hi, my more than slightly fat pony puts on weight just by breathing, i swear. when spring time comes I’m going to have to muzzle her again but last summer she hated me once i put the muzzle on and i stopped being able to catch her. i still can’t catch her easily now. she gorges herself if i take it off and she doesn’t have a stable so the best i can do is a small pen during the day and then muzzle and paddock at night, does that sound right? when she’s wearing her muzzle she doesn’t really seem to eat much. ideally i would muzzle her after her evening exercise and then go home, leaving her muzzled from about 7 at night until 7 in the morning. if she doesn’t learn to eat properly there is no way on earth i could do that. does anyone have any kinder solution???
Have you tried a few different muzzles or adjusting the one you have different ways? With my mini-donkey I found that the Best Friends muzzle, which a lot of people have had success with, made him miserable. He paced, shoved his face into the dirt, and refused to eat even though I made sure he could. I bought him a Greenguard muzzle, which is kind of expensive but turned out to be an excellent investment. He is perfectly happy in it and grazes with the horses. It kept his weight down all spring, summer, and fall while he was on 14+ hours of turnout a night. Greenguard does allow you to try the muzzle for 30 days and return it if it doesn’t work, and they have excellent customer service to help you get the fit correct, so trying it would be pretty much risk-free.
If you can find a muzzle that allows her to eat and be content, your schedule sounds like a good plan to me.
i haven’t yet tried any different muzzles, just the one i picked up when i bought her. i know she can drink and eat, she just doesn’t want to. her muzzle doesn’t adjust in many ways, when it was looser she pulled it off and i found it in the biggest patch of nettles. i swear she left it there on purpose. if she doesn’t find it better this spring coming then i will definitely try the greenguard muzzle, especially if it has a returns policy. can you order online or do you have to go to a stockists?
As pricey as they are - Greenguard.
I put off trying that for so long because of the price. But last year I decided that since I was going through 1.5-2 muzzles a year for some of the horses due to chewing through the bottom, since they were so hot during the humid Summer months, since all the horses went wide-eyed when I approached after breakfast to put them on, since I was having to massively duct tape things to keep rubs to a minimum, that it was worth trying.
I couldn’t be happier, THEY couldn’t be happier.
Then Tack of the Day had a sale on them and I bought extras 
Yes, you can order online - I got my original set through Amazon. Retail is in the $140 range I think but you can easily find them for $119, though that still hurts. TotD had them for half that
Mine was getting the muzzle off also. I now put a fly mask on over the muzzle. She still gets it off occasionly, but not nearly as often.
Our pony hates his as well but come spring he lives in it almost 24/7.
It is better than him dying.
Keeping muzzle on
I had to start using a muzzle on my Paint mare in August of last year. She was.not.happy!!! Better then getting laminitis/founder!!! I bought a Best Friends with the halter. Not a fan of all nylon, but she got it off rolling or what. I went to a tack repair shop, thinking of getting it stitched on to a leather halter, but instead got snaps/clips that attach to the hardware at the top of the cheek pieces and the throat latch piece of the muzzle to the throat latch of the halter. It allows us to adjust the muzzle highish up, but comfortable for her. She is able to drink and has mastered a technique to eat. She has not got it off and this also allowed her to go out with the herd instead just a small paddock. They make her move more and she does not fuss about getting it put on. She was much happier being with the herd. Back scratches only goes one way, but she tries!!! I am happier to that the muzzle is attached to a leather halter, that if she does get caught on something, it would eventually give. She has worn the hole larger, but my handyman husband who always has tricks up his sleeve is going to repair it for use next summer. I also scored nearly new BFM at a tack swap, so it is nice to have a spare.
Good luck with your pony.
The problem with most of the muzzle brands out there, the ones that are all-in-one, is that the throat latch comes so far down that it’s easy peasy to pull the crown piece over the ears and voila, freedom.
Even many fly masks are the same - I tried that for a while with zero increase in keeping the thing on for the one who would walk right over to a tree and rub it off - he even learned where there was just the right branch nub sticking out and hook the crown piece on that and poof, it was off.
I finally has great success keeping that setup on by using a thin leather strap as a “mare halter”, meaning fastened snugly but not tight behind the ears and jaw, and then looping the muzzle halter throatlatch through that. For my big guy I had to do that with string as there wasn’t enough slack. That removed any wiggle room of pulling it over his ears.
That didn’t eliminate the breathing or rubbing issue, which is why I finally moved to the Greenguard.
If you have a halter that fits the horse and will stay snug enough behind the jaw, you can use the muzzles that attach to your halter. Sadly, those halters seem to be a rarity.
The other huge bonus of the GG is the weight. ALL the other muzzles, some worse than others, especially the Best Friends which weighs a ton, as do a few other models I tried, are heavy. Then you have all that weight hanging off the poll for hours and hours and hours. Not good.
The GG is light as air almost - it’s light but heavy duty plastic, instead of all that rubber and nylon of the others.
I finally bought a GreenGuard Muzzle last summer. While I still think it is ridiculously over priced, it has worked out really well for my horse. She usually throws all her effort into destroying nylon basket-style muzzles (like the Best Friend or the Tough1 Easy Breathe) and can shred them in minutes. With the GreenGuard muzzle, she will actually go graze instead of devoting all her energy to killing the muzzle as quickly as possible. She wore it for several weeks, day and night, with a break in the stall at mealtimes and I’m happy to say the muzzle is still usable and intact. She also was less of a b*tch about getting it put back on for turnout. And most importantly, it kept her weight in check.
Agree on the ridiculousness of the price. It’s silly. But, that’s the free market for ya - here we are buying them because of their features and how much better they work LOL
thanks i will definitely have a look at the green guard ones, they seem more than a bit out of my price range though
It was surprisingly easy for me to put the muzzle on my mare last summer. I always put a treat in the muzzle and she’s dive right in. I was afraid she would become a monster about the muzzle, but I got lucky.
ill try the treat in the bottom, it sounds like it could work well. thanks for the suggestions so far
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thanks i will definitely have a look at the green guard ones, they seem more than a bit out of my price range though[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure which one you’re currently using, but the Tough-1 Easy Breathe muzzle is another option that horses often prefer over the big Best Friend muzzle. It can still rub, but it’s much lighter weight and has fewer contact points than the Best Friend style with the big basket. And it is MUCH more affordable than the GreenGuard, albeit nowhere near as lightweight or comfortable for the horse.
Treats in the muzzle definitely help!
