My mare had issues with anxiety and spookyness when she was cycling. I tracked everything on a calendar and then tried a course of regu mate. In my mares case she was night and day different on regu mate. I board my mare and have no desire to ever breed her so I choose to have her spayed. It was $2,000 and done through the flank while she was standing. They removed her ovaries. She was home the following afternoon. It’s been 2 years best decision I ever made. She is happy and so am I.
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@leheath How is your mare doing now that it’s been a few weeks?
Bumping this up instead of starting a new thread… I have one who has had some dramatic behavior changes that started late summer. She’s always been a bit of a pill and seems to have rough heat cycles, especially in the transitional times of year. A friend mentioned just having her spayed, and I’m seriously considering it at this point.
@Texarkana She is doing great! Healing went well and she has come back into work fairly easily. She was mostly just body sore, at least partially due to restricted movement and hand walking instead of her normal daily pasture turnout for nearly 4 weeks, but everything improved with every ride. Her work, especially jumping, has been much more consistent since the surgery. I’ve started testing her behavior under stress (when the pain-related behavior was the most obvious/dramatic) and all signs are very promising so far. I think there is some residual apprehension of pain under certain circumstances, but she will get tense and then relax and return to her normal, happy, ridable self. This is something that never happened prior to surgery - once the bad behavior came out, we were done for the day - the best I could hope for was find some kinda sorta good note to end on! She has also started trailer loading consistently better than prior to surgery. It is obviously still early days, but so far I am really happy with my decision and I think she is too!
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@leheath Thanks for updating. What was the recovery like? Intense management? You said 4 weeks- all strict stall rest?
I still don’t know if it’s the right option to pursue for my horse, but I am keepting the option open.
@Texarkana Recovery was pretty easy. She was never on strict stall rest, but wan’t allowed full field turnout (basically no vigorous running around!). She was at a boarding facility with stall and attached run and that was OK from day 1. She self limited her activity pretty well and was really only interested in being more active a few days before I was allowed to start riding her again. Hand walking was allowed and encouraged throughout the limited activity period. Staples were in for 2 weeks and during that time it was just necessary to check that the adhesive bandages were staying on (super glue really helped!) - once daily was sufficient and it rarely needed any adjustment. Reintroduction to riding was approved 1 week after staples were removed as was full field turnout.
She was allowed a normal diet as soon as the sedative wore off the day of surgery, but she wasn’t really keen on hay for a few days so we fed her a lot of wetted, bulk food (beet pulp, soaked haystack, etc.) to help get the gut moving and functioning properly.
Given the fasting prep, surgery, and stress of transport & staying at the hospital, I did a 30 day ulcer treatment when she came home as a precaution.
