Those with horses aggressive about their feed.

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fornema

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How do you deal with it ? as have never had a horse who is vicious around food until now irrelevant of if another horse is there or not and will lash out with teeth if you so much as walk past.
 
I have never had anything properly aggressive - however I would always leave a horse to eat it's feed in peace, so essentially avoiding the issue :)
 
I had a food aggressive horse, not with hay mind just food that was presented in a bowl.

I just left him well alone whilst eating, he was fine in all other ways I figured I could just give him the 10 mins he wanted alone to eat his meal.
 
Ive fingers crossed never had one before now. Mine all get left alone to eat this is not the problem however she can be aggressive when you continue to walk across the field with further feeds for other horses once she has hers which cannot be avoided currently, otherwise the sweetest horse. Similarly she is not aggressive with hay.
 
Without changing the set up I'm not sure what to suggest? Unless you feed her last and make a quick exit from the field so your not walking through whilst she's eating?
 
Our home breds are never a problem, but we have a mare we purchased who is very aggressive with her food. It makes me think that in the past another horse has stolen her feed.

As said above we leave her alone to eat in peace.
 
My pony was pretty agressive when I first got him. Transpires previous owners used to go up and feed him some days but not others (he lived out) so he was just territorial about his food bless him.

I just have him plenty of space to eat and never bothered him till he'd finished (and fed away from others when he was out in the summer) - over time he relaxed and I could go near him no problem but I always had to be careful with other horses around (once got too blasé and walked past him and another horse with his feed and got caught in the middle and booted in the leg. My fault!)
 
Our ex racer can be food aggressive, he is at the point now when.you go in the stable with feed he will pull faces and throw his head around but he stays out of my space and I can change rugs while he is eating too as well as move feed bowls over. Same with my dogs of I want to move food it gets moved and they lump it.

Though it did take months for him to get to this and one time he launch at me over the door to get the food, acting on instinct I dropped bowls and punched him on the muzzle. Yell at me all you want but that was the turning point, still had odd back ward days but I just have to tell.him.to shut up.
Not saying you should punch your horse op as mine was a reflex as teeth were coming at my face but it takes months and body language is the key.

Don't be all bolshy going in, quiet body language in to the point where feed bowls go and put on floor and back away untill you can trust not to charge at you. If they do we used to stamp foot and clap hands together which shocked him in to going back to food.

Took a long time but we have just about got to a good point.

Hope some.of that helps
 
The first time I fed my pony he nearly sent me flying. He was all teeth too. I had to square up to him many times before he got the message. I took a whip with me for a few times, but never needed to hit him with it. He was also bargy about his hay. He will now let me put his feed down and tie haynets without any agro. I kept making him back away with the haynets. I still have to tell him to wait, but he is safe to feed now. He still mildly threatens if I have to go near him while feeding but that is all. He knows he will be driven away from his feed if he does more than that. I also make sure that the other ponies cannot interfere with him while he is having a bowl feed. That has helped too. It did take quite a while for him to realize that if he threatened me he got driven away and had to wait longer for his feed, and was not allowed to approach unless he was polite. If time is very short, I can pick up droppings around him while he feeds now. It is not often that I have to do that, he is usually left to feed in peace.
 
They are usually bowl aggressive I have found so put food on the floor.. and then practising taking empty buckets off them or with a handful of nuts.
 
Make a stable sized pen with electric fence and put her in there with her bucket feed. You can then feed the other horses safely. Once everyone has finished eating, let her out of the pen.
 
Rollin said:
Our home breds are never a problem, but we have a mare we purchased who is very aggressive with her food. It makes me think that in the past another horse has stolen her feed.

As said above we leave her alone to eat in peace.
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I feel like this is the root of the problem and it will likely just be a time and patience game to make her realise it won't be removed, however it makes me slightly wary to turn her out with my other 2 in case it is also problem with horses as well as humans.
 
My tb was food aggressive, I used to feed him in the field. I would stand one side of the fence and I wouldn't give him his feed bucket until he stood calmly and turned his head away from me. It was safe, easy and effective. One day I did actually need to do something when he was eating and as we'd worked hard on the above he let me, I didn't routinely faf with him whilst he was eating.

It's also pretty much how I trained the dog to wait for food, his bowl wouldn't get put on the floor unless he sat nicely.
 
One was teased with food before we had him but apart from stamping of feet and the occasional flick of teeth he's ok. My mare used to be but then she was starved 4 years later she's is 100 % better and no longer panics around feed time, she's not aggressive with people but will kick with horses although never the old boy who can eat from her bucket.
 
Mine was aggressive around food when I got him, including hay and moving the electric fencing to give more grass (basically anything edible). Otherwise the nicest horse to be around. I also absolutely insisted on him stepping backwards and turning his head away before he got anything. Any truly aggressive behaviour and he was left to it, no food (or hay, grass etc.). He threw a few major tantrums but it didn't take him long to twig what worked and what didn't, the key was making sure I was always safe to simply leave him to it (i.e. always on the other side of a fence, door etc.) until he had figured it out. These days I can do anything (including picking out feet) with him whilst he eats, although I generally leave him be if I can.

When feeding in the field I have a stable-size electric fencing pen set up, he comes into there and is fed first and then the other horse is fed. He is not allowed out until the other has finished. They are both very happy with this arrangement, he likes to know he gets his first and his companion is able to eat in peace.
 
The old girl was awful with food for years. She had been teased with food as a youngster, and it has taken a long time to make her easy around food. Her problem was not having had a regular supply of food previously. Since she has lived out she has been better, but before that it was a case of being consistent with her. Now she is always out, and given ad lib haylage in the winter, she will now allow another horse to share her food, which was unthinkable a few years ago. Pens at feed time are a great help if you have horses getting different amounts, or I tie them up.
 
I bought a youngster who had been kept very short of food. She was very protective of even hay if people were around. At first we put her hay and bucket feed in her stable before bringing her in but luckily the yard we were on had a walk-way behind the boxes with just a grille separating the horses from the walk-way. We would put her in the box with her bucket and plenty of hay and then stand behind the grille. If she wanted to eat the hay she had to put up with us standing there and no matter how much she pulled faces at us we were in no danger from her. It certainly wasn't safe to go in the box with her at that point. Over the years she relaxed and would bring hay to us to show, especially at the beginning of each winter when hay was a novelty. We could go into he box and do anything with/around her with no problem.
As for the bucket feeds, when she and our other mare were fed in summer, we used to take the buckets and hold them as the horses ate over the wall, the other mare (who was the boss)was never allowed to move her away from her feed. She got used to being able to eat in peace with us in close proximity - it just took time, consistency and patience.
 
I posted about this horse the other day on the "nasty horse" thread. Not mine but on a yard I used to live at. He was a hunter, over 17hh and came from a barn environment where he had to fight to get his feed. As soon as he heard the sound of food being prepared he was off, head tossing, whinnying, baring teeth, pacing, circling, snorting. I was genuinely really scared of him and only fed him twice. What the owner did was to say "go back" and he would do a circle of his stable, when he was furthest away from the door she would lob the feed in and my god would he storm at you with the most horrible face I've ever seen on a horse! Once he had his feed in there you never went within 6ft of his stable door. Terrifying to be honest. Owners boyfriend did manage some success by making him eat out of his feed bucket while he held it but I think patience and calm would have worked better than his aggression and arm waving as it just wound the horse up thinking he was in for a beating.

I have absolutely no idea how on earth you would tackle something like this but obviously any possible health issues should be your starting point. After that I would just say time, patience and make sure you are well protected (hat, body protector etc) when dealing with the horse.
 
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