Help. Stressed, anxious and worried horse

[The Bouncing Bog Trotter]

I have owned D for about 18 months now. In the time that I have owned him he has become progressively more stressed, nervous and anxious. When I bought him he was described by his locally based breeder as sensitive but the behaviour that I am now experiencing goes beyond this and I am open to any ideas and suggestions as to how to make life easier and happier for him.

I bought him from his breeder and have kept him at the same yard since purchased. Prior to me he has hunted, show jumped and evented (80cm) and he passed a 5 stage vetting when bought. He is in light work (40 mins about 4x per week) and is out during day in a shared paddock with a mare he adores and is stabled at night. I can't do more work as he has a very thick coat - see clipping issue. He is fed haylage (ad-lib) and has Northern Crop Driers Graze-On, grass pellets, Saracen Re-leve, micronised linseed plus brewers yeast. He is out 24/7 in the summer with little behavioural change.

Most things seem to scare him - me wearing a new coat warrants a cower in the back of his stable, a vehicle parked in a new place at the yard, grooming brushes must be examined before touching him and anyone new (human) on the yard is treated with great suspicion. Ridden he is fine. He works on his own quite happily in the school and he hacks out in company. Clipping this winter was a total NO - even with sedation - he panicked to the point he was dangerous - and loading is work in progress. He now walks through my trailer but getting the ramp up is still to be achieved. When scared in the stable he cowers in the corner of the box and faces you with his backside (but has never kicked) and when scared outside he reverses and panics - hence leading with hat, gloves and lunge rein. He is constantly tense and on alert and looking wide-eyed.

He is Connemara x British riding pony (TB/Welsh Section B). His breeder is also at a loss as to why he is like this. I am a very calm, quiet and experienced owner and I am not pushing him intentionally out of his comfort zone.

Any ideas as to how I can make life better for him??? Thank you.

 

[KINDMARE]

Hi - firstly i am sorry you are having this trouble. Its horrid to see a horse in such a state of anxiety all the time!
i am no expert but i would try taking him off the Re leive and maybe the graze on - I would try feeding just grass pellets and maybe fast fibre. Re lieve is great for some horses but has been know to make some stressy including my own!

Maybe feed a little magnesium with the brewers yeast.

hope you find the solution x

 

[JillA]

Sounds like magnesium deficiency to me - easy enough to feed some magnesium oxide for a few weeks and see if it makes a difference, most grazing land is deficient I gather

 

[Damnation]

That is quite a bit of energy being fed to what could be a naturally nervous horse.

If it were me I would take him off the Saracen (it is a moderate to high energy feed) and take him off the hayledge (it is like rocket fuel for some horses!).

Infact, if you can and his weight will be ok, take him off the lot and feed ad-lib hay only. If he calms down I would look at the potential of him not being able to cope well with sugar.

Good luck!

 

[Annagain]

Poor him and poor you. He's lucky to have an owner who wants to help him through his issues but it's not easy is it.

Does he desperately need feed? I would maybe cut him right back to just grass and hay (not haylage) for a couple of weeks to see if that makes any difference. If it does, I'd switch the hay back to haylage and then (if no reaction) start reintroducing feeds one at a time to see if he reacts to any of those.

The other thing I'd consider is whether he is truly settled at your yard. If he came from his breeder I'm guessing he'd only ever lived there so maybe the move has upset him? Is this yard and its routine very different from where he came from - much quieter/busier; indoor/outdoor stables; no set routine with horses coming and going around him? Anything like this can affect him. If the food doesn't throw anything up, I'd maybe consider trying a different yard.

 

[tashcat]

Just a note re sedation -

Have you tried domosedan (goes under the tongue) rather than sedalin? My boy would be as sleepy as a bee with sedalin and then as soon as the clippers turned on he'd be wide awake and refuse to be clipped! A fair dose of domosedan with enough time for it to kick in did the trick.

Alternatively when is the vet next at your yard? He could inject him with heavier sedation so you could clip him. Would be even more beneficial if you could tie this in with having his teeth done, as we used to do.

Sorry to hear about the other problems, and I can't be of much help. I do agree with trying different food - can make a world of difference.

Do you think a different environment could benefit him better? Is there anything that in particular puts him on edge perhaps?

 

[Nudibranch]

Agree with all the above. Cut back the feed and switch haylege for hay. Give him something low sugar and add a bit of magnesium or a multi mineral like pro balance. I know 24/7 turnout makes no difference but is he like that in the field as well? Your description is all based on yard/stable behaviour. It's not always possible but could you try him at a different yard with herd type turnout? That is often a less stressful environment provided there's no bullying (and with enough space there usually isn't).

 

[asmp]

Worth getting his eyes checked?

 

[LD&S]

Agree with all the above. Cut back the feed and switch haylege for hay. Give him something low sugar and add a bit of magnesium or a multi mineral like pro balance. I know 24/7 turnout makes no difference but is he like that in the field as well? Your description is all based on yard/stable behaviour. It's not always possible but could you try him at a different yard with herd type turnout? That is often a less stressful environment provided there's no bullying (and with enough space there usually isn't).

This and add some salt, either to some chaff or in a large bucket of water, I put some in mine's feed though in the summer they get some in a bucket too and generally drink this first.

 

[Shay]

I have an ISH who was like this with us for a time. We cut his feed completely - to ad lib hay only - and then worked back up. He is very sensitive and looses condition very quickly so we were never going to be able to stay that way for long but in working his feed back up to what he needed we were able to determine he is sensitive to high sugar feed and barley.

If feed is even partly at issue for your boy you have him on a super high level competition mix and high energy chop - as well as grass pellets. Even if he drops condition briefly I would cut all hard feed for a couple of weeks. Ideally swap haylage for hay - the higher sugars in haylage will send my lad stressy. Then re-introduce a low energy molasses free chop and a low energy hard feed if he still needs it. I really like Allen & Page for their barley / molasses free range - and the company sends decent size samples if you are genuinely trying to work out an issue. We settled on Cool & Collected which made all the difference for us. (And the ISH in question is hunted twice a week and events in season so is in hard work)

To give you a comparison an average low energy chop is 7 - 8.5 MJKg energy - yours is 11MJKg. A&P's cool & collected is 9.5 MJKg - your re-leve is 12.9MJKg. Grass nuts vary from make to make, but are usually 10 - 11MJKg. You are only in light work only at the moment so you really only need feeds at the low end of the energy scale.

Changing feed won't cure everything. But once he isn't hyped up on sugar and calories he should be able to focus more on you and build trust which in time will help with everything else.

 

[splashgirl45]

i would also cut most of his feed out and just feed some light chaff and a balancer to make sure he gets the vits and mins he needs. also change haylage to hay as many horses go loopy on it (my old mare did)....good luck

 

[ycbm]

I had one that sounds similar. He was going blind. I had him PTS at four years old, he was a nervous wreck and totally blind in one eye and shadow vision in the other by then. It's very rare, but as someone else has said, worth a check.

 

[RockinRudolph]

Definitely get his eyes checked. I've known several horses over the years who appear to have behavioural issues but were actually losing their sight, which puts it all into context.

 

[The Bouncing Bog Trotter]

Thanks for all the suggestions. This forum can be very opinionated at times but thank you all for being so constructive.

It is easy to think about things so much that you can't find the solution easily yourself. I am going to stop all hard feed except the grass nuts, brewers yeast (he itches without it) and linseed (he needs some feed due to stressing off the weight) and put him onto hay as soon as I can get some delivered. He is already cereal free (unless you count the linseed) as I was feeding for ulcers in case his stressed state had caused them. I will give him a few weeks and then add some magnesium and gradually up the feed.

Changing yards isn't an option and he was the same when turned out 24/7 in a mixed herd last summer. All other horses I have had at the yard have been very settled and relaxed but I do know that the change from his breeders where he had lived for his first 6 years really knocked him back. It is a lovely quiet yard very similar to his breeders yard and he is on much the same routine with me as he was with her - and on the same feed. Eyes were checked when vetted but will get them checked again when his jabs are due in a month.

Thank you again.

 

[ycbm]

The vet who checked my horse's eyes at three and a half said that he would pass a vetting, but that he did have some loss of peripheral vision. She said it would not progress. It did. It is rare and unlikely to be your horse's problem, but I'm glad that you aren't taking the vetting as an indication that his eyes are OK now.

Do you know how to do a basic check yourself? You poke a finger quickly towards his eye as if you were going to touch it. The horse should blink. It's not foolproof, but it's a good start and mine lost the blink a few weeks before he completely lost the sight.

 

[cauda equina]

As well as the suggestions above, if he were mine I'd get some help from a behaviourist, if possible someone who has studied with Dr Andrew McLean (the Equitation Science guy)

 

[The Bouncing Bog Trotter]

The vet who checked my horse's eyes at three and a half said that he would pass a vetting, but that he did have some loss of peripheral vision. She said it would not progress. It did. It is rare and unlikely to be your horse's problem, but I'm glad that you aren't taking the vetting as an indication that his eyes are OK now.

Do you know how to do a basic check yourself? You poke a finger quickly towards his eye as if you were going to touch it. The horse should blink. It's not foolproof, but it's a good start and mine lost the blink a few weeks before he completely lost the sight.

Thanks I will try that. Yep, long enough in the tooth to know a vetting is only good on the day.....Anything to help the little chap enjoy life a bit more - he is my dream horse aside from all his issues.

 

[Red-1]

This will be an unpopular suggestion, but I know a little horse who changed when a new member if yard staff arrived. I talked with the YM, and the staff member was spoken to, but the staff member seemed lovely, and nothing else was done.

The horse remained nervous and on edge.

Some years later the yard had CCTV fitted, and the member of staff was seen being very unpleasant towards a horse when the CCTV was examined for something else. More footage was examined, and it was obviously a regular thing. Some horses managed this better than others. Some showed no untoward reaction, others were merely hard to catch for the staff member.

My recommendation would be to get a battery small camera in the stable, for legal reasons it is to watch your horse only, and because no one will know it is there you can't use it against someone, as I understand it. It would, however, mean you could see what is happening with your horse when you are not present.

 

[MyBoyChe]

I would definitely try adding magnesium to his diet. Can you get your pasture tested for mag deficiency? Adding it will only work if it is deficient in the first place but Im sure you said the horse has always lived locally. It could be that he has always been deficient in mag and this will make some horses very jumpy and nervy. Spring madness is caused when the grass flushes and becomes mag deficient, the same in autumn. Lack of magnesium does have an adverse affect on the nervous system so would definitely be worth a try. not massively expensive and you should see a change over a few weeks quite quickly.

 

[LaurenBay]

Cut his feed right back. My mare was on Haylege for 2 months and never again, turned her into a nervous wreck! Doesn't sound like he needs all that if only being ridden 4 times a week.

 

[The Bouncing Bog Trotter]

Spring madness is caused when the grass flushes and becomes mag deficient, the same in autumn. Lack of magnesium does have an adverse affect on the nervous system so would definitely be worth a try. not massively expensive and you should see a change over a few weeks quite quickly.

You learn something new every day! Never knew spring fever was caused by mag deficiency.