He's been at the same yard since I bought him and although he seemed to be happy with me straight away it took him a good 6 months to settle into the herd (9 horses). He was always on the edge of the group looking in and I thought that was just him, but after about 6 months he found a friend and started to integrate more. Over the next year he got more and more involved. He'd been passed from pillar to post a lot before I had him and I think he was afraid to bond with anyone in case he had to leave them again.

He gets quite clingy and nappy if I take him anywhere in the trailer, but if I hack him somewhere, he's fine. It's like he knows he's going home again if he hacks there!
 
I thought my WB would freak about moving yards or staying over night at in show accommodation (I was proven wrong when I went into his stable mid afternoon and he was decked out!!!!)

Luckily im on a busy’ish yard so he gets to see horses coming in and out all day but he is at the end of a stable block so takes himself off for a kip as and when he needs it!
 
One pony I had completely changed for the better when another livery left the yard. She popped back in to say hello one evening and he was absolutely horrified to see her. I draw my own conclusion that he didn't like her very much...
 
I think it depends on the individual horse and the set up of the yard. For the first time, last winter I put my horse onto a livery yard and he hated it.

It was a small yard with only six horses (all geldings) but there was one riggy horse who never let the others settle and constantly kept moving and harassing them. As my horse is quite dominant, he was seen as the main threat and got the brunt of it. Within 10 days of arriving he had a bad bout of Azoturia (his one and only ever), which the vets coud only put down to stress.

They were turned out into a small hardstanding yard over winter and Minstral hated it- he had repeated bouts of mild colic and all photos I took of him there show him looking listless and miserable- not my horse at all. The photos in my sig were taken the day I moved him- I had a lump in my throat taking them just to see the difference in him.

I moved him back home as soon as I could and he has been a different horse since. He loves being out as much as possible and I think the hardstanding setup just didn't agree with him plus he was unable to get away from the bullying horse. The yard owners didn't care as the set up had always worked for their own horses and there was an attitude of- "well, if he would only settle like the others, he would be fine".

It put me off livery for life- I will never let anybody else make decisions over my horses' management ever again.

Sorry- turned out longer than I intended but back to the OPs uestion- Yes I do believe horses can be upset on yards, and this can affect owners and probably vice versa too.

ETA: He was there 6months so he had plenty of time to settle into the herd but never did. He has also always been able to travel to shows, rides, different yards for various things and never stresses about those. it was just this one yard.
 
Someone on my yard had a horse that was very aggressive, used to bite you if you were mucking out and sometimes just when you walked past his stable. The owners said he was fine before he came to this yard, so they moved him and months on he's not aggressive at all, is very affectionate actually. They came back for the day for a competition and he stood in the back of the stable with his head in the corner and bum to the door the whole day, was fine when he went back home!

They think it had a lot to do with our yard being quite busy and he couldn't be turned out as he fought with the other horses - at his new yard he's out every day with no fighting and it's a lovely quiet yard with only about 6 other horses, and only 3 owners as each have 2 horses.
 
I was on a yard where, looking back my horse was very unhappy. He kept jumping out of the fields, even more than usual and turned into a nightmare to ride, nappy and spooky on hacks. I moved him back home to a new yard and he didn't jump out once. He hacked out like a dream and was an absolute star. Thats the yard he was PTS on, and I believe no matter how daft it sounds, he wanted to come home because he knew
 
Agree with everyone saying that it depends on the owner. Our shetland settled into the second yard we moved to almost instantly as the environment really suited him.

I moved my other boy, Tyler an IDX onto the same yard and the exact same thing happened He became much happier and easy going.

It is just finding the right place for you and your horse.
 
Depends on the horse - I had my pony at a yard for a year and he was very unhappy - I thought it was naughtyness but just his way of saying it was not the place for him. I was very stressed because of his behavior.

Moved out of desperation and from day one on the new yard he was a different pony - people can't believe he was ever a problem. The first yard was a busy riding school - and the yard he is on now is a medium sized livery yard but very peaceful and just what he likes. We are both relaxed and happy.
 
I had a WB when I was younger - he lived at my parents and was out 247 and a pussy cat - we put him on a livery yard, with overnight stabling, and he turned into a complete arse.....don't think that was coincidence!
 
Both my and my friends mares did not settle on our last yard. My girly would'nt be caught and hers was extemely agresseive towards others and could not be turned out or she would either pace up and down the fence until she was sewating buckets, or would jump out and run to her box. Where we are now, at my friends small private yard, they are both absoultely fine, so i feel that they didnt likt or settle there for some reason.
 
Very interesting reading all those replies. It does back up my theory that less is best for the majority of horses. I do wonder that the high incidence of racing TB's that have stress induced ulcers or random stable vices is because they are kept on big yards.

On another tack completely ( and I know this is going to sound hippy-dippy, but it's interesting) we had some crystal dowsing group come to a livery yard I was at a few years ago. They did crystal swinging stuff on the horses, but then they did it on the actual premises. There was one stable in the American barn which every horse that had been in it had been labelled a stress-head loony. What they found was there was an underground stream went under the corner of the stable, giving off negative vibes. The stream was verified by the farmer who built the stables. I visited the yard this summer, there was a horse in that stable and yep, everyone was saying what a difficult unhappy horse he was.
 
I've only ever had a horse not settle on a yard once - moved my l/w cob to a cheaper yard, and for some reason he hated it
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I never could work out why, he wasnt a spooky sort at all but he constantly spooked and jumped whilst tied up on the yard for grooming etc
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I gave up after a month and went back to the more expensive place
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Captain took a long time to settle when we moved him, he did not really eat or drink for 3 days and he hated the last yard. It has taken him a year to settle properly, he still gets stressed if there are any changes. So I think they can make their feelings felt.

Fany settled straight in and has been perfectly settle from the day she arrived.

Different temprements I guess.
 
Silly question though but aren't horses designed to move a lot between locations within a large area? Therefore wouldn't you think that they can accept change quite easily, intrinsically? Which then poses the question that is it not the outside influences which cause the unhappiness (ie being forced to go out with strange horses, stress in the owner etc) rather than the horse itself not liking being moved?
 
Agree with you Kitsune, horses will cover 25 miles a day in a herd, but that's the thing, they are in a structured herd with the security of pair bonds and a herd leader, not in a horsebox unable to see where they are and without the security of other horses which they know. Crikey it must be such an alien thing for them. And horses that are sold and moved around a lot have to establish their place in a new herd or enviroment again and again. I suppose some horses are more philosophical about their situations than others and adapt more easily.

Thinking about it more.....the horse has been domesticated by man for a few thousand years, and for most of that time horses were worked and they DID cover a lot of miles a day, either on farms or being used as transport or in war.. It's only in the last couple of hundred years or so that horses have been kept for pleasure or sport, and only in the past, say, 50 years that the kind of horsebox transport and intense livery yard set up we see now has been available to just about anyone who wants to keep a horse for leisure and pleasure. So....horses get moved around much more than they ever have, get asked to adapt to new situations several times in their lives, and really that 50 years isn't very long in the evolution of the horse. And (I'm on a roll here, can you tell?), owner's stress. There used to be two ways of keeping horses, the kind way or the not so kind way. Now, well, take your pick. Stabled, turned out, rugged, clipped, unrugged au naturele, shod, barefoot, Rolkur, bitless, barefoot, plastic shoes...anyone for Parrelli, natural horsemanship? Hay, haylage, a choice of 50 types of different feeds and supplements. For god's sake NO WONDER owner's get stressed, I'm suprised we're not all cribbing like mad on the steering wheel of our vehicles and secretly addicted to Gastroguard. And that's even before we arrive at the yard......where everyone there has their own ideas of How It Should Be Done,...stressed owners, stressed horses.....aaarrrgh!!!

Ahem. Anyway that's my thoughts on the issue (I think I should stay off the strong coffee). K.
 
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