harleterri
New User
Hello,
I have a 14 year old mare called Kara and I've had her since December last year. Having previously owned a 5 year old gelding who damaged my confidence, she's certainly built it all back up again in the 9 months I've owned her. Completely bombproof, total confidence giver.. Or so I thought.
I'm due for scoliosis surgery next month and due to the pain I hadn't ridden her in 3 weeks and we also brought someone in to help us with the riding whilst I'm unable to. Normally Kara would be fine without being ridden in a few weeks, wouldn't change at all. However, since we started riding her again she's not really herself. Spooky, bolshy and even bolting - mainly with the new rider, Sarah.
The only differences in her routine other than not being ridden is being separated from the three other horses she was with in the field (she's a bit of a bully - bitten and possibly kicked at another horse) and we've added electrosalts to her feed as I was recommended this by a friend (Kara can get very lazy and overheat quickly). One other puzzling change to Kara's behaviour is drinking from the field. She will not drink from the buckets in her section of the field, but if you take her to a trough outside her field she'll drink loads. We've tried a selection of buckets but she still refuses and will then drink an entire bucketful of water when she comes in at night.
Could she be getting dehydrated from adding the electrosalts to her feed, and then not drinking during the day when she's in the field? Could this cause her to be spooky? Seems far-fetched but its the only thing I can think of!
We've stopped adding the salts to see how she goes but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas.
Thanks in advance, any advice/criticism welcome! Just want my girl happy again.
I have a 14 year old mare called Kara and I've had her since December last year. Having previously owned a 5 year old gelding who damaged my confidence, she's certainly built it all back up again in the 9 months I've owned her. Completely bombproof, total confidence giver.. Or so I thought.
I'm due for scoliosis surgery next month and due to the pain I hadn't ridden her in 3 weeks and we also brought someone in to help us with the riding whilst I'm unable to. Normally Kara would be fine without being ridden in a few weeks, wouldn't change at all. However, since we started riding her again she's not really herself. Spooky, bolshy and even bolting - mainly with the new rider, Sarah.
The only differences in her routine other than not being ridden is being separated from the three other horses she was with in the field (she's a bit of a bully - bitten and possibly kicked at another horse) and we've added electrosalts to her feed as I was recommended this by a friend (Kara can get very lazy and overheat quickly). One other puzzling change to Kara's behaviour is drinking from the field. She will not drink from the buckets in her section of the field, but if you take her to a trough outside her field she'll drink loads. We've tried a selection of buckets but she still refuses and will then drink an entire bucketful of water when she comes in at night.
Could she be getting dehydrated from adding the electrosalts to her feed, and then not drinking during the day when she's in the field? Could this cause her to be spooky? Seems far-fetched but its the only thing I can think of!
We've stopped adding the salts to see how she goes but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas.
Thanks in advance, any advice/criticism welcome! Just want my girl happy again.