Looking for your experience with having a chiro out for yearlings (and beyond). For the first time, we recently had ours out for 2 yearlings (April 2023 babies). One had a tight neck and really enjoyed the work on her butt. She was relaxed and super happy during the session and it was a very good experience for her. The chiro was happy with the results. The other yearling had everything wrong - tight everywhere from the front to the back and the spine. Much more work here.
I understand that youngsters can be silly and tweak themselves. However, I am curious as to your thoughts on why the second one had so many issues at such a young age.
Also, any input you may have on how often a youngster might see a chiro. Even though they are very young, in my mind helping to keep their bodies functioning correctly while they are growing can only help down the road.
I did and don’t regret it at all. She worked on him maybe ever 4 months once weaned, and into his yearling year. VERY gently, she was just feeling around and seeing if he was doing weird things to his body. Any adjustments were VERY light, and there really weren’t many at all. She’d been working on my big horses, so I had a reference to what a serious adjustment on a 1500lb horse was.
When this particular horse was 2, I think, I saw him playing, he ran down a little slope, stopped short, reared a little, and his hind end kept going under him, so he fell on his butt, a little off center. He seemed, fine, I gave him a few days to see if there would be swelling or lameness, there was neither. I called my chiro just to work on him, not telling her what he’d done. She was still quite gentle in feeling all around, and when she got back to his rear end, after a minute or 2 of some extra feels, she asked if I’d seen him fall. He was indeed a bit out of whack.
Would he have resolved that on his own? Maybe. But maybe not, and one thing youngsters are good at is compensation, so I’d hate to think what things could have looked like by the time he was 3 or 4 and ready for backing.
Horses simply do stupid stuff all the time, much of it while we’re not watching. The “bad” yearling may have denser muscles, maybe he plays harder, maybe he had a serious wipeout you didn’t see and that just built up, who knows.
I think they should all see a chiro twice a year while growing, unless you’re someone who is really educated on movement and symmetry and do enough in-hand work with the horse to see they’re either pretty darn happy in their body, or they’re struggling.
