Stress horse

[Bluesparks]

My ex racer is quite stressy in winter months he's usually very quiet to ride but if something worries him he can get really stressed and gets very difficult to handle, he's stressy in the stable and won't stay in alone, sometimes cribs and spins round and stares at anything that moves outside the door! He always wants to go out in a morning but is sensible to lead etc and will stand if I stop, but then he's always as keen to come in at night bug again usually behaves. Because of his intermittent incidents I limit us to hacking and dressage fun rides are wild and not much fun and hound exercise was the same!! I'm not a brave rider anymore (getting old and fallen off too many times!) but am capable and would like to do more, just wondered if a calmer would help to take the edge off his stressy behaviour? He's fed spillers cool fibre and speedi beet with linseed meal a joint supplement and salt, I have no arena and awful fields at this time of year so am limited to hacking really. Any advice welcome thank you

 

[Bluesparks]

Anyone???

 

[be positive]

As no one has replied I will although I am not really a believer in calmers, I think plenty of work, time out, not too much feed, ad lib hay with a reasonably structured routine is enough to keep most horses fairly relaxed but if they are lacking something in their diet it will do no harm trying a calmer to balance out what they get, many seem to suffer from low magnesium which is in nearly all the calmers, it would be worth trying one but for every calmer available you will find someone who thinks it amazing another who says it is useless, trial and error can be expensive so I would suggest getting mag ox and using that first rather than a made up formula.

You say he cribs, that is a sign he may have ulcers, they are more likely to come on when the horse is in more and will be brought on by stress, vicious circle as the more stressed they are the worse they get so they become even more stressed, it may be worth looking into this even if he only cribs at times, could he have a stable mirror to help him relax as he seems to wind himself up, it help may be less anxious in the stable.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I think rather than a calmer, I would be looking at his diet. It is always worth providing an ulcer-friendly forage based diet, as that is best for all horses but it is possible that your horse has particular problems digesting one o f the foods that you are giving him, not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with the food but because it disagrees with him. If at all possible cut his feed back to ad-lib hay and salt for 3 weeks to get everything else out of his system, check the ingredients of your joint supplement and be aware that glucosamine is extremely sweet - I am convinced that it caused my ID tremendous problems, both physical and behavioural. Then add in one ingredient each week, monitoring his reaction to each one carefully. I have found aloe vera very helpful to a mare with suspected ulcers. She is so much improved with a change of diet and av that I haven't had her scoped.