sensitive skin??

[Olliepoppy]

My cob has a coat like a woolly mammoth just now. Recently he has been fidgety when grooming. This only happens on his barrel, if I move onto his neck, chest, mane etc he stands still again. He rolls quite a lot so gets muddy, could I be causing him discomfort brushing him when there is mud in his coat? He also looks round like they do when a fly irritates them. Has anyone experienced anything similar??

 

[curio]

try being firm with the brush you may just be tickling him or try a softer brush. also is he well fed getting enough grass, or hay as one of mine will be grumpy grooming his barrel if hes hungry, a if not enough fiber is going through the stomach there is a build up of acid which gets uncomfortable, and can cause ulcers

 

[Olliepoppy]

He's well fed, plenty of grass plus ad lib hay which he mostly ignores, and his fave carrots have tried a softer brush. He's got the same brushes I've always used so I'm not sure why he's getting fidgety

 

[Shay]

You're not likely to be hurting him getting the mud off - but he might prefer a different method. Also I know from my cob that their coat can be much denser than the finer warmbloods so you actually need a but more elbow grease (no pun intended!) to get through it. You could try a magic brush - my lad loves them. They get the mud off and get through the coat for a nice scratch. But before that we used to use a rubber curry to remove dried mud. Or clip and rug I suppose!

 

[Olliepoppy]

He was worst with the rubber curry so I went back to scraping off the worst mud gently with the deshedder then using the dandy brush. That worked ok the first time but the next time he didn't seem to approve of even that. My OH said he'd stopped in the field one day and used his mane/tail brush all over his body roughly and he didn't pay any attention whatsoever as he was eating! Maybe he's just having me on....