Horse afraid of needles

wellsat

wellsat

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Any tips for desensitising a horse who is afraid of needles? Gerry rears when the vet does a vaccination or sedation and at 17.2hh thats quite a lot of horse to be flapping its hooves around your ears.

I would twitch him but you can't as he rears if you try to do that as well.

He's lovely in absolutely every other way, one of the gentlest, most well mannered horses I've met, he just has a very strong objection to being injected.
 
My boy is terrified of needles too!

We can't twitch him either so as long as it's a jab that can go into muscle we use the quick surprise tactic, thankfully we have never needed an injection that has to go into a vein or a blood test as I really think that would be impossible.

Sorry to not be much help!
 
I agree with the cocktail sticks and then praising him like he just found a cure for cancer every time.

Is it the poke, or the actual needle (as in, the object rather than the pain), that he dislikes? xxxxx
 
Koko was the worst thing ever with all things to do with the vet! little monster luckily he was 14.3 so slightly more manageable but would kick, rear, bite barge and lunge himself at the vet!

When it came to jabs we would lead him around the field in a 20m circle (in the field in case he slips and they are better in an open space) and the vet would just walk by him for a little while and once he settled he would get the jab in his neck, the vet wouldn't bother pinching skin with him he just jabbed it in.

Practice at home with the pinching of the skin and running your hand down his gullet and then he will be used to the preperations then get other people to do it so hes used to strangers.
 
I had a young horse that was traumatised by an inexperienced vet vaccinating him, all I could do was take him to the vet clinic and put him in the stocks, not ideal I know but everytime we tried at the yard he would rear up and go and it was getting dangerous.
 
Thanks all, nice to know I'm not the only one. Its having the confidence to tell the vet how you want something done, last vet managed to stop him rearing by slapping and pinching the skin lots beforehand but todays vet was much more impatient, ignored what I asked her to do and just went for it. Lucky that neither of us got kicked.

Will give him a few days to get over today's trauma and then sidle up to him with some cocktail sticks... :D
 
flamehead said:
I agree with the cocktail sticks and then praising him like he just found a cure for cancer every time.

Is it the poke, or the actual needle (as in, the object rather than the pain), that he dislikes? xxxxx
Click to expand...

I think its the whole experience. I could see his bottom lip wibbling as soon as the vet got there, I think he knew what was coming.

He carried on rearing once he'd been jabbed, took vet a while to get hold of the needle to press it down.
 
Thanks, if anyone can think of the name of the book I'll try and get a copy.

I'm quite a pro with a clicker, taught my old horse D to fetch frisbees like a collie! Will make sure I have my clicker with me when I advance on him with the cocktail sticks...
 
We had a pony who was totally needle phobic - only thing that ever worked was a blanket over her head before she saw the vet!
 
My 20-something mare is needle phobic and nothing we have tried has worked over the years - you can do anything to her apart from sticking a needle into her. Fortunately our vet is well trained in the surprise tactic for annual jabs, and I have found that giving her a bucket of feed in hand and standing so I block her peripheral view of the vet sneaking up gives us a slight advantage. However, when she needed an anti-spasmodic for colic earlier this year we had to twitch her.
 
Would love to find something that worked, i have 2 that dont like needles and one of which has to have regular injections which im left to give her, its not her fault shes had so many injections and blood tests being messed around with. I try to hide the injection have it all ready and with someone holding her whilst shes eating quickly get it in to her. If its heamo 15 injections then back her to stable door with pressure headcollar so she takes it out on door and not person doing it. I know each injection will mean i will get at least a bite or kick however shes only 14.2 highland pony so not that bad.
 
I had an old mare that was a PRO at this.
Best solution we could find was, to keep a 'watcher' on the gate, to get them to shout when the vet was coming
(vet previously trained)
Twitch on horse - Sneak ninja attack with food.
Vet in = jab in - (needle attached to juice ready to go) - Done.
Twitch off and return of the lovely kind wonderful mare!

Vet recons she had a trauma sometime before and It sticks!
We tried everything before this!! - it took us 3 yrs of tet and flu jabs to work this Ninja style attack out.
We tried being nice, we tried leaving the vet alone in the box, we tried clickers, we tried ffood, we tried 'magic syringes', we tried lifting 2 legs up, - the worst one was when the vet got the needle in- hestiated for a moment and with a single muscle contraction by the mare the needle pinged out into a deep straw bed!!! :eek: after 3 hrs of searching we never found the damn thing!!!

Good luck! :D
 
We tried everything under the sun but she just went berserk as soon as she realised what was happening - she was only 11.2 - a little lead rein show pony but boy was she strong when she saw a needle - the blanket over the head sounds a little like the ninja approach described above - get in and out before the action could get started! She was only 4 when we bought her but had already been shown and we suspect she may have been drugged to behave in the class. We won major championships with her with no drugs involved!
 
Most of the time vets inject on the left hand side ot the neck (near side), try injecting on the other side. unfortunatley once a horse is needle shy it is very difficult to solve as the horses that look as if they are going to be difficult do tend to get jabbed, it is not the pain of the needle that worries them but the sudden movement from somebody they are not familiar with towards their neck. See if you can persuade your vet to take a little more time, and also see if your horse will tolerate a neck twitch ( taking a firm hold of a fold of skin at the base of the neck just infront of the shoulder) this often works as well as if not better than a nose twitch. Good luck
 
QR
Captain has this problem and has to be sedated to have his teeth done as well as vacs. So would love to have a solution, will try the cocktail stick. But he has started to get flustered when the vet even comes in the barn.

Will look at the Richard Maxwell book.
FDC
 
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