new horse spooking

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Horsekaren

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Hi
I am looking for a bit of advise, I have a new horse who I have now owned for 6 weeks. He is a very good calm boy most of the time but over the last 2 weeks he has seemed to got a lot more spooky. When riding in the school he has started to spook and run away from the corners and the smallest little noise in bushes. I am trying to understand why he is behaving like this. He is a very good novice type horse to ride (or at least has been) but lately he is starting to knock my confidence because I am now nervous that he is just going to spook an run away all the time.
I have had his feet/ teeth checked and I have a saddle fitter booked.
Further to the spooking I have noticed he has become very itchy over the last couple of weeks since the change in weather and I trying to treat this.
Any tips or advise would be really appreciated, he is my first horse, he has sooooo many good qualities and I know it takes a lot of time and hard work to bond but at the moment I am just nervous getting on him :(
Thanks!
 
Horsekaren said:
Hi
I am looking for a bit of advise, I have a new horse who I have now owned for 6 weeks. He is a very good calm boy most of the time but over the last 2 weeks he has seemed to got a lot more spooky. When riding in the school he has started to spook and run away from the corners and the smallest little noise in bushes. I am trying to understand why he is behaving like this. He is a very good novice type horse to ride (or at least has been) but lately he is starting to knock my confidence because I am now nervous that he is just going to spook an run away all the time.
I have had his feet/ teeth checked and I have a saddle fitter booked.
Further to the spooking I have noticed he has become very itchy over the last couple of weeks since the change in weather and I trying to treat this.
Any tips or advise would be really appreciated, he is my first horse, he has sooooo many good qualities and I know it takes a lot of time and hard work to bond but at the moment I am just nervous getting on him :(
Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sounds like he is just being a horse! Honeymoon period is wearing off, he is reacting a little to your nervousness.
He might be itchy due to moulting/getting too hot.

My advice would be to get the rugs off if you haven't already, cut out hard feed and get an instructor in regularly (twice a week to start with) to help you.

Spring grass can make them spooky so it could well be just that
 
Horsekaren said:
Hi
I am looking for a bit of advise, I have a new horse who I have now owned for 6 weeks. He is a very good calm boy most of the time but over the last 2 weeks he has seemed to got a lot more spooky. When riding in the school he has started to spook and run away from the corners and the smallest little noise in bushes. I am trying to understand why he is behaving like this. He is a very good novice type horse to ride (or at least has been) but lately he is starting to knock my confidence because I am now nervous that he is just going to spook an run away all the time.
I have had his feet/ teeth checked and I have a saddle fitter booked.
Further to the spooking I have noticed he has become very itchy over the last couple of weeks since the change in weather and I trying to treat this.
Any tips or advise would be really appreciated, he is my first horse, he has sooooo many good qualities and I know it takes a lot of time and hard work to bond but at the moment I am just nervous getting on him :(
Thanks!
Click to expand...
You say he is very itchy, but is this over his quarters that he's been rubbing?Is his tail rubbed out.Friends horse has pinworm and she is having a nightmare with treating it as its very resistant. He can be very nervous at times in his stable she's noticed more, apparently this is one of the symptoms of pinworm tha tit can make horses nervous.
 
Ditto ihatework's spring grass comment. You could try supplementing magnesium (you can get good quality magnesium oxide from Progressive Earth, a teaspoon a day is enough) as spring grass is very low in magnesium and some horses become deficient. It will make a difference fairly quickly if it is an issue.

I'd also getting the itchiness investigated, it's more likely to be linked to diet (sugar) or coat change / over-rugging than a change in weather.
 
I haven't seen him itch his hind more than any other part of his body, seems to be his belly, feathers and neck mostly effected. I did read up on pin worm but ruled it out as it seemed to be the wrong part xx
 
I have been thinking long and hard about diet, I have had him on a hay only diet, as much as he likes, literally a bale a day, he is out grazing for 12 hours a day (not much grass out there just yet) and limitless hay through out the night.
I tried to introduce the old feed his previous owner use to feed him before he began started to choke on his first feed (dengi Hifi molasses free) since then I have been super cautious. I don't think he is having a Sugar overload as that is exactly what I am trying to avoid. would be great to hear your thoughts on this! :) xx
 
that is interesting, I didn't realize Spring grass can have effect like that! he has been on a hay only diet for the last 6 weeks (about a bale a night and 12 hours grazing in the day). He is quiet thin at the moment but not silly thin, he came to me this way and I chose to go down the hay route rather than hard feed as I was aware the grass season is coming and he will likely balloon! ... if he doesn't my plan is hard feed :)
 
Don't underestimate the amount of grass available in an apparently bare paddock, it may only be bare as the horses are eating it as fast as it comes though but they could still be getting a significant amount of the high-sugar, low magnesium new shoots. Just because you cant see the grass doesn't mean to say its not growing....
 
Ditto the above with the diet. Aside from that ,unfortunately nervous riders and a spooky horse creates a vicious cycle. I have one that spooks and darts about with one rider on , and if she dismount and I get on, he turns in to a bombproof schoolmaster (I ride very relaxed and not much bothers me) Could you stick a confident rider on and see if that helps?
 
My draft with feathers has just had a dectomax injection for mites. He's a very, very sweet horse but they drive him mad and his behaviour can get a bit erratic - he just wants to scratch all the time.

The 3 areas you mention are his main areas for itching.
 
Also had a feathery type with mites that drove him mad, he had an injection used for cattle I think (couldn't tell you what it was), it sorted the problem anyway. He would chew his legs up.
 
There's nothing wrong with feeding a forage only diet but you do need to supplement it with a 'balancer' to make sure the horse gets all the vitamins and minerals he needs. There are a few balancers on the market that are designed to balance typical U.K. forage (none of the big name brands sadly!), they include Progressive Earth's Pro-Balance and Pro-Hoof and Equinatural's Equivita. I'd recommend feeding a small amount of something like speedibeet with the recommended amount of one of those balancers in addition to his hay and grass.
 
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