Severe Separation Anxiety

[exracehorse]

Unfortunately turning him out in a herd or with another horse makes him worse. This yard is wonderful and the only yard that has accepted him for who he is, the liveries don’t complain about his issues and they treat him as an individual.
In summer he was absolutely fine with the individual turn out and would come in to the barn happily on his own.

Come winter….its a whole different story. The paddocks are smaller and they are out for less time but he is actually much happier in than out.

I agree that he can’t compete like this and I agree that I cannot find a loaner even if kept at his current yard.

He is a very unhappy, stressed out horse and yes, he will become a danger to himself if I cannot help him.

4.5 years of this is a lot for any horse owner to deal with and deal with and try to help him I have as I adore him.

I’m sorry. It sounds horrendous. And after nearly 5 years of this behaviour, which is clearly getting worse, then I’d be pulling the plug. I had issues with an ex racer who was similar to you. Summer was ok ish, winter was awful. And behaviour under saddle was dangerous. He was on every calmer under the sun. And was scouped clear. I think he either had some sort of brain tumour or was literally having a mental breakdown. It affected me as well, I dreaded the bringing in. The trashed fields. It was a miserable partnership. I called it a day in the end. And had him shot. When I then got my next horse Indy, it was such a relief to have a normal horse.

 

[Traks]

I’m sorry. It sounds horrendous. And after nearly 5 years of this behaviour, which is clearly getting worse, then I’d be pulling the plug. I had issues with an ex racer who was similar to you. Summer was ok ish, winter was awful. And behaviour under saddle was dangerous. He was on every calmer under the sun. And was scouped clear. I think he either had some sort of brain tumour or was literally having a mental breakdown. It affected me as well, I dreaded the bringing in. The trashed fields. It was a miserable partnership. I called it a day in the end. And had him shot. When I then got my next horse Indy, it was such a relief to have a normal horse.

Id agree with this, you've tried your best but horse ownership is meant to be enjoyable at the end of the day and this sounds like a total nightmare for the horse and you! Competing this horse would be an absolute no go for me, plus you've effectively ruled out all suggestions so I think PTS is the kindest thing to do for him and you. Sending hugs x

 

[CluelessShowjumper]

The saracens is loaded with soya hulls, beans and oil - which for many horses in this forum triggers gut/behavioural issues. There is just intolerance to 1 ingredient to consider which can send some horses over the edge, especially if fed daily. Alfalfa is another trigger reported on here often.
Legumes can be a bit tricky for horses because of the way they are digested. Out in the wild their exposure to legumes are extremely limited, and their physiology hasn’t necessarily developed over the ‘relatively short domesticated’ years to handle such feed stuffs in fair bulk daily.

Also soya oil in saracens has a ratio of more omega 6 to 3 oils. When he was out at grass the omega 3 in that would have helped balance out the soya oil heavy omega 6 dose. But as grass consumption drastically drops during winter, the inflammatory omega 6 from Releve soy oil dominates their system, while anti-inflammatory omega 3 from grass drops significantly. In humans the brain effects from omega 3&6 are studied, and there’s a relief of depressive/headache brain states in some who increase omega 3.

The saracens also has a wonky electrolyte ratio - which if we consider hay also has a wonky electrolyte balance, and you’re adding extra electrolytes - let’s assume that’s a balanced mix for ease - it still could mean the electrolytes are out of whack….which only gets more pronounced as time goes on, which generally fits with owners declaring ‘they’ve got worse slowly over time’, accounting for ever increasing imbalance occuring.

If the horse is otherwise healthy, talented and everything you could have wished for despite this behaviour, I’d consider an equine nutritionist consultation to check and see every single thing you’re giving him is within tolerable ranges. It’s very easy with multi supplemental feeds to unknowingly feed imbalanced macro-nutrients, or be feeding 1 ingredient that particular horse just cannot tolerate.

Soya has dominated horse feeds now, because it’s so bloody cheap in bulk, and my own horses handle just a certain dose, and no more, or they are spicy.
Sometimes it’s not the feed per se, but the dose.
A nutritionist can help zoom in glaring obvious imbalances that feed companies just won’t ever admit to their products being imbalanced.

Sometimes, it’s recommended to strip the feed right down to hay/forage/grass, balanced electrolytes with balanced minerals + water. Get everything else out of their system and see what their baseline is, then re-introduce feeds slowly, to see if there’s a culprit to be identified.
As he is in regular work, those nutritional balances matter, and will become more obvious than a horse at rest/retired.

Thank you for this.

It makes perfect sense.

However regarding the soya - he was on full fat soya (pure) before when he lost a lot of weight due to the stress of a yard move and he don’t show any of the signs he’s showing now.

Also very interesting as the Releve is promoted as a gut friendly feed….how can they promote this if it contains far from ideal content (food for thought).

 

[I'm Dun]

Unfortunately he needs to be on a proper feed, else he loses weight.
Again, this hasn’t happened to this extreme in summer. So I don’t disagree that it may have something to do with the minerals. And something I hadn’t thought about.

I will order some magnesium and get a vits and mins supplement.

So add linseed, and/or rice bran. I think until you rule out diet you need to keep it as simple as possible. Some of them react badly to the weirdest things!

 

[I'm Dun]

Thank you for this.

It makes perfect sense.

However regarding the soya - he was on full fat soya (pure) before when he lost a lot of weight due to the stress of a yard move and he don’t show any of the signs he’s showing now.

Also very interesting as the Releve is promoted as a gut friendly feed….how can they promote this if it contains far from ideal content (food for thought).

Welcome to realising commercial feeds arent quite what they say! I do like releve for fussy eaters and it does a good job, but some horses cant cope with it. I'd also add oily herbs, I forget them earlier. They did magical things for my TB, are dirt cheap and wont do any harm at all while acting as a gut supplement with no extras in he could react to.

 

[PurBee]

Thank you for this.

It makes perfect sense.

However regarding the soya - he was on full fat soya (pure) before when he lost a lot of weight due to the stress of a yard move and he don’t show any of the signs he’s showing now.

Also very interesting as the Releve is promoted as a gut friendly feed….how can they promote this if it contains far from ideal content (food for thought).

That’s good news about the soya tolerance - was it soya hulls, bean or oil? Releve has all 3, and it could be a case of he’s fine with full fat ground bean meal, but cannot tolerate concentrate oil or hulls.
It’s the hulls mine are sensitive to beyond a certain dose.

If you are considering switching the Releve for proper green grass nuts, it would be a good test - the nuts help to replace the kilo’s of grass in winter he doesn’t get when the grass stops growing. It’s just a way to see if that grass intake consistency is what he needs most.
What’s his summer paddock like for grass quality and growth? Is it a dark green colour and there’s a good length to it to graze? Or is it more pale green looking and fairly short/over-grazed?

 

[CluelessShowjumper]

So add linseed, and/or rice bran. I think until you rule out diet you need to keep it as simple as possible. Some of them react badly to the weirdest things!

He is getting linseed. I totally missed that out

 

[CluelessShowjumper]

Welcome to realising commercial feeds arent quite what they say! I do like releve for fussy eaters and it does a good job, but some horses cant cope with it. I'd also add oily herbs, I forget them earlier. They did magical things for my TB, are dirt cheap and wont do any harm at all while acting as a gut supplement with no extras in he could react to.

Can you recommend any oily herbs?

 

[CluelessShowjumper]

That’s good news about the soya tolerance - was it soya hulls, bean or oil? Releve has all 3, and it could be a case of he’s fine with full fat ground bean meal, but cannot tolerate concentrate oil or hulls.
It’s the hulls mine are sensitive to beyond a certain dose.

If you are considering switching the Releve for proper green grass nuts, it would be a good test - the nuts help to replace the kilo’s of grass in winter he doesn’t get when the grass stops growing. It’s just a way to see if that grass intake consistency is what he needs most.
What’s his summer paddock like for grass quality and growth? Is it a dark green colour and there’s a good length to it to graze? Or is it more pale green looking and fairly short/over-grazed?

He was getting the bean meal.

I’m very lucky with grazing. I’m on a working farm with very well managed fields. We have lovely green grass that seems to grow the whole summer. We never run out, fields never go bare. In fact today I was super surprised at the growth in the summer fields already.

 

[FieldOrnaments]

Tangent but...
What we would consider very good grazing isn't really what horses were designed for; it tends to be red fescue, ryegrasses, often has red&white clover mixed in. This means it has skyhigh levels of nitrogen, potassium and - when actively growing, which is any time ambient temperature is above 5°c - fructans. Horses are designed for low sugar, lignified grasses with a low moisture level, low levels of nitrogen and potassium and deviations from this affect gut flora (different species of bacteria utilised simple sugars, for instance, than those that break down lignin) which can influence behavior because of the compounds produced as byproducts of the bacterial processing.

 

[Ali27]

Also worth checking out “Calm Healthy Horses” website! As Fieldornaments says, grass can cause issues too! I’ve used their GrazeEezy supplement before on my girl with separation anxiety and it helped massively!

 

[Ample Prosecco]

I am sorry you are going through this. I think the feed angle is well worth trying and I’m in awe of the wealth of knowledge of some posters on that. But also just wanted to say it’s ok to PTS even if you can’t find something ‘wrong’ when the behaviour is clearly signalling high levels of distress.

I know once put down a 6 year old pony who was never diagnosed with anything really (a few red herrings showed up when we threw the diagnostic book at her, including 2 hospital stays and full body scintigraphy) but her behaviour never improved even when issues uncovered resolved. To this day I don’t know why her behaviour was so odd, but it I’ve never doubted the decision.

 

[mariew]

I know it's unlikely to help much but my I'd reacted quite badly to brewers yeast. She got really nutty so I took her off it.

 

[PurBee]

He was getting the bean meal.

I’m very lucky with grazing. I’m on a working farm with very well managed fields. We have lovely green grass that seems to grow the whole summer. We never run out, fields never go bare. In fact today I was super surprised at the growth in the summer fields already.

That confirms moreso my suspicion that maybe electrolytes imbalance could be the primary nutritional cause, if it is nutritional, and as the behaviour is seasonal it helps to track nutritional difference between the seasons.

Green grass contains magnesium, because the green colour in plants is chlorophyll - and that can only form in the presence of magnesium, because magnesium is the central molecule of its structure. So green grass, especially well growing green grass has plenty of magnesium. Horses eat kilo’s per day grazing in summer, so the dose of magnesium they get from that type of ‘healthy’ green-green grass is considerable.
When we have soils lacking in magnesium grass colour goes light green, or sickly yellowish green. Many over-grazed paddocks are easily depleted to these states.

I’m not focusing on whether green grass is good or not for horses, as that’s a discussion for another day. There are horses who do well on it, and those that don’t, for various reasons.

I’m more focused on magnesium because that’s water soluble, and it’s these water soluble nutrients that reduce fairly quickly when dose is significantly altered in the diet, they can show fairly quick downstream effects and symptoms. The vitamin E,A,D and omega from grass and summer grazing lifestyle are oil soluble so the body generally has a good store of these nutrients going into winter - IF the grazing is adequate to supply plenty of these nutrients, which your paddocks sound like they’re lush enough to do.

He’d be eating some @50kg green grass daily as a conservative estimate - eating hay is a different feed stuff, it’s the seed head and stalk, and a small % of green leaf with the hay, so the switch over to more hay during winter as summer grass grazing reduces, for a horse on very good grazing, is an alternative feed source, but nutritionally very different in terms of mag alone.

Im factoring in he’s a TB in medium work too and not a naturally more docile breed in light work. The nervous system is regulated by magnesium alongside muscles and heart. Energy production requires magnesium to make 1 ATP energy molecule. So for a horse on lush magnesium-heavy green-grass grazing to then have a relatively quick switch to more hay over grass - the nutrient that is lost in the exchange of summer to winter diet and essential for energy/nerves/muscles function stability is magnesium.

If you had said the grazing is poor, short, over-grazed, patchy and yellowish, the magnesium theory for seasonal behaviour induced diet change wouldn’t be so relevent, or worthy of exploration by supplementing, because poor grazing is deficient in many things, and he’d be having these issues year-round.
It might not be diet-related at all, but for 2 weeks trial of a slow low dose magnesium build-up to observe any change, is a relatively quick easy trial that might help. There’s that chance.

 

[CluelessShowjumper]

That confirms moreso my suspicion that maybe electrolytes imbalance could be the primary nutritional cause, if it is nutritional, and as the behaviour is seasonal it helps to track nutritional difference between the seasons.

Green grass contains magnesium, because the green colour in plants is chlorophyll - and that can only form in the presence of magnesium, because magnesium is the central molecule of its structure. So green grass, especially well growing green grass has plenty of magnesium. Horses eat kilo’s per day grazing in summer, so the dose of magnesium they get from that type of ‘healthy’ green-green grass is considerable.
When we have soils lacking in magnesium grass colour goes light green, or sickly yellowish green. Many over-grazed paddocks are easily depleted to these states.

I’m not focusing on whether green grass is good or not for horses, as that’s a discussion for another day. There are horses who do well on it, and those that don’t, for various reasons.

I’m more focused on magnesium because that’s water soluble, and it’s these water soluble nutrients that reduce fairly quickly when dose is significantly altered in the diet, they can show fairly quick downstream effects and symptoms. The vitamin E,A,D and omega from grass and summer grazing lifestyle are oil soluble so the body generally has a good store of these nutrients going into winter - IF the grazing is adequate to supply plenty of these nutrients, which your paddocks sound like they’re lush enough to do.

He’d be eating some @50kg green grass daily as a conservative estimate - eating hay is a different feed stuff, it’s the seed head and stalk, and a small % of green leaf with the hay, so the switch over to more hay during winter as summer grass grazing reduces, for a horse on very good grazing, is an alternative feed source, but nutritionally very different in terms of mag alone.

Im factoring in he’s a TB in medium work too and not a naturally more docile breed in light work. The nervous system is regulated by magnesium alongside muscles and heart. Energy production requires magnesium to make 1 ATP energy molecule. So for a horse on lush magnesium-heavy green-grass grazing to then have a relatively quick switch to more hay over grass - the nutrient that is lost in the exchange of summer to winter diet and essential for energy/nerves/muscles function stability is magnesium.

If you had said the grazing is poor, short, over-grazed, patchy and yellowish, the magnesium theory for seasonal behaviour induced diet change wouldn’t be so relevent, or worthy of exploration by supplementing, because poor grazing is deficient in many things, and he’d be having these issues year-round.
It might not be diet-related at all, but for 2 weeks trial of a slow low dose magnesium build-up to observe any change, is a relatively quick easy trial that might help. There’s that chance.

Thank you so much for this.

I will order some MagOx this evening and start adding it as soon as it arrives.