Need help with a horse that is going crazy at night!!

[Jumper21]

Ok, I need help with a situation I’ve been having with my 5 year old Mare who is usually really laid back in her corral. (It’s 24x24 with a 12x12 three sided shelter.)

I am usually out during the day when it is really quiet at the barn and my mare is quiet and well behaved during this time. The few times I get out there at night she’s usually like that too.

People at the barn have been telling me that over the past week or two my mare has been going crazy in the evenings. They say she’s running around her little pen bucking, rearing and screaming. Apparently, it hasn’t been happening every night but fairly often and when it does it’s bad. Overall, she’s not a spooky horse and is pretty laid back. So, I don’t think it’s because she’s spooking at something.

My biggest worry about this is I don’t want her to have one of these tantrums when she is getting her blanket put on and hurt someone.
No one at the barn can figure out what’s setting her off and the few nights I can get out there in the evenings she’s mellow and quiet so I can’t either.

Any ideas of what could be causing this or how to stop it?

TIA!

[mzm_farm]

Oh, that can be a long game of detective

So, you have to try and analyze if ANYTHING is different or even if her running is abnormal. You are going to have to spend lots of nights out at the barn, ideally.

Buddy leaving? Horses being moved? Food? Sound? Smell? Sight - something appears or she can’t see at night? Electricity in ground? Static with her blankets? Terrible case of the sillies?

So many possibilities?! Good luck.

[Chall]

I’d trust that the mare is not a nut and that something is going on at night that we can’t sense, a predator animal or something similar. Are there any dogs on the property? I’d take them in the pen and environs and see if they start sniffing a trail or are very interested in the area. Perhaps you can stall her a few times at night and see if she’s different the next morning or find a companion she can stay out with. She’s trying to tell you something, whether its a predator or just that she doesn’t like it, but it’s a message.

[Auventera_Two]

The horse LIVES in a 24x24 pen, with half of that space being occupied by a building??? That’s your problem. My horses would be ripping the fences down and galloping down the road if they had to live in a 24x24 pen. That’s barely bigger than a stall. Get the horse into a bigger pasture where she can exercise as nature intended.

[gothedistance]

Find out from the barn people exactly when they see your mare putting up a fuss. Then put up a video camera outside her enclosure and run the film on extended play, with the date/time feature enabled, about the time that she has been seen getting upset. Just let it record her for a few days so you can view it yourself (on fast forward) to ascertain if there is something going on outside the pen that is upsetting her.

[pines4equines]

Hay

My horses have been particularly freaked at night these past two - three weeks. Nothing different as I self care but I think we either have a fox or coyote wandering around later in the evening. We got snow earlier this year and these predators are probably a little hungrier than usual and we have ducks and geese housed at the barn for the winter. Their quacking/cooing is attracting the predators and I know that is what is freaking out my guys.

PS: Why don’t you put this in horse care?

[pj1]

I’m betting some strange animal is passing by. Could be something as simple as a deer or a strange dog. My old mule used to run and trumpet when deer were around at night. He didn’t pay a bit of attention to them in the day time, didn’t matter then if they were in his pasture or on the trail but at night they turned into demons.

[Auventera_Two]

So the fact that the horse is essentially living in a large stall doesn’t mean anything? I’d suspect the cramped quarters with no room to move before I thought a wild animal was harassing her at night. My horses would be WILD to the point of destruction if they only had 24x24 to move around in. Heck, my pony’s regular stall is 16x30 and she’s NUTS to get out of it every morning. Pacing back and forth and looking out the window, then pawing at the door.

[pj1]

Sadly some horses live in a twelve x twelve stall all the time. Only time out is when they are ridden or lunged. No real turn out is a sad thing and something I think horses need but by this mare only doing this in the evening I’m betting on something passing by but don’t know this mare so who knows.

[Ambrey]

[QUOTE=Auventera Two;3803658]
So the fact that the horse is essentially living in a large stall doesn’t mean anything? I’d suspect the cramped quarters with no room to move before I thought a wild animal was harassing her at night. My horses would be WILD to the point of destruction if they only had 24x24 to move around in. Heck, my pony’s regular stall is 16x30 and she’s NUTS to get out of it every morning. Pacing back and forth and looking out the window, then pawing at the door.[/QUOTE]

I board at an equestrian center with 400 horses. The corrals are 12 x 24 and the stalls are 12x 12. This is “normal” around here and horses adapt really well.

To the OP, if someone notices her acting like that and approaches, does she calm, get worse, or stay the same? Just curious. Is there anything that usually happens around the time she’s flipping out?

[apprider]

She’s not a few spot or blanket appaloosa by any chance? These coat patterns are night blind, although these horse are ususally not more anxious as that is just the way things are for them.

[pj1]

[QUOTE=apprider;3803775]
She’s not a few spot or blanket appaloosa by any chance? These coat patterns are night blind, although these horse are ususally not more anxious as that is just the way things are for them.[/QUOTE]

uh…I have a blanket app (if you mean an appy with a blanket and spots) and she’s not night blind.

[Auventera_Two]

@Ambrey;3803773

I board at an equestrian center with 400 horses. The corrals are 12 x 24 and the stalls are 12x 12. This is “normal” around here and horses adapt really well.

To the OP, if someone notices her acting like that and approaches, does she calm, get worse, or stay the same? Just curious. Is there anything that usually happens around the time she’s flipping out?

Yeah, I’ve seen it too. And then the cribbing, pawing, weaving, and acting up under saddle that comes with it too.

[Ambrey]

[QUOTE=Auventera Two;3803844]
Yeah, I’ve seen it too. And then the cribbing, pawing, weaving, and acting up under saddle that comes with it too. :([/QUOTE]

Shrug. Every horse is different, but no, most of the horses at my stable don’t do those things. It’s true that there are horses that can’t tolerate it, but most can.

This horse, based on the OP’s post, was tolerating it just fine until recently, so I hardly see a correlation.

[Shadow14]

[QUOTE=Auventera Two;3803281]
The horse LIVES in a 24x24 pen, with half of that space being occupied by a building??? That’s your problem. .[/QUOTE]

That was my first thought too. That is little more then a prison cell.
Are there really 400 horses at a single boarding facility??? How is the care with that many horses??? Must be a really traffic jam on busy days??
Is your mare watching other horses being taken into the barn for the night???

That would be a great place for a farrier to make a killing.:lol::lol:

[Rienzi]

It sounds to me like there is Something Out There.

[mp]

[QUOTE=Auventera Two;3803844]
Yeah, I’ve seen it too. And then the cribbing, pawing, weaving, and acting up under saddle that comes with it too. :([/QUOTE]

And ulcers. Don’t forget ulcers.

Jumper, I don’t know where you are, but is there any chance there’s a varmint’s nest or insect infestation in your horse’s run in? You might also check the wiring in the run-in, just in case she got a shock. Horses are very “associative” about bad experiences – and she may be associating a sound, a place in the run-in or even a time of day with something that startled or stung her.

Just a thought …

[katarine]

few spot and blanket apps aren’t automatically night blind. Someone is misinformed

Ample plenty horses live in less that ideal conditions and don’t randomly have ripping fits about it. I imagine the OP isn’t failing to offer more turnout b/c it’s available but she’s just not doing it. I am guessing it ain’t there to use.

I bet she’s smelling something in the area, or there’s a change in the processes around the barns those nights that’s bugging her. Fed out of order, hay done in a different order, etc. Horses love patterns and some don’t manage change well, esp in an environment with so few mental stimuli day to day. Any little change might just tick her right off.

[CatOnLap]

[QUOTE=apprider;3803775]
She’s not a few spot or blanket appaloosa by any chance? These coat patterns are night blind, although these horse are ususally not more anxious as that is just the way things are for them.[/QUOTE]

Half right.
The CSNB (congenital stationary night blindness) in appaloosas is generally associated with NON-SPOTTED homozygous patterns, which would include so-called “few spot” and near few spot, snow cap and blanket patterns when they occur without spots. It can also occur in solid appaloosas. But horses with those coat patterns are not all night blind. however, if your horse also has distinct spots, it is not going to have CSNB.
My snowcap gelding is not night blind and he has no spots.

[Icecapade]

[QUOTE=Shadow14;3803908]
That was my first thought too. That is little more then a prison cell.
Are there really 400 horses at a single boarding facility??? How is the care with that many horses??? Must be a really traffic jam on busy days??
Is your mare watching other horses being taken into the barn for the night???

That would be a great place for a farrier to make a killing.:lol::lol:[/QUOTE]

Nah… we used to have our two stallions get turned out in a big pasture (not together) about once a month or so (one had an old bowed tendon and was ridable but very lightly and with 10 horses… it often ment he went unridden)… My stallion was ridden on a fairly regular basis while I was there, but while I was in college 2000 miles away he lived 4 years in his 24x24 quiet happily, with occasional turn outs.
Thats plenty of room for a horse to live, not natural but neither is half the crap we ask them to do so put that one away. European horses don’t get turn out… they get stalls and hot walkers and they aren’t crazy.

If its sporadic… it is probably situational related, new horse, new smell, new animal predator closing in looking for barn cats, I mean I’ve seen horses shit a brick over ants. Check to see if there are ants… if it is around dusk ants return home and if she is stomping around for hay she could piss them off and get bitten. It could be anything.