Spring grass...horse very nervy!

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Sasm

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Hi All,

I just wanted to ask if anyone else is experiencing the same as me. My young horse over the past few weeks have become a nervous wreck, very anxious, jumping at the slightest thing.
He has always been brilliant to lead but now i am getting worried!!

I just hope it is the spring grass coming through late and then the sudden drop in temperatures.

Is anyone else having the same problem at the minute??

Thanks
 
Sounds like magnesium deficiency to me - often the case with a flush of grass. Get some Magnesium Oxide and give him a heaped teaspoonful a day and you should see a difference in a couple of weeks.
 
thanks. He is definitley not Mg deficient, so I won't be pumping extra Mg into him.
I have often seen this done and it has made the horses worse!

I am going to try some valerian to see if that takes the edge off him - it is very out of character!
 
Sasm said:
thanks. He is definitley not Mg deficient, so I won't be pumping extra Mg into him.
I have often seen this done and it has made the horses worse!
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Every horse is different and responds differently. For every horse you have seen react badly to Mg (and I seriously doubt the Mg was the cause, it is a naturally occuring mineral and any surplus is excreted) I have seen one who was transformed. Why else would it be the active ingredient in most calmers? It transformed my horse from one who was dangerous to a calm horse who was able to learn. Most of the land in this country is short of magnesium, largely due to the chemical fertilisers used over many years, so unless you have had your land/hay tested or use supplementing as a diagnostic tool you will probably never know.
Your choice - maybe it would pay you to do some research rather than dismissing something out of hand..
 
Try feeding some salt not a lick. Spring grass can be high in potassium I believe and of course high sugar levels in the grass could be tipping him over the edge...

I'm not a fan of 'calmers' but would rather try and work out why behaviour has altered and change things accordingly
 
Sasm

You say he is not deficient in Magnesium. Have you had him blood tested to find out.

A farming friend of mine said that the grass this year is short of Magnesium due to the very wet late summer and winter.

Magnesium is responsible for so many functions in the body that it is worth adding a small amount.
 
I certainly agree every horse is different and I am by no means 'dismissing' something out of hand. My general post was to see how other horses are reaction to the spring grass.

With regards to researching into the area, animal nutrition is actually my profession. Therefore, I quite understand the effects of spring grass and the nutrient composition. When the grass first shoots through, the crude protein level can be over 20% (significantly higher than the average) along with double the levels of sugars. Which is much more likely to cause a change in behaviour!

As he is stabled at night and fed ad lib hay, along with vit/mins in a feed. He is by no means as deficient in minerals as horses out 24/7.
Maybe you understand the nervous system in horse (or animals in general for that matter) physiology? Providing a huge excess of one mineral, as you suggest with Mg, is in most cases counter productive as you are then providing an imbalance of other minerals. Mineral absorption pathways are affected in these situations as other minerals 'fight' for the absorption pathways.
It is also not a case of excess Mg being excreted - this is an area that is not understood and can lead to build up in vital organs. A risk I am not willing to take!

In my opinion the companies have jumped on the band wagon with Mg based calmers, Mg is required for muscle funtion to an extent - but it is only there to aid the delivery of potassium and calcium which actually provide the contract/relax of muscles.
Therefore these calmers should not just be Mg - but a combination if they are to work.
I expect you were not providing a balanced diet to your horse if the Mg did have an effect. I am sure there is a statistic out there where only 20% of horses benefit from a Mg calmer. Makes sense to me!!

So, going back to my original post - I wanted to ask others if their horses are also reacting from the grass at the moment.

Thank you!
 
Sasm said:
Therefore these calmers should not just be Mg - but a combination if they are to work.
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Well, I am not a nutritionist but my common sense says providing what is deficient is the important point. So, testing forage and factoring in other dietary components should get you fairly close and if magnesium is the only deficiency then surely supplementing pure magnesium is appropriate. Magnesium is especially important for IR horses as well. Obviously it is very likely forage is unbalanced and deficient in more than one mineral so testing forage is a good option imho. Forage is the largest part of the diet by far.

My horses usually are restricted from grass for much of the year and especially Spring and Autumn. I have one that never gets more than the odd bit of grass in the yards as it produces laminitis in her.

As for potassium levels in Spring grass.
http://beefmagazine.com/mag/beef_dont_short_salt
http://www.calmhealthyhorses.com/solut/salt.html
http://www.balancedequine.com.au/nutrition/electrolytes.html
 
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My two TB's are definitely on a spring grass high!!
More sharp and spooky than usual, probably not helped by these bladdy wintery gale force winds we keep getting!!
 
I would have thought a professional animal nutritionist would need to know what elements of the diet are available to the animal through their base diet before topping it up to ensure balance. In other words test, if not the animals system, then the foodstuffs it has access to? I'm not a professional but I have had training in equine nutrition and all the data and figures are meaningless unless you know what is in the grass or fodder which is the major part of the diet.
 
Just spotted this. Yes OP my saintly Cob is very jumpy and nervy I have read tons on the subject I am looking into the balancers but short term I will be adding salt to a small fast fibre feed. He also gets grass glands which indicates something is wrong.
He got like this last year too and because he had a bad back I put it down to that this year same again but his back is fine.
 
I just wanted to add to this as well. The first spring I had my TB he changed overnight when the spring grass came through, he couldnt stand still, couldnt concentrate on anything and would visibly stand and tremor, he would also kick out and panic if tied up, he was normally the most chilled out horse on the yard! I likened it to grass staggers in cattle (my family are farmers). I believe the high sugar levels combined with the low levels of magnesium in fast growing grass in the spring, and sometimes in autumn, can effect the nervous system leading to these behaviours. I limited his grass intake and spoke to one of the well known supplement manufacturers who recommended me a mag based product, not pure mag, it had other components. Within a week Che was back to normal, calm and settled. I do know that all horses are different but just thought Id share my experience.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences too!
I have never I seen a horse react so differently to my new horse, so it just goes to show how much it can affect some hotter breeds :)
However, today he is back to his normal lovely self...which is brilliant.
Even though he isn't turned out on lush grass as I think many are just now. It clearly doesn't take much to affect him.
Hopefully our episode is over now...after three weeks!
 
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