Horsey Getting Bullied-Advice Needed

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maddielove

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Just found out from another livery on my yard that yesterday Maddie was getting chased and terrorised by another horse (3yo that has basically no contact with humans)
He said that it was really upsetting to see and i know what he means as I have seen similar a few months ago(i ended up getting bargeed and my nose got hoofed)
She is not close to anyone in the field and is fter very isolated from everyone else, the only horses she has ever really bonded with have left.
Right now horse isn't 100% (maddie that is) and has come in with a very painful bite/kick on her neck and is sore in other places anyway.
I have spoken to my dad about this and he didn't seem overly fussed about it but i am. Personaly I would like her to be moved into another feild. The catch with this is that it would mean she would come in at nights over winter (out from 7.30 till 3, presently out 24/7) but would be in a nicer field.
Any opinions please? Would moving her fields be a good idea before anything else happens?
Thanks, Emma x
 
In a word .......Yes, or get the bully shifted.

I would rather have a sound, stabled horse than a maimed, miserable one out 24/7.

Having had a horse injured so badly by a field bully that she had to be pts I am all for removing either the bully or the victim before something worse than a few bite marks happen. It's all very well getting the "Oh, it's field politics, they'll sort themselves out in the end" spiel, but if it is YOUR horse being run about and in danger of injury, Sod that, do something about it today. I'd rather pay winter bedding bills than Vets bills anyday.
 
Thanks for that.
I would love to get the sodding horse out of there but his owners are never up. I dread to think what he will be like when he's older
 
to be honest i would want to see for myself whats going on, if you can possibly spend some time just observing whats going on in the field i would do that first. I'm not saying the other livery is making it up but sometimes people do exhaggerate.

if your horse is being bullied then yeah i would move it to another field, or if this young horse is bullying everything else i'd be inclinded to ask if it can be moved.
 
I know he can chase and also he is able to round the rest of the field up to join in and she just stresses out a lot. Feel so sorry for her know what it's like to get bullied
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Don't wait untill your horse gets a broken leg - I was so close to losing mine after he was being bullied, I would take him out of the field asap
 
It's always been my experience that so many geldings with a field of mares doesn't work....that it should be 3 mares with one gelding.
Otherwise you get the geldings fighting over, then herding the mares to try and have them as their little harem....or creating a separate 'bachelor herd' and fighting each other..
S
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They are very fiest geldings, most arent that old either which probably doesnt help.
Thanks everyone will talkk to my parents tonight about moving her inside..perect oppertunity to go looking for more rugs
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to be honest i would want to see for myself whats going on, if you can possibly spend some time just observing whats going on in the field i would do that first. I'm not saying the other livery is making it up but sometimes people do exhaggerate.

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Exactly what I was planning on saying
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They are very fiest geldings, most arent that old either which probably doesnt help.
Thanks everyone will talkk to my parents tonight about moving her inside..perect oppertunity to go looking for more rugs
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Not sure what 'fiest' means...but the closer horses are in age, height, build, and obviously gender, the more likely it is that they'll fight to establish dominance...
Hope your horse is ok
S
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oops! bad spelling-i meant fiesty (if thats the correct spelling!)
The particular bully is mad-tries to climb the dyke out of the field...
They are all pretty similar in height bar one (he's 13hh...the rest are around 16hh give or take a few inches)

In the field though-it is a mare that is leader!!
 
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oops! bad spelling-i meant fiesty (if thats the correct spelling!)
The particular bully is mad-tries to climb the dyke out of the field...
They are all pretty similar in height bar one (he's 13hh...the rest are around 16hh give or take a few inches)

In the field though-it is a mare that is leader!!

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Yes, you normally have a dominant mare leader...then she would have a stallion who hangs around, to protect them from other randy stallions
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In nature, when colts get sexually mature, the herd stallion kicks them out...they join a 'batchelor herd' with other boys (think teenage hoody gang
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) where they practice playfighting and chatting up the girls....until eventually they are old enough and strong enough to challenge a stallion for his harem.
So you can see why your field dynamics don't work....
S
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If your horse is not sociable with the others at all then would she not be okay in an electric fenced off section by herself? That way you can hay up her section aswell and she wont have to share hay with other horses.
x
 
That is a possibility I suppose, though i think i may feel really bad keeping her all alone pretty much all the time but may well look into it if she doesnt do well in next field/being kept in.
 
I am having the same problem at my yard!

Ren is out in a field with 4 other geldings, in which 2 of them do NOTHING and do not get ridden. So they are very borde and want to play with Renny and his rugs
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Ren wears 2 NZ Rugs and he had bite marks on his bum, which had gone thro 2 rugs, so come the summer god knows what would happen.
I have had his rug in the menders 9 times now and its costing me so much money
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..

Anyway this morning all the horses moved fields as the others were so wet.
Put Ren out with them, he rolled in near the gate and this horse was charging towards Ren, went straight up and landed on Rens neck, at this point I was shouting my head off... He could of broken his ruddy neck! So enough was enough, I called the owner who owns all the horses in the geldings field and she said we could go half each and section the field off and Ren go out with one other on one half and her others have the other half.

Well in the end he went out with the mares and is now very happy
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I would have a word with the person that owns the horse and see if you can come up with a solution before its to late
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My horse was betting pestered by his field companion - no ones fault, just youthful exuberance from the TB companion, when spooks was totally uninterested in joining in and wouldn't chase him off or defend himself, so he ended up being covered in bite marks and we did have a couple of rug casualties, so i asked if we could split the field and have one in each half - kind of backfired on me though as spooks decided that he didn't want to be alone and spent his days trashing the electric fencing so then i had to replace fencing and rugs!! Doh!!
 
Not much point speaking to the other horses owner in my view. Their horse is all right and that's all they'll care about ( -sorry past bitter experience).

Get you mare into another field as soon as possible, she will be a lot happier and safer, and you will sleep better.
 
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