Bad weather = stressy horse.... any tips?

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darksecret99

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My horse seems particularly sensitive to changing weather conditions and has been very stressy in when he's turned out on days when bad weather is on the way (i.e. before the bad weather arrives)..... which has been a lot of them recently!!!

How do other people deal with this?

The horses stay in when its too wet and windy, but on days like today, when the weather is not too bad for them to be out, he is still got in a stress and had to be brought in before he did too much damage (and because he winds the other horses up, even though they are in seperate paddocks...)!! Plus the YO is very protective of the fields, so we get in trouble if he paces along the fence and churns the field up...

I know its a natural thing, but none of the other horses seem to react as badly as mine and its quite frustrating!! And he stresses about being in the stable alone as well..... cant win!!

He is normally very chilled and lazy and gets no hard feed and is ridden almost every day, so its not just excess energy...

Roll on summer!!!
 
My old pony had been hill bred & he was just like this. To be honest we never did find a way of stopping him acting like that although he was very useful for predicting bad weather! If your YO gets really stroppy or you think your horse may end up hurting himself then all I can suggest is ride or lunge him & don't turn out. Sorry
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HI - you're not alone, mine is like this too, it is a bit tiring some days isn't it, he has been especially bad for the last 6mths, I think the weather and temperature is so variable they are finding it hard to cope! I know of loads of people who seem to be having a bad winter with their horses on the behaviour front. Have you tried adding a calmer - Valerian works well on my boy and also some of the bach's rescue remedies have had a good short term impact, but if anyone knows of any other supplement for this I would be really interested in trying it too as he can be a complete pain. I know that Feedmark does something called steady up but don't really know if it works and would be an expensive buy if it doesn't!

Would be interested in hearing if you get any recommendations!
 
I just leave mine to get on with it - she comes in if it's very cold and wet but otherwise she goes out with some hay and her rug on. She hates the rain, hates the wind, get grumpy when too hot... Ponio on the other hand couldn't care less what comes out of the sky as long as she has food. Odd really as they were both born into a herd and left to roam for two years. Must be the difference between a TB type and a welshie!
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Thanks... nice to know I'm not alone!

He gets stressed to the stage that he will injure himself or accidentally ski through fencing with the ground being wet etc if I just leave him... I'm going to put him on brewers yeast (he is sweet itchy too), to see if that helps at all before trying other calmers...

Its tricky, cos if we have a few days of good weather and everything is routine as normal, he's so laid back hes almost horizontal, so I dont really want to put him on a calmer!

I've just moved his paddock (within the same field), so he is closer to the yard and has more grass now, so hopefully that might help him forget his weather worries and feel a bit more secure....

I'm sure he'll go back to his normal chilled self once the weather settles... I'll let you know how we get on!

Thanks again
 
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