Mare in season

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ThomasandTia

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In January we purchased a 16.1 ISH mare 17 years old, her life had been as a broodmare until approx the age of 12-14 she was then schooled for riding and sold onto the person we bought her off who was going to use her as a broodmare again however she didn't come into season so was lightly used for hacking but generally " over looked" no vaccs teeth etc done
Since we bought her weve had her vaccs teeth etc done last week we moved yards from one with not a lot of grass to one with masses of grass and more geldings and all of a sudden she has come into season in a big bitchy way to the point she isnt safe to ride wont let us catch her without taking her food bowl out ( previously she would wait by the gate with our gelding that she is now rounding away too).
What supplements would everyone recommend? we have started her on Agnus Castus but she doesn't seem too fussed eating her food with it in.
It is possible it could just be the move change of season etc but surly that wouldn't make her come into season after approx 6 years.
Our gelding on the other hand ( bought as a 9 month old colt and now a 10 year old para dressage horse) has not been a problem at all.
 
She is probably having the first season of the year and this can often affect mares quite badly (i have a lot of competition mares so I am well used to this scenario!) You may well find she is better later in the spring.
 
Are you absolutely certain it's hormones? Have you kept a diary of her behaviour to work out a pattern?
Something jumped out at me in your post. "Went from a yard with not much grass to one with masses of grass".
With such a drastic management change, you can't expect her to be the same so before you go spending a fortune on unnecessary supplements, I would be drastically reducing the grass intake, go back to her previous feeding regime, and take it from there.
 
Have a look on FB - there is a fascinating post by The Osteopathic Vet (Tom Beech) recently about how the hind gut affects horses, particularly at this time of year when the grass is coming through. What is interesting are the comments from owners of mares. We have a mare who was being very grumpy, touchy and marish. She pulled all sorts of nasty faces, was touchy in all the places known to indicate ulcers, but also produced milk and in spring bucked, did horrid sloppy poos and was not a happy girl. She’d threaten to bite, kick on the rhs and although under saddle was fairly ok, the bucking meant I would not let my daughter hack alone. At the time (major lockdown, parents on site who were shielding so vet visits not a great plan) we decided to move her from Gut Balancer (which had improved her poos most of the time) onto Acid Ease (until we could have a vet visit) and the overall difference in her is quite unbelievable. She is very, very sensitive on her RHS when in season, produces milk (actually “asks” us to milk her ...) and now she produces much less milk (now just enjoys a teat scratch - don’t ask ... ?) and is back to a lovely temperment. We never investigated ulcers in the end as the acid ease seemed to settle everything down - she us calm, can touch her all over, sloppy poos all gone and now normal, and milk eased off. Interestingly, she came from a yard where turnoutout was more limited to our lush little valleywith 24 hour turnout. We are now careful with the grass, and keep her on Acid Ease - upping it if she goes onto new grazing. She hacks alone perfectly, rarely bucks and us now back to the sweet mare we originally bought. Bit like MuddyWellies says, not always hormones - sometimes it’s easy to blame the obvious which is what we did. Was only when we looked at everything we decided to give the acid ease a shot. Tom Beeches recent post put everything we were experiencing into focus and I am sure our mare fits into this description.
 
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