I have a mare that I have had for a year (currently in foal) that will not lie down to sleep. She came to me with a bad case of scratches and with what I thought was “scabs” on the front of her fetlocks. I am now thinking they are not scabs but proud flesh from falling down. She falls asleep standing up and when in a deep sleep either falls to her knees or sways backwards catching herself before she goes down. She will lay down to roll without any problems so getting up and down doesn’t seem to be a problem. I would think she is comfortable in her surroundings as she is in a 160 acre pasture with 5 other horses and is alpha mare so it is not like she has to “watch her back” so to speak. She is a bit more of a nervous type in new situations or locked up but seems happy and content out with the other horses. Does anyone else have a horse that does not lie down? Are they really getting the sleep they need?
I do. It’s one of my broodies, whom we have had for 6+ years now. The only time she goes down it to roll or foal-and she foals very quickly. Now she may lay down under cover of darkness but I have not seen her in daylight.
When she is ready to foal, she lays down once, rolls, gets up, a couple of minutes later lays down and here comes baby. I have had 5 foals with her and I know that as soon as she gets warm under her pits foaling is near. There is nothing physically wrong with her or her legs. I do have a mare who had a previous broken knee-it’s really bad, and she’ll sack out on a regular basis.
Some of my other horses don’t lay down a lot but I have caught them from time to time zonked-flat out in a pasture or in their stall.
[QUOTE=Cindy’s Warmbloods;3946163]
. . . . a horse that does not lie down? Are they really getting the sleep they need?[/QUOTE]
No, they are not getting the sleep they need. A horse HAS to lie down in order to have Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. (Presumably REM sleep involves dreaming - it does in humans.) Horses do not need a lot of REM sleep but they do need some, which is why she loses control at times when she is asleep … she cannot experience REM sleep & remain standing.
Does she live outside 24/7 all year round? Our horses do but they pretty much will all lie down under those conditions. I know River Bend Pol had a horse that did not lie down & she found she had to change beddings for him (if I remember correctly) in order to get him to lie down in his stall. I don’t really have a solution for you if she lives out 24/7 year round. If she comes in at times, I would try different beddings & see if there is one she finds more comfortable. You might send a PM to River Bend Pol.
I would not worry about it much. I have an 18 yr old brood mare (that I’ve had since she was 4) and I rarely saw lie down until after she had this last foal. Before you would never see her, I had a camera on her the last 3 foals and NEVER saw her lie down until she actually was foaling. But she injured her leg last fall and now she snoozes in the sun every day!! She seems no worse for wear in not lying down.
Are you sure she isn’t laying down? I have one who is also the alpha-mare type, and I used to swear she didn’t lay down. Until I moved her to a farm where the BO and I would hang out together at night, and I would catch her laying down around 3 am occasionally. I now have her at home, and I go out at midnight to give more hay. I catch her laying down every once in a while then, but never during the day. In fact, if she is down during the day she is either freezing her butt off or she is colicky. She did lay down to foal last year, and had my filly out in about 3 minutes.
As for the falling over while dozing, I can’t help with that one.
I have a mare who would ‘fight’ laying down to sleep.
I never noticed it until she was pregnant and we were on foal watch. I assume she only did this in her later pregnancy since I never noted her doing it any other time.
She would stumble to her knees in ‘deep sleep’ and catch herself. Much like your stories - she would happily take a roll in the field but not remain down for a nap.
I’ve had this particular mare for 6yrs now. And this is the first year that I have seen her laying down in the field taking snooze. I see her sleeping in the field at least twice a day now and she is in foal.
Maybe it took her some time to understand how to use her body differently when in foal. And to build up a confidence level.
This mare is also an alpha mare. So maybe she felt more vulnerable the first few times she was pregnant and didn’t want to risk being caught off her feet.
In any event. It never caused any real problems. I only noticed it with later pregnancy and it seems time and confidence have allowed her to find a happy place. She now naps like the rest of them.
Yes, this mare is out 24/7 so changing bedding isn’t an option. I guess she “could” be laying down at night it is hard to tell since she does roll and get dirty occasionally. But we are light until 11pm and light at 4am come summer and I have never seen her lie down to sleep when I have looked out.
I feel bad for her since everyday (and multiple times a day) the others all lay down to sleep at different times, some sacked right out on their sides. I just never see her do it and she seems so exhausted when she is falling trying to sleep standing up. I wish she would just lie down! She came from the city so maybe she doesn’t feel secure out in the open, I don’t know. However, I don’t have stalls built yet so being in isn’t an option.
There have been several threads on this distressing condition. It is apparently quite common. I have been wishing a poster would come up with a suggestion that would help my mare, but I know she does not lie down at all at night. She would have shavings in her tail if she did. She has the marked up fetlocks and it is quite pitiful to see her almost falling over in her sleep and then catching herself before she goes right down. Sometimes she does not mark herself up for months, then last week she gave herself a nasty hole in her fetlock. I put flipped up bell boots on her, but one is torn and it didn’t protect her.
One year I made a huge deep petmoss deep litter bed for her, hoping she would be tempted. Some people say try straw. She will lie down to roll, but will not stay there.
I have had her hocks x-rayed and she does have changes, not that you could tell because she is an extravagant mover and flexes her hocks dramatically. I rather feel that lying down for any time makes her uncomfortable. I’ve thought through the mental side - she lives here with her son and daughter and is the boss, but calm and happy. I’ve kept her in, I’ve kept her in/out, her choice. Nadda.
Meanwhile - take comfort in that lots of horses seem to get on fine through life without sleeping properly. I’d love it if somebody came up with the key that worked.
OMG - my mare has same problem - can’t or won’t lie down. While on foal watch we see her staggering in her stall, cave to her knees with bum up in the air until she wakes a little and stands up. She goes down to roll and to foal, but no other time. She also has the damage to fetlocks. Recently, as in the last 2 years, she falls in some way that injures her shoulder and the entire leg swells up like a stove pipe. It is so upsetting and I’m afraid she’ll fall over on her baby.
FWIW, she’s outside during the day with a run-in and comes in at night into warm barn with clean stall. We’ve tried different bedding to no avail.
Advice anyone? Any vets out there that know about this condition and is there anything we can do?
l.
Yes, I’ve had one too. Bought him as a yearling, rode him up to the Grand Prix jumper division. I’ve been there with the sores on the fronts of the ankles, and knees, biting the tongue and injuring the lips as everything crashes to the ground. I’ve been ON HIS BACK when he dropped off sometimes, that’s a bit of a thrill. He crashed one time at Spruce Meadows, in East Meadows under the chandeliers, on the pavement in the aisle, right as a gaggle of schoolchildren where touring the barn during a show. Schoolchildren scattered, then he went out to jump in his class. He was both a neurotic horse, AND capable of falling asleep very quickly. Perhaps also some form of narcolepsy? Different beddings have no effect, other than it needs to be deep to avoid injury. I think it is a problem breathing when down, like a beached whale. I am SURE that mine never did lay down to sleep, he was kept at home, and had no other caregivers than me, I would have seen some bedding stuck to him, or a compacted spot every now and again. The only thing that helped is to make sure they have a spot they can lean on, a sturdy stall door they can hang the head over. The stall door will hold them up, the knees are held straight by the stall door too. As they start to buckle the flat surface of the door holds them closed rather than lets them fall. Figure 8 bandages on the knees if the horse is shut in, over stable bandages, will help to hold the knees from buckling. And backwards rundowns on the ankles. I think it is a combination of the compression on the lungs when down, AND failure of the check ligaments to operate properly, BOTH conditions must be present in a horse for this to become a problem for them. My horse was NOT a long lived horse, and seeing this condition, it was not unexpected that he would die young.
I think that some things you can’t cure, you can only manage. Help them out as much as you can with the problems they have due to the condition. I wrote to Malcolm Mackay Smith about this problem at the time in Equus magazine I think it was, the letter was published. But he had little input really. But I did meet other people over the next few years who had horses with the same problem as a result of the letter.
My mare is aged - and the problem only appeared 3 or 4 years ago. It’s growing progressively worse.
I’m sad, but glad to hear that others have horses with this problem and now i feel like it’s time to do some work on this.
Whatever this problem is - it is devastating as I adore this mare. She’s beautiful, CORRECT, very well bred, produces wonderful offspring and is really a special girl. I WISH with all my heart there was a way to help her. I’d keep her and continue to breed.
If anyone has ideas on whom to contact to find out more, please email.
This mare just foaled the most gorgeous Dutch baby two weeks ago and I’d do anything to find a way to solve this problem.
l.
My vet has a colleague that has a mare with this condition - that is not lying down to sleep, not narcolepcy. She consulted with her colleague and she said they never did cure her. I don’t think it has bee studied that much, mostly I hear annecdotal info. One of my vets even suggested that she probably did when I was not looking at night. No signs to prove that.
My mare is l3 and as a young horse lay down every night, you could go in and visit and she’d still keep snoring, or lying quietly.
It is pretty sad to see her slowly crumple and then wake herself up. Like I said, she loves to roll, but getting up and down looks difficult, she quivers.
I am thinking I should explore having her hocks looked at as there are changes. I tried a course of Bute, but didn’t see any improvement.
She had a lovely long lie down right after her last foal, I even took pictures she looked so comfortable deep in straw.
Wonder if more mares are susceptible, just a thought?
I read up on it quite a bit today just googling and it sounds like not too uncommon of a thing. Most the suggestions made were to make the horse more comfortable in their surroundings (ie have a buddy if they are along) so they will lay down. Most of the horses suffering didn’t have a buddy and were alone and insecure, the others had a stressful enviroment (showing all week) and were showing signs of sleep deprivation. My mare has the most natural surroundings possible, a small herd of whom she is alpha mare, 160 acres, free choice grass (summer)/hay (winter) and the life of leisure. No reason to be stressed at all so not sure what I could change. Her past owner did mention something in passing so I e-mailed her today to ask her more about it and if she found something that made her happy to lay down and sleep. Waiting to hear.
My horse does this too and I have not found the cause. He has improved a little this year and every couple of weeks I will find evidence that he was down during the night so I know he is getting a little sleep at least. There was a good article in Equus a couple of years ago and they identified what they felt were three common causes:
- Pain (e.g., arthritic joints that made getting up and down difficult)
- Uncomfortable surroundings (e.g., lots of noise)
- Social/buddy: this was a broader issue and they did mention that alpha mares have this problem because there is no one to be the “lookout” for them while they sleep, since they are the alpha
My mare broke her hock very badly and was in a cast for a long time. It healed up with a TON of calcification. She lost a great deal of flexibility in that leg and was physically unable to lay down (we suspected, but knew for sure once she was put down). Her front knees were often bloody and/or swollen from falling on them, and it was heartbreaking to watch.
When she had her foal, she foaled standing until the very last contraction. It was a huge one and literally threw her to the ground (ended up with some nasty scrapes on her hips/sides from the fall). By that point we had already caught her foal and kept him from hitting the ground from sky-high.
She ended up breaking down, her good hind leg ultimately broke because she overcompensated in many ways. When I knew what I was dealing with, I had her put down.
Just wanted to throw that in there because some horses are physically unable to lay down, or it causes them great pain to.
I am not sure that physical would be the problem with this mare as she does roll quite often so gets up and down without any problems but it is something to keep in mind.
Sort of tangiential…
I was watching the mares yest’dy morning. They’d eaten breakfast alfalfa, and it was ‘that time’ of late morning when three of the four were sacked out. The old ‘lead’ big bay broodie was not. When I looked out, I saw her go over to the bottom of the pecking order mare (who wouldn’t be if she was not pregnant!) and GET HER UP. Big bay mare then proceeded to lay down, once the white mare was up. I thought it was odd, and interesting, and don’t know exactly what it means.
The horse I knew who would not lay down was narcoleptic. Chicken vs. egg, who knew–was she narcoleptic because she never laid down and never got REM–but she would buckle and go down in the crossties or being saddled up, etc. She was also HYPP N/N but Impressive bred, and I’ve heard of more than one N/N that also had the narcolepsy/laying down issues. She was helped by an EPSM diet and vits/mins. <shrugs>
Probably both useless pieces of information. But it interests me. 
I have one that we’ve never seen lying down, except for rolling.
We know she must be down at night going by the poo she insists on gringing into her face…
See this thread about a mare who finally lay down to sleep with this product. (Disclosure: I have no experience with this, so I don’t know that it works).
http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?p=3952983&posted=1#post3952983
I had a gelding like this - his problem is he had trouble getting up due to pain. Anyways is what I ended up doing was always bringing him in his stall for night, which was deeply bedded and then I would wrap no bows on both front legs - which cleared up his fetlock wounds.
This really isn’t a solution as it doesn’t fix the problem, but its better than letting them fall and get all bloody. However, if your mare is out on the field, it is probably fairly soft out there and she probably doesn’t injure herself anyways. Nonetheless, it is very sad to see them struggle.
