FOOD AGGRESSION HELP

[Winnieandbluebell]

So I’ve had my new cob a couple of months now and she is absolutely perfect in every way, a super dope on a rope safe type. That is until she is in the field and there is food around.

She is turned out with my daughters Shetland at home and she won’t let her anywhere near the gate. Ears flat back and runs at her and try’s to bite her, spins and sometimes try’s to kick. The majority of the time they get on well and are always stood together, it’s just when there is food around (Hay) I don’t feed them any hard feed.
The lady I bought her off did tell me about this and she had got her from the RSPCA where she had been found very skinny and malnourished as a youngster.

So I guess my question is, can I do anything too help this behaviour for everyone’s sake? Or is it just a trigger of her past and a sort of imbedded trate that I’ll just need to manage?

Just for the record the food aggression Is only towards other horses and not humans.

Any advise greatly received

 

[AmyMay]

Put a head collar on her and bring her out of the field, then go in the field with your hay. Always have more piles of hay out than horses, and always very well spread apart. I’d have about six piles.

 

[meleeka]

When are you feeding hay? Do you put it in the field in piles? I’m just trying to work out what’s going on when she won’t let her near the gate? If it’s when you are going in then just throw some over the fence on your way in to keep her busy. Two months is very soon for her to feel settled and if they are fine any other time I’d just make sure there are plenty of piles spaced well apart. She’ll soon realise that it’s not going anywhere and it’s less effort to just stand and eat.

 

[PurBee]

as amymay says, having multiple piles of hay dotted far apart in the field stops the food aggressive horses from being able to ‘guard’ them all at once, and allows lower pecking order herd mates to eat.

My mare used to be abit food aggressive with the youngster, but only if there’s one haynet/pile of food For them to share. It was hilarious watching her trying to figure out different strategies to govern many piles of food scattered about!

Once she realised it was too stressful to keep stomping from pile to pile and tell the other to get away, that ‘broke’ her aggression eventually, and now 2yrs later, they will happily share from even one haynet, without aggression.

So its possible for her to ‘untrain’ this mindset eventually, with considerable effort on your part - bare in mind i scattered multiple hay piles 4x over 18hr days. So the mare knew more food was coming soon enough, so didnt have to guard heavily. If i’d only gave scattered piles 1x per day, perhaps she’d still be aggressive now due to such a long time of waiting for more hay piles.

So if youre at home its easier for you to divide up their 24hr forage weight into 4 time slots throughout the day/evening. With each time slot, it might be 2-4kg hay depending on their weight, literally scatter even just handfuls of hay all over the place. I did this over a winter and would have literally 20+ piles everywhere.
It gets them moving while eating, better in the winter than standing at a feed bucket/net. They take hours to search out every blade of hay, re-visiting the piles several times - so it mimics grazing in a way, they keep warm moving, burn calories, head-down eating....and soon it reprograms the aggressive one to just eat whats infront of them and not worry about controlling the other horse’s eating.

If she’s aggressive at the gate...can you spread hay piles about before theyre turned out? Obviously im assuming theyre in overnight, so if out 24/7 amymays suggestion is good to remove mare. But you might find she’ll be less aggressive if she’s got multiple hay feed times per day.

 

[JackFrost]

I've had to manage this type of behaviour twice, separate occasions. Both were mares that like yours were rescues starved at a young age. Both were settled in their surroundings, so that wasn't the issue. Unfortunately it seemed to be ingrained. Again like yours, they were safe and quiet until food appeared then became very aggressive. Like Meleeka says, 2 months isn't long, and perhaps it will improve, but my experience would suggest that you will need to accept it and manage it.

It is linked to dominance in the herd - a subordinate horse won't try this with a higher ranking one, so that might give you options to put her with a more dominant (possibly just bigger) companion that will not tolerate it.

Though she may never mean to hurt you, do be careful. From the ones I have known they can completely lose their sense in a situation of food +another horse, and you do not want to be caught in the middle of the scrummage. And be careful for the safety of the shetland, the threats to harm can be very real.

 

[laura_nash]

Mine still does it after 15 years, so I suspect with some it's just ingrained. He's never hurt my other horses and they quickly learn to avoid him at feeding time since they know there's always enough for them too. I feed hay pillows and generally chuck them over the wall, he has learnt not to do it if I go in the field but that took some time. I always throw him one first. He will also chase them off each haynet in turn sometimes, I don't mind that as I have good doers so more exercise and less food is a good thing.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

I would put out 6 piles far apart I have to do this if I put hay on the ground, but I do tie just 2 nets on the hard standing and they seem fine with that for some reason although they do swap around but no chasing and biting, are they getting enough hay? I only ask as mine are far worse when they are hungry.

 

[buddylove]

One of our ponies is like this, I think he has been kept short at some point. I just make sure they are fed well apart. If one pony has to walk past the other whilst he is eating I will stand in the middle, as food proud pony will listen when I tell him NO! (With much face pulling and side eye, but he is never naughty with people around food).

 

[The Xmas Furry]

In this situation, I usually remove the hungry nasty one outside the gate while putting hay out. If that cannot be safely done, I've tied a net to the gate, tied aggressive one up with it then put out the hay.
I'll also tape off a corner so a shetland can get in and away from being flattened by bigger one, but have their own pile.

 

[Lurfy]

I've got one like this and after 15 years he hasn't changed. He is fine with people, it's just other horses he acts aggressively with.

 

[planete]

Coblet occasionally likes to throw his weight around when I am taking the hay into his paddock. I let him grab a few mouthfuls but keep moving slowly until I reach the place where I want to put it down. He is also a rescue but I am trying to establish a pattern he can rely on and become relaxed about by always putting his hay in the same couple of dry places. He is getting better about it but it is advisable to act mild and unconcerned when he is in that mood. No other horses sharing his paddock at the moment, he seems to think that if I do not put the hay down immediately it is going to disappear. I could take him out first but the only time I left him tied up with a hay net while putting hay out I was startled to see him repeatedly standing on his hind legs at the end of his rope (he gets tied up to a free swinging rope attached to an overhead beam). He has been with me a few months now, fed regular as clockwork, but the habit of panicking about missing out on food runs deep.

 

[planete]

...

 

[dorsetladette]

My older lad is food aggressive. when we first got him we built a small pen around the gate and as soon as we arrived we would pull him in to it. He would still run at anyone who looked at his dinner but it saved any injuries. Once he had eaten his hard feed He would only go back out once all the hay was out in the field. I'd put the furthest from the gate piles down first so the other ponies settled to them and the put some out nearer. This meant he didn't chase everyone else off when he was let back out.
9 years on he's still a pain sometimes and is a bit of a git with new arrivals. We now have a round bale in a hay feeder which is a game changer to be honest. He is much more settled with ad lib hay.