Lost my temper today

Sorry tollfarm I made a mistake there. He used to be on Baileys Conditioning mix but I have since changed to Spillers conditioning cubes by reccomendation of feed man.
I havnt really noticed a difference!
 
Good. It was Baileys that we tried and it sent them all nuts then we changed to Baileys no4, the conditioning cubes and they are great. We also find haylage hots them up so would change to hay as others have suggested. Good luck.
 
Tollfarm said:
Good. It was Baileys that we tried and it sent them all nuts then we changed to Baileys no4, the conditioning cubes and they are great. We also find haylage hots them up so would change to hay as others have suggested. Good luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I didnt notice a change in his behaviour with the cubes and I also havnt noticed any improvement in muscle tone etc as claimed but I will stick with it!

He is on haylage at the moment as I found it helps him hold his weight, I will definatley give hay a go although at the moment its just as expensive at £25 a bale!
 
Sorry, i've not read all the replies, and I don't know much about these things, so this is just something else to throw into the mix.

A month ago I went to a vet talk on Gastric Ulcers...the symptoms you have described in your OP sound very similar to what they where talking about, espeically the behavioural ones. In very simple terms (for my simple brain) if there are gastric ulcers, then when they are asked to move and exercise, the stomach acid sloshes about and hits the ulcers causing pain, hence the downward spiral of behaviour....

Just something else to consider, especially with his drop in weight.
 
Equus Leather said:
Sorry, i've not read all the replies, and I don't know much about these things, so this is just something else to throw into the mix.

A month ago I went to a vet talk on Gastric Ulcers...the symptoms you have described in your OP sound very similar to what they where talking about, espeically the behavioural ones. In very simple terms (for my simple brain) if there are gastric ulcers, then when they are asked to move and exercise, the stomach acid sloshes about and hits the ulcers causing pain, hence the downward spiral of behaviour....

Just something else to consider, especially with his drop in weight.
Click to expand...


Thanks EL, I am pretty sure the weight loss was him being overworked and underfed as we have had little grazing. Since I moved him to more grazing and started feeding the conditioning mix his condition has improved no end.

I am not ruling anything out though and I would like to find out more but how would I know if he has ulcers or something like it? Would a vet need to scope him or something?

I have ordered some pure magnesium so lets see if that improves his behaviour.
 
You've had a lot of great advice already but my two pennies for what they're worth would be to initially take a deep breath and step outside your situation for a mo. Sometimes I find that if I think about what I might say to someone else in my situation I can get a grip for myself lol! I think your YO might be doing you a favour by moving you into a field with less grass and if you were to supplement haylage for hay that might help also. I would also suggest speaking to a feed merchant about a change of diet as so many temprement issues can be feed related and sometimes you have to give things a chance to work before trying something else. Which leads me also to suggest that you maybe forget about riding for a day or so to take the pressure off yourself, what about lunging or long reining for a couple of days along side some ground work exersizes (moving him around etc). Ignore unhelpful and hurtful comments from others. If they were friends they would be offering to help you not making remarks. Good luck and chin up, you'll be fine.
 
Yep, a vet would have to have a little look. Our vets were offering it for free a while back! Then if there were ulcers they recommended something called Gastro-Guard (suprise surprise it's made by merial and there was a merial woman there to talk about it!).

I do think it would be worth the money having a look down there tbh, and if nothing there, then it's one more thing to rule out. Ring your vets and speak to them about it.

Our vets did stress the behavioural aspect and how much it made them change, which is what made me think this could be a problem in your case.

Don't beat yourself up, remember why you have a horse, go and enjoy him tonight, give him a brush, deep breaths and smile, youll come out the otherside.
 
Only read first page and last, but if it was me, I'd sell or turn him away as it doesn't sound like progress is being made,

I don't mean this in any offensive or 'cold' way. Just my opinion :( :o

At the end of the day, it sounds the match isn't right and the day you start to dread riding your horse [especially after multiple attempts of trying to fix it] is when you seriously need to make an ultimatum about you both :(

It's not fair on either of you to be battling it, getting tense, stressy and scared most rides - not for you or him.

I'd say, if you still want to keep him, then keep him a field pet for you still to enjoy or just do something which you both enjoy. Or try and find his perfect match with someone else. There are arab fanatics out there who would understand him and maybe be his perfect match and figure him out :) Arabs are a lot like like TB's - you just have to understand their frame of mind and be suited to them :)

Again. NO offense meant. Only another opinion on it :)

I hope it all works out x x
 
Binky01 said:
Only read first page and last, but if it was me, I'd sell or turn him away as it doesn't sound like progress is being made,

I don't mean this in any offensive or 'cold' way. Just my opinion :( :o

At the end of the day, it sounds the match isn't right and the day you start to dread riding your horse [especially after multiple attempts of trying to fix it] is when you seriously need to make an ultimatum about you both :(

It's not fair on either of you to be battling it, getting tense, stressy and scared most rides - not for you or him.

I'd say, if you still want to keep him, then keep him a field pet for you still to enjoy or just do something which you both enjoy. Or try and find his perfect match with someone else. There are arab fanatics out there who would understand him and maybe be his perfect match and figure him out :) Arabs are a lot like like TB's - you just have to understand their frame of mind and be suited to them :)

Again. NO offense meant. Only another opinion on it :)

I hope it all works out x x
Click to expand...

No offence taken :)

I have thought about selling him once or twice but I just dont think I can do it. On the ground he is such a lovely affectionate horse. He comes galloping over to me in the field and whinnys to me everytime he sees me. If I leave him tied up on the yard he will go crazy, rearing etc and the second I come back he stops and nuzzles me.
I have also had so many good times riding him. I practically rebacked him myself from wherever he came from last and spent years schooling him and hacking him. I have hacked for miles, done pleasure rides, showed him, I even popped little logs in the hight of my confidence and I love riding him when he behaves.
As I said its only in the past 3 months he has started acting like this and I know somethings wrong I just cant find out what. I want to fix it so I can get my 'old' horse back and I dont want to give up just yet.

I did enquire about selling him a while back though and the general concensus was that he would be unsellable and if I was to give him up I would have to loan or PTS. This would leave me no money to get another as I need the money made from him to get another horse. I cant afford two either.

I wont bore you all with every detail about him but the main reasons I dont think he would sell are his behaviour obviously, and he is not exactly young anymore.
On top of his behaviour he is a very stressy horse, he weaves and box walks. He cannot be turned out in a herd either or he gets bullied very very badly (ive tried) therfore he needs a 1 companion home...2 max. He also sufferes seperation anxiety which is improving but is still there.Finally he sufferes a number of medical problems which would make it difficult to find someone willing to take him on... so I think my only option would be to turn him away but then I couldnt afford another :(
 
IME if the horse's behaviour has changed you need to find out what caused that change. Can you pinpoint something in his management that changed just before his behaviour changed - sorry I haven't read all the thread? Is it his feed that has changed? I would list all the different ingredients of his feed and experiment with eliminating them one by one, or stopping all hard feed for a few days then building back up one ingredient at a time. This should help you to pinpoint the ingredient that is causing a problem (if there is one). It does sound like feed (& I have LOTS of experience of this). I would also get a second opinion on your saddle and if you can find some-one to do acupuncture on the wasted muscles I would do that too. Feel free to pm me if that would help.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
IME if the horse's behaviour has changed you need to find out what caused that change. Can you pinpoint something in his management that changed just before his behaviour changed - sorry I haven't read all the thread? Is it his feed that has changed? I would list all the different ingredients of his feed and experiment with eliminating them one by one, or stopping all hard feed for a few days then building back up one ingredient at a time. This should help you to pinpoint the ingredient that is causing a problem (if there is one). It does sound like feed (& I have LOTS of experience of this). I would also get a second opinion on your saddle and if you can find some-one to do acupuncture on the wasted muscles I would do that too. Feel free to pm me if that would help.
Click to expand...

the only change I can think of is more grazing. He was on a starvation field (well one with nothing on) up until a few months ago when he dropped a considerable amount of weight and was put on an overgrown field to fatten up. He is now much better conditioned but is full of himself. Also I thought he may have filled out too much for his saddle.

Yo has since decided he must go back into bare paddock so no doubt he will drop weight again and I will be back yo square one.

I've never though lt about accupuncture lol, will have a search and see if I can find anyone!
 
Kaylum said:
Another suggestion here. Stomach ulcers. Its because of his weight loss and the reason why he is behaving differently? As the others say digestion and increase in feed its all related. Just a suggestion though.
Click to expand...

the more of this thread I read, the more this seems likely.

try switching him onto extruded full fat soya (or outshine, or equijewel, all high oil low cereal feeds) and increasing his fibre intake. see if that helps. and maybe try gastroguard to help settle his stomach as well, but if you are looking at calmers then the RelaxMe from horse first will help with this anyway.
 
My part arab mare cannot tolerate alfalfa AT ALL, became a night mare when this was in her feed, turned from willing creature to plunging nuisance. When I took this out of her feed and returned to grass nuts, she turned back into the horse I knew. I would also suggest changing to hay, as the sugar in haylage (and the accelerator) may be having a bad effect.
 
I'm sorry - it's so frustrating dealing with things like this.

It does sound like the horse is experiencing pain of some sort. You said he's fine on the ground - do you lunge him at all? If so, does he exhibit any of the same behaviors when you ask for trot or canter? If he doesn't, that would strongly indicate to me that there was something about the saddle that's bothering him. If he's fine lungeing, I'd be tempted to get on him bareback and see how he goes - I know that sounds a little nuts given his behavior but I did just that when my mare was acting the same way and she was like a different horse. It really showed me that her back was sore, even though I'd had it checked and was assured it was all right.

I also agree that ulcers could be the culprit. He's not necessarily going to indicate pain in his abdomen or colicking but his behavior really screams ulcers to me. And the fact that he's better on grass and worse on the haylage is a red flag too.

I think pain is certainly what's going on and I honestly wouldn't get on him again until it's sorted. He's trying to tell you something in the only way he has.
 
Well, poor you. I know how awful it is to dread riding your own horse. To be honest all the advice given is great but it gets so confusing you just never know where to start. So, he is back in the bare field....which should be good. I would ignore what he looks like, condition wise, and just give him hay. No hard feed. Give it up to a month no hard feed just hay and see if your "old boy" returns. With a bit of luck it will. In my mind this is the most straightforward and cheapest way of ruling out whether feed is the problem. If he returns to normal bingo......then all you have to do is find a non heating, fattening feed. By the way I rate magnesium calmers, they will not stop him doing anything but will take the edge off him. Good luck and think positive. The worst that can happen this way is that he loses a bit of weight . My big 18 yo carthorse X still goes mental if on any mix or Alfalfa.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top