Equine Social Skills Fail

[Bluey]

Is where you turn him out a place with distance between fences, an alley at least, so there is no direct across the fence aggression?

Would that help, to put him where he can see but not interact with others right across the fence, so no kicking over or at the fence?

In breeding farms of old the turnout paddocks for stallions were some that didn’t have direct neighbors for the aggressive ones and others where they could interact across a fence for those that played nicely with others.

I know a mare that has always liked her neighbors fine.
Then this new gelding was put in the pen by hers and she took an immediate dislike to him.
He was not doing anything we could tell, didn’t even get up to the fence, flat ignored her and her posturing.
The fence between pens was solid wood vertical planks and heavy duty pipe top and bottom.

After a few days, in the morning the fence was torn in some places into the gelding’s pen, the heavy duty metal the boards were attached to bent, boards in splinters.
Luckily no one got hurt and each were still in their paddock.
It was impressive to see what some well aimed kicks can do to a solid fence, when a horse is mad for whatever horse reason.

[IPEsq]

We have told you to use a small paddock without any shared fence lines. If that is not available, you’ve got to make the fence lines HOT HOT HOT. It’s not just about the amount of time the horse is outside or not at first. It’s about the amount of space they have as compared to the stall size and how many opportunities there are for them to find interesting and undesirable ways to entertain themselves. While it is helpful to have other horses in turnout nearby, the definition of “nearby” can be used very loosely. Basically, horse should not feel alone away from the entire herd, but horse doesn’t need to feel close enough to engage others. Drugs are already not working to deter the behavior. You have to make it either impossible for him to try to engage the other horses or very undesirable to do so, e.g., HOT HOT HOT fence, where the hot tape is at least a couple feet or more off of the shared fenceline. If you can’t run a second hot fence this way, at least have it attached in a couple of rows chest height and below to the existing fence with some extenders. Then run another hot line above the top rail.

If you don’t have the ability to make the fence hot, build a tall tape fence at least 6 feet off of the shared fence line–build your own alleyway.

Toys, food, etc. can help, but with a horse like this, he probably won’t choose those methods of entertainment 100% of the time. Remove all other stuff that’s tempting, and work the horse mentally as much as you can without putting more stress physically. So, treadmill, long lining, hand walking if not kite flying–make the horse pay attention and work. Do it multiple times per day.

[sascha]

@Horse Rider

. Most of those owners just threw their horse out in a field and didn’t put in an ounce of work adjusting their horses - AMA - and had zero issues. In the mean time, there is my horse, who is doing what all vet owned animals do and giving his vet owner nightmares. He will never go on stall rest again. It will either be recovery in a field or euthanasia. I always said stall rest would fry his brain. Being right is a hollow victory but at least I know now.

Things that have not worked:
Sedation
Calming supplements
Zylkene
Depo
Going back to work
Turn out (8 hours currently)

He remains dangerously reactive to the existence of loose horses. It’s great fun. On to more interesting drugs.

You likely don’t want to hear this (and others have likely had different results anyway), and we all hope that for none of us there will not be another time on which to use our collective experience/knowledge …

In my small and extremely unscientific study, the horses I’ve seen drugged for rehab have taken a lot longer to adjust to life as they once knew it than those that were told to suck it up buttercup and not given any form of chemical assistance.

I’m assuming since he’s still reactive to loose horses that means he’s not yet back out with his group? If I were you (and I’m not) and I had a big enough field, he’d be going back out with his closest buddy today to either live and get his shit back together emotionally, or cripple himself and be put down. As I said above, my mare who I too thought would never be a good stall rest candidate did remarkably well until she hit her limit with limited social interaction. The day she got rambunctious enough with a worker for that worker to mention it to me was the day the decision was made. She went out into her large field with her friend the next day and hasn’t looked back since. She became her old self over night.

2 more thoughts that just came to me taking a quick skim of your original post - is he still on the magnesium and the omeprazole? If he were mine (and he’s not) I’d nix the MG completely because it can be hard on the guts, and swap from omeprazole to sucralfate because I (not found in book lol) have had better luck and seen way, way bigger behaviour changes with sucralfate.

[sdlbredfan]

What is he eating? Is he getting any grain? If so, stop feeding it and/or switch to just a ration balancer and hay.