Strange behaviour

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weebarney

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I've had my thoroughbred mare for 12 years. For around the last 4 years she displays strange behaviour in the field. She stays in one spot of the field. When I take the horses their feed they all come running except for her, she just stands there and watches and I have to take her feed over. If she does wander into a different part of the field and I turn up to feed her she will turn and run away from me to get back to her corner. She is also terrible for trying to change her rug in the field, so bad that I think I will not bother rugging her this winter but if I was to change her rug in the stable she'd be ok. We had to divide the field up just to get her to go to different parts of it and to get her to use the shelters which she loves but wouldn't use them as they weren't in her corner.
Has anyone experience of this ? Is it a deficiency or is it mental problems?
 
I had a arab like this, turns out a second horse was picking on him and the corner was the only place that the second horse would leave him aloune. Even after the second horse stopped picking on him he still would not move form "his" corner. We had to start stabling him and using a different field to stop him.

Good luck with your horse :)
 
I had a gelding years ago who had similar behaviour issues. He would stand visibly shivering in one corner of the field (which he would bolt to when turned out) BUT - only if wearing a rug. As soon as you removed rug he would stop shivering - even when fully clipped in winter. (Although he was happy to wear lots of rugs in the stable/travelling.) If you led him from his corner to the middle of the field, as soon as you let go he would gallop flat out back to his corner. He could not be enticed out with food. He acted like this in the field from the age of 4 until he was PTS aged 21. We know he had a dreadful time being broken that left him totally traumatised. He was unbelievably difficult to get on - it was like backing a horse for the first time - every time. He was fab to ride once you'd got on - as long as he moved forward sensibly you knew he'd be fine, he never ever rodeo'd once you'd been on him for a couple of minutes and he was an excellent showjumper. We put his weird field behaviour down to the psychological damage that was done when he was broken - it was all to do with panicking when something moved on his back - e.g. rug. In the end we gave up with rugs - in the winter just let him have short stays in the field without a rug. (I tried every type of rug known to man - x surcingles, belly straps, no surcingles, spider fastenings, cotton lined, silky linings, etc etc and it made no difference). We decided it was a manageable problem that was worth it as he was otherwise such a good horse. Just had to work round his rug in field issues and never ever rush him to get on.
 
Yes your horse does sound very similar. Her behaviour got a bit better when we split the field up but then i decided to put a rug on for winter and it just triggered her off again, and she is still not good even now the rug is off.
 
Yes - every time we persisted with a rug it could take a while for him to calm down. In his later years he got quite attached to another gelding who we used to joke was his "portal" as he was much happier when this particular horse was in the field with him. Didn't call for him or anything dramatic, but would hang out with him in the field. Mine was also a crib biter at feed time - we think he'd been pretty much starved in Ireland as a youngster. He was a very weedy 15.2 ish at 4 and a strapping 17h at 6 after being well fed.
 
My friends mare used to do something very similar but would also run in blind panic round the field. Once the rug was removed she would calm right down. She will wear rugs in the stable no problem!
 
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