My mare began stall kicking last year while being treated for lamintis/founder. She was never locked in her stall, but had access to her 30x20 paddock. She was prevented from going out into the dry lot and track system for a few months.
Coincident with the stall kicking commencing was a huge change in her diet, medications, and supplements, all with the intention of helping her through her acute laminitis crisis. She was put on a number of drugs and NSAIDs that she is no longer on. She was given injectable thyroid, which truly did save her life. She is no longer on that. She was put on large doses of magnesium chloride in solution, which she still is on. She also gets Vermont Blend, iodised salt, and vit E. And she was put on a very strict diet, which she is still on (got 100 lbs off her in 5 months and she still needs to lose another 50#)
The stall kicking began with a vengeance, accompanied by tons of very loud squealing and screaming that alarmed the entire neighborhood (one neighbor down the road came running with a gun, thinking my mare must be fighting off a mountain lion). She severely injured her left hind from the kicking and was 3 legged lame a few days, but got over it. She also punched through the steel siding of the barn exterior. I had to carefully examine her every day for injuries–there were plenty of cuts.
She has always been a defensive kicker around other horses–a behavior I managed to get to go extinct–and if she is irritated under saddle she’ll kick out and pin her ears–but she has never ever kicked her stall before in the ten years I’ve owned her. While I was trying to figure out what was going on, she pretty much smashed her stall to smithereens.
My hunch was that the thyroid injections had made her hyperthyroid, so I put her on ThyroL powder instead and started reducing the dose. When I got her down to about a teaspoon a day, the screaming fits ceased and the nonstop kicking stopped, but she would still do little squeals in the barn aisle and kick the air, and we would still find nails popping out of the wooden stall walls where she shook them loose with kicks.
I got her down to 1/4 tsp of ThyroL and the vet said it was okay to quit giving it to her, but the stall kicking persisted. He did a repro exam and found her ovaries to be perfectly normal for her age, and u/s showed nothing untoward. Rather than run a bunch of blood work that might be inconclusive, he prescribed a trial run of the generic version of ReguMate. In two days of 10ml/day the kicking stopped. We know because we screwed new boards over the old ones, and there were no indents. I left her on ReguMate for a week, then took her off to see if the behavior came back. She was off it only 2 days when the stall kicking resumed and she broke the new boards. So now she’s back on the ReguMate.
Does anyone see anything here that might account for this behavior? Normal repro exam, never did this before, but maybe the thyroid medication changed her hormonal balance? Could heavy mag chloride dosing cause this?
I do not want to keep her on ReguMate the rest of her life. She’s never been a mare that exhibited issues–in fact, I never can tell when she is in heat, it’s never changed her behavior. Could something else besides her hormones be the cause? And if it is her hormones, is there anything less expensive and less dangerous to handle that will help her?
She’s been back on her track for months, is back in regular ridden work, and is very comfortable under saddle. She is never confined and can leave her stall 24 hrs a day.
