Smartcalm, perfect prep, calming supplements

[doublesstable]

[QUOTE=Ridergirl99;8721817]
I happen to love mares. I would chuck all those calming agents. They make their stomachs hurt. Invest in tons of turnout, some trail rides to get her out of the ring and slow down her brain and GASTROGUARD. Two great feeds are Legends Gastrotech and Legends Carbcare. Maybe some depo or regumate. Mares brains need to slow down. A nice long walk before and after working will do her wonders, whether she is at a show or home. The more she is exposed to the better. You don’t always need to be asking of them. Just let them take it all in. When you use your aides, use one at a time. Explain simply. Mares want to learn and please they are just misunderstood. Sometimes internally nervous. Sounds like both of you need to take a deep breath and I am not being snarky. Patience is a virtue in this sport. Sometimes less is more. Yada Yada.[/QUOTE]

Please don’t give Gastroguard without scoping her first. One of my horses had a huge colic adventure after giving Gastroguard. Vets are also on to this as well…

By your description she sounds herd bound and a bit feral. Intensified by being at “her” home farm.

I think you can try the calming supplements but personally I haven’t had any luck with the off the shelf stuff.

Just by reading your post if it were my horse I would either let her be in the herd at home or pony up the money and keep her at a boarding facility with a full training program where I could be with a trainer, grooms etc. and enjoy her for a few more years.

I have had herd bound horses and it’s not easy to get rid of that behavior unless you change the situation or just let them be with their friends.

I hope you find something that works for you.

[doublesstable]

[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8723081]
She doesn’t exactly scream barn sour or buddy sour to me. She is fine in the barn alone as long as she can’t see anyone moving around. If that makes sense. For example, she is in the barn completely alone and content and a horse passes through the barn or pass anywhere in here eye sight, she flips out until horse is completely removed or put in a stall. On trail rides (the only Time she ridden with another horse), she doesn’t mind riding ahead or behind. And barn sour doesn’t make sense to me because she is the same going to or from the barn. My ring is actually attached to the barn, so when we are in the ring, she doesn’t just explode by the gate like a typical barn sour horse. But of course, I haven’t worked with every type of barn sour horse, so she could be? Just not sure where
She would have gotten this from since the barn had no real meaning to her up until a few weeks ago. In fact I haven’t had a barn the entire time I owned her and this behavior has been there since before the barn was built. See why that theory doesn’t make sense to me? But I’ve been wrong before. Lol[/QUOTE]

Without being there but reading your post it still seems like she is herd bound. When alone she forgets about them then sees them and wants to be with them; as she displays the behavior.

I agree don’t think she’s barn sour - I agree with the other poster that said their horse did better in a full training barn situation rather than at home with a more closed and quiet herd.

I have had a few horses just like that. At my home barn they were idiots sometimes when they would see another horse… like it was too quiet at my place.

Then when I take them to a busy show barn setting they would act quiet and normal. I have had three horses that did this. I have had many others that could handle coming to my home barn…

Sounds like she may have been an OTTB? If so, maybe she’s more used to a busy barn setting. (?)

I think in your situation you just need to try things until you find what works for her.

[Ready_To_Riot]

I’m not actually a hunter. I event. I posted this over here because hunters typically know more about calming agents then eventers (sorry to stereotype). So, while I have a ring, often times I don’t ride in it. Being in her pasture many times means “work” because I ride in there to do trot sets as its a large 15 acre field. She did come from a very busy barn, but she had this behavior there as well. Boarding her isn’t an option either.

Thanks everyone. I’m going to start with a magnesium supplement first, and then probably go to regumate. I’m trying to think back to the winter and see if she was any better then at all, but I honestly don’t remember.

[DMK]

Agree, your description reads herdbound to me, which is technically worse in my experience.

Barn sour horses are easy to deal with, that can be something as simple as most of the work happens the closer to the barn/gate you get, and all the resting and easy stuff/rewarding is going away. A barn sour horse typically just doesn’t want to work too hard, and that is in your favor, because you can use that against them.

A herdbound horse is at their core a needy creature, they neeeeeeeed their herd mates and they are pretty sure they are going to die without them. That, unfortunately, works against you because in 99.9% of the world the working setup is you leave your buddies for a while (I’m going to die if I leave them!!!), work for your dinner (this sucks AND I’m going to DIE of loneliness!!!) and go back to them (rewarded for bad behavior, AWESOME!). Hello reinforcement…

She was/is probably good on the trail/riding out because she either made a lifelong friend on the trailer ride or when she got there and was perfectly happy to do stuff with her new BFF. God help you if the BFF left.

As rugbug said, barn sour can be a subset of herd bound, but this sounds like herd bound. And this is where you have to put on your thinking cap and figure out how to make the behavior unrewarding without contributing excessively to her distress levels. She’s probably not being an idiot to get out of work, she’s genuinely upset.

I just started a young horse who lived all his life in pasture with his buddies until he came to me. He’s by nature a bit needy and with the disruption in his life, I really can’t blame him for latching on to his new herd mates. That said, when I go work him out in the ring (he’s still doing mostly ground work) and he screams (fairly regularly the first few weeks) and thought maybe he could work his way over to the closest part of the arena to the barn (hope springs eternal). I just ignored him and asked for a little bit more focused work from him for a few minutes, maybe a lot of reversing direction or backing up/walking forward, maybe trotting just a bit more than he thought was ideal. All things that said “hey, pay attention to ME” then went back to whatever we were doing before the attention lapse occurred. Honestly I didn’t even notice it, but slowly he stopped calling until the other day when the guy came to feed, every other horse started talking and he just gave a half hearted nicker and went back to work. He’s still a long way from over it (and I have a feeling he will always need to be managed, because that is how needy horses are), but it’s a good start to managing the problem from Day One.

[Synthesis]

Just a thought but my mare has similar tendancies. Reacts to small changes in her home environment but really wonderful when I take her off property.

My working theory is that away everything is different, so nothing jumps out as an immediate danger. When home, most things stay the same so small changes become alarms bells. Its taken a serious amount of work to moderate this but it HAS gotten way better with consistent work. She’s also way better outside than in, for similar reasons.

I’m happy to live with it because I can take care of things at home and she becomes my rock when we go away and I get anxious.

[ladipus]

You haven’t mentioned her feed?? What is she getting and how much makes a big difference with some horses …I recommend something as low in starch/sugar as possible , and possibly even molasses free …I have a Tb geld who is normally spur and stick quiet …did a feed change to the recommended minimum amount of 6lbs Triple Crown Senior and he was like a spider monkey on crack within a few days …took him off it and he’s now just getting TC ration balancer and alfalfa pellets and he’s back to spur and stick quiet again.

Also highly recommend an ulcer treatment and supplement…and I would also check a lyme titer -you’d be amazed that you could have a chronic high titer without many glaringly obvious symptoms

as much turnout as possible …

as as for supplements …I like Mare Magic and Via Calm the best…Quiessence and Mag Restore also good …and if I want an added boost I like Omega Alphas Chill Ultra …they also make something called Pre Mare

there’s injectable Depo(Medroxyprogesterone ), Reguamte , and injectable Regumate as well

[vxf111]

[QUOTE=Synthesis;8723264]
Just a thought but my mare has similar tendancies. Reacts to small changes in her home environment but really wonderful when I take her off property.

My working theory is that away everything is different, so nothing jumps out as an immediate danger. When home, most things stay the same so small changes become alarms bells. Its taken a serious amount of work to moderate this but it HAS gotten way better with consistent work. She’s also way better outside than in, for similar reasons.

I’m happy to live with it because I can take care of things at home and she becomes my rock when we go away and I get anxious.[/QUOTE]

I had a horse who was an absolute WRECK when anything changed in his home environment (like, say, a show is hosted there 3x/year). Totally fine off property. He is not so bright and really, really NOT BRAVE. The only thing that comforted him was consistency. Off propety I think he was still scared but didn’t really see any other option beyond going with the flow. He wasn’t clever enough to come up with an evasion.

At home I always pretty much followed the same routine for him. Ride at the same time of day, groom in the small stall, do the same order of events under saddle. He was MUCH better if someone else was riding at the same time in eyeshot, even if they weren’t in the ring with us. Or if he could see a turned out horse from where he was being ridden. He always lacked confidence, always. Like the T-rex was lurking around the corner. Off property he was too overwhelmed to act out about it but at home he knew where every t-rex cave was to spook at it.

I don’t have a solution for the OP because mine ended up being retired due to unsoundness so I never found the perfect solution.

[doublesstable]

[QUOTE=DMK;8723240]
Agree, your description reads herdbound to me, which is technically worse in my experience.

Barn sour horses are easy to deal with, that can be something as simple as most of the work happens the closer to the barn/gate you get, and all the resting and easy stuff/rewarding is going away. A barn sour horse typically just doesn’t want to work too hard, and that is in your favor, because you can use that against them.

A herdbound horse is at their core a needy creature, they neeeeeeeed their herd mates and they are pretty sure they are going to die without them. That, unfortunately, works against you because in 99.9% of the world the working setup is you leave your buddies for a while (I’m going to die if I leave them!!!), work for your dinner (this sucks AND I’m going to DIE of loneliness!!!) and go back to them (rewarded for bad behavior, AWESOME!). Hello reinforcement…

She was/is probably good on the trail/riding out because she either made a lifelong friend on the trailer ride or when she got there and was perfectly happy to do stuff with her new BFF. God help you if the BFF left.

As rugbug said, barn sour can be a subset of herd bound, but this sounds like herd bound. And this is where you have to put on your thinking cap and figure out how to make the behavior unrewarding without contributing excessively to her distress levels. She’s probably not being an idiot to get out of work, she’s genuinely upset.

I just started a young horse who lived all his life in pasture with his buddies until he came to me. He’s by nature a bit needy and with the disruption in his life, I really can’t blame him for latching on to his new herd mates. That said, when I go work him out in the ring (he’s still doing mostly ground work) and he screams (fairly regularly the first few weeks) and thought maybe he could work his way over to the closest part of the arena to the barn (hope springs eternal). I just ignored him and asked for a little bit more focused work from him for a few minutes, maybe a lot of reversing direction or backing up/walking forward, maybe trotting just a bit more than he thought was ideal. All things that said “hey, pay attention to ME” then went back to whatever we were doing before the attention lapse occurred. Honestly I didn’t even notice it, but slowly he stopped calling until the other day when the guy came to feed, every other horse started talking and he just gave a half hearted nicker and went back to work. He’s still a long way from over it (and I have a feeling he will always need to be managed, because that is how needy horses are), but it’s a good start to managing the problem from Day One.[/QUOTE]

^ Yes

Where you talk about “needy” those in my experience have been the ones that do act like this. I have had other horses that were more of the leader type and I could take them anywhere without other horses or see other horses and they didn’t care.

Okay so I understand - boarding the mare is like you say she is at home; sorry, I read you said she was fine other places and reason I suggested maybe a change of environment.

Boarding isn’t an option I would consult with your vet if you want to ride her at home. Maybe Depo under a vets guidance might not be a bad idea then.

Or just let her be with her friends. Sadly I had to retire a horse at 13 and it was best for him. Similar horse/mental issue but had some physical stuff as well.

[Ready_To_Riot]

Her feed is 1lb of purina enrich plus and was on 24/7 turnout. Now in the stall for 8-10 hours and gets 2 flakes of grass mix hay.

Also, she trailers alone when we trail ride. She has no time to make a best friend, but as I said, she is 100% okay with completely leaving the group alone. She also never screams for other horses. Which is what I’ve always experienced with herd bound horses. Working in sight of other Horses at home doesn’t help either. I will try separation completely to see if it helps at all.

Picked up some mare magic since they had it at tractor supply and have put in an order for magrestore. Someone mentioned vitacalm. They have that at tractor supply as well (easy to get). Is that a good option? I hate having to order things.

[vxf111]

Anything on the TS website they can order-to-store for you, FYI.

[Ready_To_Riot]

[QUOTE=vxf111;8723449]
Anything on the TS website they can order-to-store for you, FYI.[/QUOTE]

Thank you! I didn’t think about that!

[doublesstable]

For some reason this thread is bouncing around a bit.

[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8721258]
riding at home is damn near impossible. She is great off farm. It’s just at home that she is like this. Has been no matter how much I worker her or where on the farm I do the work. She is herd bound, but not to any one horse. She wants them all in the barn if she is in the barn. If one is out, but all the others are in with her, she flips out in the stall. That annoys me the most. She is not herd bound when riding however. She is just a spaz. Just walking she gets worked up and lathers up in a terrible sweat
[/QUOTE] You think she is herd bound then later you say she isn’t.

@Ready To Riot;8723081

She doesn’t exactly scream barn sour or buddy sour to me. She is fine in the barn alone as long as she can’t see anyone moving around. If that makes sense. For example, she is in the barn completely alone and content and a horse passes through the barn or pass anywhere in here eye sight, she flips out until horse is completely removed or put in a stall.

[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8723429] Also, she trailers alone when we trail ride. She has no time to make a best friend, but as I said, she is 100% okay with completely leaving the group alone. She also never screams for other horses. Which is what I’ve always experienced with herd bound horses.

Picked up some mare magic since they had it at tractor supply and have put in an order for magrestore. Someone mentioned vitacalm. They have that at tractor supply as well (easy to get). Is that a good option? I hate having to order things.[/QUOTE]

@Ready To Riot;8722389

There is a difference between a hot horse and my horse. We literally cannot walk around any where on the farm without her being in a frenzy. Breathing hard, jigging, head in the air, and in a dripping sweat from WALKING. I don’t mind a hot horse, but at home, she is literally uncontainable. She doesn’t buck, or bolt, she just cannot move without getting insane anxiety. But only at home.

If this happened previously at her old barn as you said here only at home.

@Ready To Riot;8721352

As I stated above, she is 100% sound and healthy I’m not looking for a quick fix. I’ve been dealing with her for the past 8 years. She is simply a hot horse. More work doesn’t help. Less work doesn’t help. She is just a very high strung anxious animal and I need her to not be. It’s either put her on something or haul off farm to ride. I didn’t make this post for advice on her training or my riding. All I need advice on is if you feed a calming supplement, what do you have the best results with. If you can’t answer that, simply scroll past this please. It truly annoys me that a simple question cannot be answered on this forum. If I want training advice, I’ll call my trainer.

I don’t think you have a simple question and reason you received different ideas. It’s also good to try to figure out the root of the issue so treatment could have a chance of being successful. I think you are hoping some supplement will fix this what I read as a dangerous behavior.

It’s probably worth trying some supplements and definitely worth a vet call for consultation and possible administration of Depo. But beyond that I don’t really see what more you could do.

As far as the over the counter supplements. Usually used for very mild cases of show nerves. Anything more is not legal. Just pull up a thread on it LOL.

@Ready To Riot;8723234

I’m not actually a hunter. I event. I posted this over here because hunters typically know more about calming agents then eventers (sorry to stereotype).

These supplements in my experience really don’t work on severe cases as you have with your mare. But it’s always worth a try.

[IPEsq]

I had a spicy mare who was extremely hot and spooky at home. She was somewhat buddy bound but at the same time tried to come off as aloof with respect to the other horses, so how herdbound she really was wasn’t clear. She was a star off property, though. She loved to go horse show. Some days, I could barely get her to stand still for a nanosecond for me to get on her at home and then it would be go go go go go. She was better to longe for whatever reason and was really broke at that, but she didn’t need to just go around in tiny circles at home.

Putting her on a hormone implant helped. There weren’t all these calming supplements or even Ulcergard back then so I didn’t try any of that stuff. We just tried keeping her on the road a lot. If we screwed up the timing of the implant, things were much worse. So, I’m leaning on the side of hormones.

[alteringwego]

Never had a bit of help from any calming supplement or paste. I finally tried Equinety based on the response from a friend of mine. Wowza! New horse. He was just sensitive about everything. Part thoroughbred but it made it not so amateur friendly at times. Now he’s an absolute peach. It’s not marketed as a calming supplement though. It’s amino acids. Sounds stupid but I’m telling you I spent thousands on calming supplements and this is the only thing that ever changed him.

[Lord_Helpus]

I haven’t read all the posts, but one thing that stands out to me whenever I hear about a horse who is nervous and spooky is vision. Have you had her eyes checked by an equine opthamologist? [Google insists that is the correct spelling, even though my speller doesn’t think so].

Might be worth a thought if she has not been checked out.

Then again, some horses are just that way. I would set her up for success – calming paste (which is what you are trying) or 1cc of Ace. Let her learn to enjoy life as a riding horse and then wean her off it.

Even if there is a physical cause, the spooking is now ingrained behavior which you need help in replacing with appropriate behavior.

To bad she has lived with this for so long, and that no one tried to interrupt the vicious cycle before this. Good for you for trying to work it out.

[Lady_Eboshi]

[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8723234]
I’m not actually a hunter. I event. I posted this over here because hunters typically know more about calming agents then eventers (sorry to stereotype). So, while I have a ring, often times I don’t ride in it. Being in her pasture many times means “work” because I ride in there to do trot sets as its a large 15 acre field. She did come from a very busy barn, but she had this behavior there as well. Boarding her isn’t an option either.

Thanks everyone. I’m going to start with a magnesium supplement first, and then probably go to regumate. I’m trying to think back to the winter and see if she was any better then at all, but I honestly don’t remember.[/QUOTE]

OP, I think you’ve just got a case of square peg/round hole syndrome here, aka a horse who needs a different management and training environment than the one you have at home.

If she is focused, rideable, and successful when you trailer out, to the point where you can take productive lessons and even compete, that right there rules out physical issues (Lyme, kissing spines, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal problems, “hot” genetics, etc). What you have is a training/behavioral problem when she’s at home and near her herd, and she’s letting you know extremely clearly that riding her successfully “at home” isn’t going to work.

So . . . don’t.

Board this mare at your trainer’s place, and let your trainer take over the management for a trial period of, say, three months and see what you get. Make sure the trainer shares with you the exact nature of the feeding, turnout, and work programs. If the mare is tractable in that environment, and does not become herd-bound or too fizzy there, then there is exactly where she needs to be.

At that point you decide whether keeping her there works for YOU, or if a lease, sale or new career as a schoolie is in order. The mare might even make a useful polo pony or endurance mount where her “hot” nature would be an asset, not a hassle.

Please DO NOT make the mistake of believing that because a horse doesn’t work for YOU, she won’t work out for ANYONE–it may be that she is just too much horse for you under present circumstances, and someone else (even in another discipline) might get along with her just fine. BTW, many of us consider age 14 “early middle age,” not nearing retirement.

There are a great many horses who totally NEED to be “in a program,” where their every move, 24/7, is “programmed” by humans. In many cases, that’s their security blanket because it’s all they’ve ever known. They lose their minds and overreact to 24/7 turnout. There are others who can’t handle anything LESS than pasture life! I think your mare is trying to tell you which type she is.

Too many people are spending WAY too much money trying to diagnose, drug, woo-woo and wish away what is simply a BAD MATCH. “There’s someone for everyone” as Kenny Rogers sang, and neither man nor beast can change their basic nature.

Good Luck!

[doublesstable]

[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8723521]
OP, I think you’ve just got a case of square peg/round hole syndrome here, aka a horse who needs a different management and training environment than the one you have at home.

If she is focused, rideable, and successful when you trailer out, to the point where you can take productive lessons and even compete, that right there rules out physical issues (Lyme, kissing spines, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal problems, “hot” genetics, etc). What you have is a training/behavioral problem when she’s at home and near her herd, and she’s letting you know extremely clearly that riding her successfully “at home” isn’t going to work.

So . . . don’t.

Board this mare at your trainer’s place, and let your trainer take over the management for a trial period of, say, three months and see what you get. Make sure the trainer shares with you the exact nature of the feeding, turnout, and work programs. If the mare is tractable in that environment, and does not become herd-bound or too fizzy there, then there is exactly where she needs to be.

At that point you decide whether keeping her there works for YOU, or if a lease, sale or new career as a schoolie is in order. The mare might even make a useful polo pony or endurance mount where her “hot” nature would be an asset, not a hassle.

Please DO NOT make the mistake of believing that because a horse doesn’t work for YOU, she won’t work out for ANYONE–it may be that she is just too much horse for you under present circumstances, and someone else (even in another discipline) might get along with her just fine. BTW, many of us consider age 14 “early middle age,” not nearing retirement.

There are a great many horses who totally NEED to be “in a program,” where their every move, 24/7, is “programmed” by humans. In many cases, that’s their security blanket because it’s all they’ve ever known. They lose their minds and overreact to 24/7 turnout. There are others who can’t handle anything LESS than pasture life! I think your mare is trying to tell you which type she is.

Too many people are spending WAY too much money trying to diagnose, drug, woo-woo and wish away what is simply a BAD MATCH. “There’s someone for everyone” as Kenny Rogers sang, and neither man nor beast can change their basic nature.

Good Luck![/QUOTE]

I agree and suggested the same thing but her response was boarding is not an option.

@doublesstable;8723161

By your description she sounds herd bound and a bit feral. Intensified by being at “her” home farm.

I think you can try the calming supplements but personally I haven’t had any luck with the off the shelf stuff.

Just by reading your post if it were my horse I would either let her be in the herd at home or pony up the money and keep her at a boarding facility with a full training program where I could be with a trainer, grooms etc. and enjoy her for a few more years.

[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8723234] Boarding her isn’t an option either.

Thanks everyone. I’m going to start with a magnesium supplement first, and then probably go to regumate. I’m trying to think back to the winter and see if she was any better then at all, but I honestly don’t remember.[/QUOTE]

[Ready_To_Riot]

Yes, boarding isn’t an option.

What gets me with the mare is that she isn’t bad. She is just a nervous wreck. Occasionally she would have little rears, but those are quickly corrected and happen more in a case of “dear god that bird just tried to take my head off” kind of instances. She walks and trots and canters and jumps and does everything I ask of her, but the entire time it’s like riding a fire breathing dragon. She is looky and white eyed the entire ride like at any moment she is expecting to be eaten alive by the monster she can’t see.

The barn issue is separate from that which is why I called her “herd bound” it may have been a bad choice in words. Any commotion from another horse not in a stall unsettles her. I just need her to stop and breathe because it’s currently too hot for her to work up such a sweat, therefore, I can’t ride at home right now.

And I’m not getting rid of her. As I have said, I’m keeping her until she takes her last breath.

[RugBug]

@Ready To Riot;8723622

Yes, boarding isn’t an option.

What gets me with the mare is that she isn’t bad. She is just a nervous wreck. Occasionally she would have little rears, but those are quickly corrected and happen more in a case of “dear god that bird just tried to take my head off” kind of instances. She walks and trots and canters and jumps and does everything I ask of her, but the entire time it’s like riding a fire breathing dragon. She is looky and white eyed the entire ride like at any moment she is expecting to be eaten alive by the monster she can’t see.

FWIW - This is exactly how I would describe my herdbound horse. He’s obedient, but like sitting on a time bomb. He is so tense it’s not even funny. And while he wasn’t a horse I could put an absolute beginner on, I did used to describe him as the perfect first horse. That’s how drastic a change it’s been.

I did have a few moments of herdbound issues when my horse was stalled next to mares. Sometimes I could tell (nutter) other times, I didn’t know until he was a frantic mess when the mare went to a new facility. IT’s not ALL mares, just some.

[ToTheNines]

OP, I have not read through this entire thread, but do you by any chance have livestock as neighbors? I have mine at home. My pastures are quite large, and when I ride in the arena, I can tell that mine are better when they can see a buddy or two.

However, across the street from my arena, is a huge ranch with buffalo and exotics. Even when those creatures are not in sight, my horses can smell them. They are terrified of them. It makes a huge difference if I smear some Mentholatum in their nostrils. Not kidding!