Muzzles- For or Against

What would be the best thing to do?

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JessPickle

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so what are your thoughts, I personally don't like them at all. Setting up a bit of fencing doesn't cost that much and to be seems like a better option in the long run! Pickle has never been muzzled since I have had him but his weight is kept in control (he has to be weigh taped once a week due to his tendency to suddenly loose weight if he becomes anemic)

So your thoughts
 
i am personally for muzzles,i have a welsh d that is very prone to piling on the pounds if she has a few days off work here or there in summer,she is on livery so i can't just put any sort of fence up willy nilly and to be honest it's either put her in the stable for a few hours a day (which i can't do as she has a hip injury and standing in a small space like that makes her very stiff and sore) so the only option is to put a muzzle on.She only has it on in the day and only has it on from may to end of june so i personally think it's a neccessary thing to do,it's either that or she gets laminitus and me being a responsible owner and not wanting my horse crippled i opt for the muzzle.
 
They can save lives! My EPSM horse would be dead if he was not muzzled 27/7. His problem means he needs full time turnout on a large area AND restricted grass intake. He is not in the least distressed by the muzzle. It is like any other piece of tack or equipment, the horse has to be 'broken' to tolerate it. If yu put a rug on a horse that had never worn one, there is a good chance it would go mad to start with, but we introduce rugs gradualy and sympatheticly. If teh horse pulls faces when it starts wearing one we don't discontinue or call it 'cruel'.

Not every horse will be restrained by electric fencing, or have its grass intake reduced sufieciently by being kept in a pen.

It could be said that penning denies the horse the freedom to gallop, move in to shade, or out of the wind... socialise etc.
Stabling prevents movement and socialising. Psychiatric disorders in stabled horses suggest that it is not humane for all horses.

You might be in the lucky position whereby your horse doesn't need one, but some horses & ponies seem to live on thin air and no other form of restriction works.

No one should be ashamed of muzzling a horse or pass judgement on those who do. Those who allow obesity/laminitis/stress their horse to the point it develops stable vices are the ones who should be ashamed.
 
I am very, very for them! The way I see it, I want my horse to be able to mooch about with the other horses in his field and have a canter around (As he can do sometimes
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)should he want to, as well as find shelter and all that jazz.
Strip grazing is fabulous if you can't get a muzzle to fit or your horse would just destroy them in 2.5 seconds
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, it just (to me) seems no more natural than putting a muzzle on.
Personally I just found the muzzle to be a much better option than keeping him in or strip grazing, once he gets over it and stops 'sulking' about it, he would probably rather be able to eat the grass, just with restricted in-take, rather than be stood in a stable all day.
Muzzles do look a tad harsh (Cinnamon's makes him look like Hannibal Lector and the Greenguard headcollar it's on makes him look strapped up to the eyeballs, like I'm some kind of cruel cow who would staple it to him given half the chance
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) but overall I think that given the option, I would much rather have him in one. It's just personal preferance and part of it may well be lazyness on my part, I can't be doing with moving fencing around or getting a stable ready all the time for the next morning. I like to faff around with him to much for that LOL!
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One of the reasons i left my last yard was that the YO said i was being cruel by putting a muzzle on my mare,she wouldn't let her go on restricted grazing and had to be turned out with skinny others so i had no choice! It was then very clear to me that this women had no idea about horse management and welfare,it was shocking so i was out as soon as poss!!! It really hit a nerve with me as i am sooooo welfare conscious with my animals,it was just one sharp word too many that came out of her mouth!!!!!
 
For - without a doubt!
Pepper will do his best to escape from any fencing which has been set up, & living close to a main road as we do makes it very dangerous. Having a muzzle allows him to be in a field with all of his friends and it is a brilliant way to keep his weight down without worrying about him getting run over.
 
For- I would much rather my horse have access to a large amount of grazing and have a muzzle on, than penned in on his own. My 17.2hh ID used to have a muzzle on, because he wouldn't be penned in on his own, he loves company.
 
I voted 'for' although I can 'pen' my horse and this works better for him. However I am aware that I am lucky and have the choice of either option, whereas if you are at a yard where you do not have the option to restrict the grazing then there may be no other option
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... and they can go out with the crowd and have fun, if they accept them
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Why are you so against them?

I can't understand all the "muzzles are cruel" opinions. They absolutely are not cruel at all.

My Shetland and Section A wear one over summer. Tweenie, the Section A, gets very gassy and mildly colicky if she has free access to our grazing when the weather has been kind and the pasture is green. Doesn't matter how short it is, it's lush dairy grass.

I only un-muzzle her if we've had prolonged dry periods and the grass starts to look that parched yellowy/green hue. She gets access to hay, as do the others, as all of mine are on the same sparse grazing due to the nutritional content of dairy pasture. The access to low nutritional content hay (coarse hay, baled later in the year, I don't mean dusty hay) overnight means I am confident their guts are eating long stem fibre regularly, which I believe is important to their digestion systems.

Dinker, my Shetland, has had laminitis in the past. I've owned him for four years and he's not had an episode whilst in my care (touches wood frantically). I truly believe that's down to the muzzle. He doesn't have to stay banged up in the stable or separated in a bare paddock. He can socialise with the others. He can be a houdini, no matter the type of fencing. I'd rather know he was muzzled "just in case" he got out as well.

Neither of mine struggle to cope with eating whilst wearing their greenguard. I will admit that Dinker can't cope with the Shire's type muzzles, so I obviously don't use those on him. They drink, they eat and they even groom each other whilst wearing them. How can that be cruel?
 
Completely for.
I dont have to muzzle or restrict my boys eating, he doesnt gorge himself (in fact most days he stands sleeping whilst everyone else eats!) and work is enough to stop him getting huge.
However if he had a real weight issue there is no way i could keep him on restricted grazing, if hes not with a couple of horses he would go nuts. So muzzling would be the only way, and i would much rather muzzle than see him get fat.
As Patches said, they can, eat drink etc whilst wearing them and having large spaces to roam around is alot more natural than being penned in!
 
My lad is in a muzzle at the moment & will stay in one throughout the summer. He can stay out for lengthy periods without getting bloated belly, he has no problem eating through the Greenguard muzzles & he drinks without any difficulty. He is a competition horse, is really fit & well toned. I consider this practice as looking after his welfare to the best of my ability & it works.

I, like other posters, cannot understand the 'Are they cruel' posts & fail to understand why so many people risk laminitis or colic attacks rather than muzzle.
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For. Without a doubt.

I too cannot understand why anyone would be against them.
I think it's hard if you've never had a true little native (or any small fatty) to understand exactly how little they need to eat. Simply penning off an area of field is no help at all. Horses are herd animals and need to socialise. Putting a potential laminitic in a penned off area would mean it being alone for most of the year. What exactly is cruel about a muzzle? i would be interested to hear.

We have a 10hh pony who would eat for Britain if he could. I have a choice: I turn him onto a bare paddock and leave him on his own. I stable him (and then let him gorge when he goes out) (and again, he'd be on his own in the stable) or I muzzle him. With a muzzle he can gallop around with the other horses and get exercise. There are 6 horses on the yard. Two veterans who need all the grass they can, three hunters who need all the grass they can, and our 10hh fatty... if my kids were capable of riding a TB that I didnt have to muzzle I'd gladly buy them one. But unfortunately my children's legs are too short.

Not every person has the luxury of being able to faff about with YO's fencing. Not everyone is on livery where two fatties may go into a piggy paddock together.
 
I voted against, but only because the only one of mine that would actually need one has given me bad experiences in the past. However i know some horses/ponies whos lives would have been pretty crap without them and so im kinda neither, as they have a place but i just dont use them myself!
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im for, my boy is wearing on during the day at the moment and no matter how miserable he looks he would look more miserable in a stable with lami.(or the other way which doesn't even bear thinking about) Fencing him off a section is not an option as posts are there to he jumped, well thats what Galaxy thinks lol
 
My horse is currently in a small paddock, the smallest one at the yard and with a muzzle on. He is recovering from a very mild bout of laminitis and even the amount of grass in the small paddock is currently too much, especially during the spring flush, to let him loose on unmuzzled. He copes absolutely fine with the muzzle, sulked a bit the first week, but now it doesnt bother him at all. Like all the previous posters, I cant understand the 'muzzles are cruel' viewpoint and think they are a really valuable management tool.

One of my friends was told by her instructor last night that she needs to muzzle her boy who is getting rather large. She would rather limit his grazing that way than take him out of his established herd and put him in a small field by himself.
 
Definitely for as well. JRDW if you had a horse who was prone to fast weight gain, rather than weight loss, you would soon see the value of them I am sure. It is much better for the horse to still be able to be in the herd and moving around, which in itself aids weight loss rather than confined on his or her own in a small paddock with no friends for company.

I don't anyone particularly likes putting them on their horse, but far better that than the dreaded laminitis.
 
I am glad there's other people against them to be honest. I don't like them at all. Don't know what types of horses everyone has here and obviously what situation you have at your respective yards etc but we have had a 13.2hh welsh-prone-to-laminitis in the past along with a donkey. Neitehr of these required alot of grass obviously. We had 12 acres of relatively lush (well too lush for horses) grass and we therewfore built a small paddock in which the donkey and pony were put in during the day and let out with the others in the evening. Neither suffered laminitis in the many years we had them.

People say about horse being herd animals which of course is right and one thing my horses love doing is grooming each other. How does a horse with a muzzle do this? An they groom? Grooming is a very important part of horse interaction in my opinion and, without being an expert on these muzzles i am unsure as to what there limitations may be?

I think it is the reasponsibility of a yard owner to provide paddocks ror those horses who may suffer from 'overreating. The yard near me has a smaller paddock which at least 6 or so of the horses are in every morninga dn then I think they afre turned out to the larger fields with the rest later on. The fields are alternately grazed by sheep also which i think keeps the lushness of the grass in order. Management is the key in my opinion and I do have a concern (it seems to have happened on one yard i know) that these muzzles have become more a fashion thing "oooh, so and so has one so I'll get one" than actually necessary for some horses.

There are probbaly cases that do warrant the use of these but personally i would only ever consider using one as a last resort. For now, I shall leave my 4 in their temporary electric fenced parts of their field (approx 3 acres each time), they have plenty of room to run about, groom each other and be horses!
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I'm for using them as a part of managing weight, but wouldn't like the idea of a pony wearing one 24/7.
I'm using mine in combination with electric fence to limit grazing area and we're going to 'borrow' some sheep to help keep our grass down over summer this year, once I've finished treating the docks.
My main problem with it is that my welshie has an ectopic tooth root (horrid big lump under his chin) that it rubs on, so just putting it on him during the day and leaving it off at night, but keeping a very close eye on him.
 
Definately for - I have always been on yards where I cannot control the fencing/field arrangements so it's been turned out in nice big fields or staying in. I know what my horse would prefer!

I cut the hold a bit bigger to allow him a bit more grass though.
 
in my opinion limited grazing doesn't neccessarily mean being turned out alone, we have small paddocks where 2/3 horses are in them. These are rotated. Therefore they have limited grazing for the number of horses but still have the abilty of be a herd. Also surely by muzzling them you are infact limiting their ability to interact with the herd as surely grooming is impossible in a muzzle

I can understand for medical conditions the use of muzzles but personally feel there are better ways of helping with weight loss.

Pickle may occastionaly loose weight due to anemia but he still piles on the pounds like any other horse the rest of the time!

I never said the word cruel, which seems to be mentioned over and over again, I just thought that there were better methods possible!
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maybe possible in a greenguard one but what about the shires bucket type ones that seem to be everwhere, they certainly don't look like you can
 
I'm for and George is in one at the moment, he is a strapping 16.3 and I don't like the idea of him being in a small paddock where he can't gallop if he wants to. I would far rather a muzzle and a nice big field than him get fatter - just my opinion of course. If the grass gets parched it will come off and he doesn't wear it in the winter or 24/7.
 
i would rather muzzle than deal with Lammi again. And may i also point out that stressed grass is just the same as lush. Do not be deceived by a bare paddock.
 
Jess i can understand some of your points. But im all for a muzzle.
Have you ever had first hand experience with Lammi?
Believe it or not but my boy got Lammi 2nd time around on a bare paddock - stressed grass. You are running a huge risk with a ex Lammi thinking that bare paddocks are the answer - believe me they are not. I would rather muzzle mine up - and give him the freedom with his herd rather than separating him off into a bare paddock. You have to look at each situation!
 
Well my ID wouldn't be turned out alone, and my other two are very poor doers, so in the summer time need to gorge on rich grass, so muzzle is the way to go for me, greenguards are amazing, the only alternative for me would be to stand him in all day long, and that, IMO, would be harsh on a big horse like Herc.
 
I have tried using one on my little fat pony as he is in a large field and sectioning off is not an option. Unfortunately he is now a dab hand at getting it off. I've tried making the hole bigger and making the fastenings tighter but he has enrolled his bigger friend into the "remove my muzzle" club
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