Feeding a spooky horse...

[Sticky_Situation]

I’ll try to make this as concise as possible… But it will probably still end up being a novel …

I have a spooky horse. He is an appendix gelding who is coming 11. I’ve had him since he was 2 years old, and he’s always had a tendency to be spooky. However, the last couple years it seems to be getting worse. Also in the last couple years, he has been put in harder and more consistent work, and is fitter than he was the first several years I had him. He is now going Training after having spent the first several years that I owned him as a western horse. He also has had a corresponding increase in his grain intake, because it was necessary in orde to maintain his weight with the heavier workload.

When I ride him, he is constantly on the lookout for things to spook at; however, I would not otherwise characterize him as a “hot” or “nervous” horse … His energy level is just right, aside from him being very reactive to the silliest little things. He’s actually often better when he’s off the farm, because there is more going on to keep his attention and he doesn’t focus in on one or two silly little things to cause drama over. He is typically worse during the winter, when it’s cold and windy and he doesn’t get off the farm much. He is also often better on the trail than in the arena, and he’s better when I school him over fences, because he has something to keep him entertained. He is also turned out every day.

After a few recent dressage rides that seemed to consist of more gawking, ducking, and sideways leaping than actual dressage, I’ve been wondering if he might benefit from a diet change. He is currently fed Grass hay (mostly Timothy), and is fed oats (which I know are high in starch, but it’s what the boarding stable feeds) along with some Safe Choice that I started mixing in to add more calories without adding as much additional starch as an increase in his oats would. However, I am curious as to whether cutting the oats out altogether and putting him on a low starch, high fat feed might help… But as I said, he isn’t actually hot or hyperactive … Just spooky. I don’t want to actually decrease his energy level and make him dull or lazy … I just want to hopefully remove a bit of the “spooky edge”!

And no, I have not treated him for ulcers or had him scoped, but I really don’t think that’s the problem here … He has been spooky as long as I’ve known him, it just seems to be a bit worse now that he is getting more grain, and he is otherwise in excellent condition.

Has anyone had a horse like this, and if so, did you have good results with any particular feeding program?

[anmoro]

I switched my horse to a low starch feed (Blue Seal Sentinel LS) and have added two supplements that are quite inexpensive and have helped tremendously.

The first is Thia-cal. It’s full of b vitamins, magnesium, etc. Its $15/month or $30/3 month supply. Great stuff! The other is Opti-zyme which is a digestive supplement so in case he has any issues and he’s not absorbing everything it can help. Plus it just makes their digestive system run smoother which makes everything better!

[ozjb]

I think we own your horse’s twin, except our guy is a Trakehner Sport Horse. He has trouble making time on XC because he spends entirely too much time shying left and right rather than just going straight! He’s not hot, but can be a complete twit when he’s out because of the spookiness.

He is a lot better now that he’s 8 than he was when we got him as a 5 year old, but the spookiness is just who he is, I guess. All his siblings are the same, thanks to their mother! LOL

I will be very interested to see what others suggest as I have played around with the feed, but I don’t think I have found the answer yet. It’s been suggested that we stop the grain on the weekend when he is competing, but I am not sure about that one. Seems like he would need the energy to compete the comp, but when he spends so much time leaping around like a lunatic, I wonder . . .

We are in Australia so our feed is different to the States, but the principals would be the same, I would think.

[lesson_junkie]

I am going to chime in because of what I’ve learned working at a feed store. Many horses can be spooky on feed with high NSC-starch and sugar, in other words. You can feed a high quality, calorie dense feed, fill all of your fit horse’s needs and lower the starch. Switching from grain to a pellet can make a world of difference. Is your barn willing to try this?

Also, counterintuitive as it sounds, wearing a little spur with a spooky horse (not a fearful one) can help the horse to listen more to your aids, and less to the surroundings. You may have tried that.

[Martina]

Ok, so now we have triplets. Mine is also almost exactly as you describe except he is a hot type as well. I’ve been dealing with this for years and have pretty much come to the conclusion that its just the way he is. (he’s 10) It takes about 30 to 40 minutes for him to settle down enough to start “working”. And the work needs to be challenging to keep his mind busy, but not so hard that it is frustrating. Lateral work, transitions, changing direction, etc. Sometimes mixing in a couple jumps into the flat can help. For him it is also only in the winter. Other seasons he is pretty amenable.

I’ve tried calming supplements and switched to a low sugar grain, but found zero change. I’ve heard of this Confidence EQ product that I’m going to try. It is a pheromone that is supposed to quiet their nerves a little bit.

[yellowbritches]

Hi fat, low starch. As much of his diet from forage as possible. That’s the best place to start.

Spooky ones can and do get spookier the fitter they get (Toby would spook at butterflies while galloping…always fun to reverse course at 500mpm for an insect). But I can’t imagine straight oats are helping.

If he’s far spooky then befoew , consider a vetting and check the usual suspects: pain, vision, Lyme, EPM.

[Hilary]

My uberspooker was not ridable unless he ate the following:

Nutrena Legacy (up to 12 quarts a day when he was at Prelim)
soaked beet pulp (NO sugar/molasses added) - 2 quarts dry shreds or 3/4 quart dried pellets, which was about 3 gallons soaked.
As much grass and grass hay as he could consume. He could eat a whole bale overnight.

Dengie Alfa A if he got too skinny. I needed a wheelbarrow to carry one meal.

If I used any other grain in any quantity he was a complete lunatic, but this grain he could eat as much as he needed without getting silly. His previous owner figured that out for me. One broken hand later I went with her program.

He got better as he got fitter actually, because the flatwork was easier for him so he needed fewer excuses.

My first silly mare gets Quiessence and extra vitamin B. Grain type is not a factor for her, supplements help.

My other silly mare gets hormones. Supplements and grain don’t make a difference for her.

You may have to try a few things, and as YB said, make sure nothing medical is going on.

[Sticky_Situation]

Thanks for the input!

With this guy, I really don’t think it’s pain or a physical issue. If it had come up out of the blue, or he was misbehaving in other ways as well, it would seem more likely, but this horse has been spooky as long as I’ve known him, he just seems to get a little worse in the winter and when he’s fitter and requiring more grain.

It might be worth a try, cutting out his oats and switching him to a low starch, high fat feed … Any specific brand recommendations that have worked well? And how soon would I be expecting to see a change in the spook factor if it is helping?

[ozjb]

Question about the oats . . . are these just rolled oats or mixed with something? The reason I ask is that the feed gurus here in Australia suggest soaking the whole grain oats for a bit in hot water and then draining off the water. Supposedly it’s sort of like soaking hay . . . it reduces the sugars? No idea really, but I do it for the hot OTTB and it seems to work. Certainly, soaking makes it easier to digest!

I cook barley in the crockpot for the spooky one. Not game to try him on oats!

[rcloisonne]

Supposedly it’s sort of like soaking hay . . . it reduces the sugars? No idea really, but I do it for the hot OTTB and it seems to work. Certainly, soaking makes it easier to digest!

Since oats are approx. 50% starch, it’s doubtful soaking would ever make them a “low sugar/starch” feed.

And do you really want starch & sugar more easily digestible? That would just increase the glycemic index.

[M_Owen]

I have a horse like the ones described here as well! She isn’t a hot horse, but she is very aware of her surroundings. Her ancestors were CLEARLY not the horses eaten at the watering hole. She is much better in the warmer weather, less spooky in an outdoor or field than in an indoor, and better when she is working hard or jumping. She isn’t a horse you can start out hacking on a loose rein unless you want a 180 degree spin :). I have adjusted her feed quite a bit over the last few years and she seems to do best on about 3-5 lbs/ day Nutrena High Fat Fuel and as much timothy/ orchard grass hay as I can stuff into her (at this point close to 30 lbs/ day). She gets VERY spooky if she has alfalfa, so I avoid that like the plague.

She did not do well on Blue Seal Sentinel LS, but I’ve known lots of horses that feed did work for. At one point she was also getting beet pulp, but once I switched to a 2nd cut hay and started eating it better, I was able to eliminate the beet pulp.

[Montanas_Girl]

Aside from being very high in starch, whole oats (or any “plain” grain, for that matter) do not have added vitamins and minerals to balance out their nutritional content to meet the horse’s total dietary needs. They are not recommended as a sole concentrate ration for horses for those reasons.

Many hot and sensitive horses respond positively when calories from sugar and starch are replaced with fat instead. Luckily, most major feed manufacturers offer some variation of a high fat/fiber, low NSC product. I would not classify SafeChoice as such a product; despite the marketing and the name, it is actually fairly high in NSC compared to other products available on the market.

Sometimes magnesium deficiency, which happens but isn’t terribly common, can manifest itself in nervousness and irritability. Especially considering the diet that this horse has been consuming, it might be worth trying some type of magnesium supplement, like Quiessence, to see if it makes any difference. B-vitamins are produced in the horse’s hindgut by microbes - B-vitamin deficiency is almost unheard of in horses (exception: biotin does increase hoof quality, for unknown reasons); “calming” supplements that contain primarily B-vitamins (like thiamin) are just expensive placebos for the rider.

Many health problems that aren’t readily apparent can cause spookiness. Ulcers are the obvious first guess, since the vast majority of horses suffer from them to one degree or another. They are certainly worth investigating, even if this problem has existed for a long time. Who’s to say that the horse hasn’t had ulcers his whole life? My old guy was terribly spooky for most of his life. It wasn’t until we diagnosed him with RAO and ran an allergy panel that we discovered he was allergic to corn and oats. I had owned him for five years (all of his working life) prior to the diagnosis. His spooking improved tremendously when those feed ingredients were removed from his diet. To this day, he still has a spook in him, but it is nothing like it was before the diet change. His situation is extremely rare, but I only mention it to point out that even longstanding behaviors can have a physical root cause.

[flypony74]

Check out Triple Crown Senior. High fat, VERY low starch, lots of fiber. They don’t have to be “senior” to benefit from it! Awesome feed for weight gain/maintenance without loading them up on carbs.

[CindyCRNA]

I have your 4th twin here! We tried everything, Smart Calm, SmartCalm Ultra, both together, Quiescence, Shen Calmer. It calmed him but didn’t make him less spooky. He is now on Ultium and hay, Quienscence and finishing Shen Calmer. When I read you fed oats, I thought that might be a major source of your issue. I thought oats were the worst thing for hot horses.

[SuzieQNutter]

Boiled barley is famous for fattening horses and not going to their heads.

Oats is famous for going to their heads. So is corn.

[SuzieQNutter]

Boiled barley is famous for fattening horses and not going to their heads.

Oats is famous for going to their heads. So is corn.

[Flipper]

Sentinel LS has helped my spooky guy. He’ll always be spooky, but with the high fat diet, it’s at least somewhat moderated. Also - make sure there’s no alfalfa in his hay. I discovered that a small amount of alfalfa was in my other horse’s timothy mix a few years ago, when I wondered why that already hot horse was sent pretty much over the edge!

[ozjb]

Interesting thought about the whole grains . . . we tend to feed differently here. I actually find it fascinating how differently horses are fed and maintained around the world, while all still practicing the same good basics. I spoke with a US equine dentist while we were in the States and he told me that, because our grass isn’t very soft and rich, horses here would have slightly differently dental requirements. I really do find it all pretty cool.

One would be hard pressed to find “sweet feed” and most horses wouldn’t get near the amount of grain here. Our basic feed is chaff. White chaff is oaten or wheaten or a combination and green chaff is lucern (alfalfa). Every horse I know gets green and white chaff. To that people add whatever works best. Some feed commercially produced pelleted food, some do the added grains and then balance the feed for minerals and vitamins. Lots of meadow hay and lucerne, mostly meadow hay. I think Australian horses are really lucky in that they get to spend most of their time out in the paddock.

My horses are all on a magnesium supplement because it is lacking in the soil here. Checking for allergies has been something I have been thinking about because I have one who reacts to barley. . .breaks out in lumps whenever he gets anything thing with barley, so it was easy to figure out, but hard to find a commercially produced feed here without barley included.

Off to check out the feeds recommended . . not that I can get them here, but to see what is in them and if there is anything close on our market!

[gypsymare]

In PA you should have access to Triple Crown Sr. or Pennfields Fibergized. That should make a big difference. Supplementing with magnesium may also help.

[yellowbritches]

My go to feeds are 1) Pennfield Fibergized and 2) TC Senior. I’ve had great results with both.