Separation Anxiety - Do calming supplements really help?

[Savannah_KP]

Has anyone had success helping calm a horse with bad separation anxiety using a supplement such as Magnesium?

My mare is older - best guess early 20s - and HATES it when I try to take my gelding away. I just have the 2 horses at home (before it is suggested, I can’t get a third at this time…and she hates minis). I can’t leave her in the paddock next to the riding ring because she charges the fence and slams the brakes at the last minute - one of these days she’s going to go down or through the fence and it’s very distracting while trying to ride. So it doesn’t matter if he is still within eyesight, she can’t stand not being able to get to him if she wants to. I can put her in her stall and she whinnies and paces and works herself up in a lathered sweat. I will have to keep her in her stall whenever I ride the gelding, but I’m wondering if it may be of benefit to get her on a daily supplement to maybe soften the panic. I am asking the vet this week about using ACE on her, but knowing her, she’ll probably just blow right through that.

Anybody have a daily supplement they use on their horses that helps them chill out a little bit?

Her diet/turnout:
She gets only a handful of grain so I can mix her joint supplement in with her farrier’s formula. Other than that she only eats hay (no alfalfa). All day turnout, during the summer she is out 24/7, but being stalled or out 24/7 does not make a difference

[Haylter]

N O P E

[joiedevie99]

No, I wouldn’t expect it to help in this situation. Can you put another horse in with her? Three is so much easier to manage than two.

[cnigh]

No a calming supplements won’t work since it is 100% a behavioral problem. Stop thinking it is panic and feeling bad for her. Put her in her stall and ignore the behavior. She will learn. Sometimes it does take a while, but she will learn.

[Simkie]

I like calming supplements and frequently use them, but not for this. Or at least, I don’t expect a ton of change in this behavior.

Can she have a friend? Maybe a goat? A mirror might even help.

[mmeqcenter]

Valerian Root was wonderful for my gelding when he developed moderate separation anxiety on two different occasions. A friend also tried it for her insanely SA mare and had an amazing turnaround. About 3000 mg per day. Takes a week or two to start seeing an effect.

[BlueDrifter]

Does she do it when you take her away from gelding, rather than taking gelding away from her?

We had a horse at my barn that did that whenever her neighbor horse left. It stopped if they took her out and put her in crossties – making her feel she left them and was not left behind? And then they used a shock collar very successfully, and now I think it isn’t that much of an issue for them.

[firefoot]

I would typically agree to try and let her figure it out, but at her age … idk, old horses can be so stubborn. I mean, just like old people I guess – they know what they want and they want it now! In this case, she wants her man, lol.

I would try the ace and see how that goes. You might be able to slowly wean her off of it as she may start to associate her alone time as calm time. Give her enough and with enough time for it to kick in before you leave her so she’s less likely to blow through it. You might also try giving her a really nice snack while you’re away, like alfalfa (flakes or cubes) or something.

I don’t think magnesium would work. Valerian root might, like the other poster said.

[PrincessPonies]

I have the same issue with my pony. Anytime my mare leaves, even when they can still see each other, the pony flips out. I think I’ve tried every calming supplement offered and nothing’s helped. This is going on two years so time hasn’t helped either. Tried alfalfa and other nice foods with no luck. It may be different for your mare, I know a boarder once put her mare on a herbal thing because the mare got attached to a single other horse. It worked for that mare. I personally ride in a field with some green grass, we don’t have a lot of that around here, so I tried letting pony loose while I rode (my horse had been ridden in fields and rings where other horses were turned out so I knew she’d be fine). Pony loves it, however instead of grazing she ran with us the whole time making my normally calm mare pissed. Maybe something like that would work. Good luck and let us know if you find anything that works.

[Savannah_KP]

Thanks everyone for the input and advice!

[kande04]

You could try gradual habituation by riding the gelding close to the fence until she starts to get upset, and then stay there until she calms, then go a little further and a little further. I do a lot of that, which is good because it keeps both the horse I’m riding and the horse I’m leaving much calmer, and with most of them it works a lot faster than I could have ever predicted it would.