Cows are obviously aware of their surroundings (as pretty much any animal is) and appear to not appreciate changes in their environment or routines. However, both SuzieQNutter and I were discussing the “possible predator awareness” of horses and their needs to listen for the potential approach of such predators, which I do not think is comparable to cows. Cows are not generally flight-oriented animals as horses are - evolutionarily cows seem to be more fight-oriented in their response to predators.
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You are making too much sense 
lol
I walked into the barn this morning at work and it sounded like all hell was breaking loose. Normally, the cows are eating, cudding, napping, bopping to their favourite radio station and not making a sound. Today they needed to spread the word that the newest calf had died overnight and had just been removed about 1/2 hour previous to my arrival. Being Holsteins, dam of dead calf was busy catching up on eating, “I’ve grieved, I knew he wasn’t going to make it, I’m over it.” The rest of the barn? Going BONKERS.
It took another 1/2 hour for them to settle down.
But yeah, Suzie and leheath are right, cows really don’t give a crap about what goes on around them 
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One idea which popped out at me was the vitamin E levels being low. I’ve recently had to deal with that so I have been reading about it a bit.
If this horse had low levels of vitamin E for a while, it could have affected him permanently. Some of the symptoms are neuromuscular damage which can show as lack of proprioception, especially in the hind end. I wonder if it can contribute to tripping as well; I would think so. It can also cause a weakness or degeneration of muscles in the topline – another symptom which you mentioned. Treating with vitamin E can totally reverse the problems in some horses but not always. Sometimes the damage is permanent even though the levels are brought up to normal.
The article linked here is very informative. Be sure and read it completely because it discusses different conditions related to low vitamin E.
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Wow…literally, neither of us said that…perhaps try reading the part where I wrote “cows are obviously aware of their surrounds and do not appreciate changes in their environment or routines.” 
But you are obviously intent on equating cows to horses and we are way off the topic of the OP…so carry on.
@PeteyPie the vitamin E suggestion might be a cause - one of my horses had what seemed like neurological issues (weird muscle spasms/twitching and headshaking) that were completely resolved with vitamin E supplementation.
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Right, ok, so we are imagining the ear-drum bursting bawling and are mis-perceiving their upset when they lose it over a strange vehicle (that they can barely even see through the barn windows) passing by the barn.
And, in regards to not being flight animals? Um? What? Their flight zone can (and should) be whittled down to make handling them easier, but their flight instinct is exactly what makes them relatively easy to herd. If they were fight animals, we couldn’t communicate direction of travel from 10-20m away, we couldn’t separate them by our body language, we wouldn’t know that the calmest way to move them in a more or less routine pattern is to move parallel to them rather than to upset them by herding them from behind. Their flight zone is also what makes them relatively safe to move among them in confined areas . The fact that they will not resort to fighting a perceived danger before trying to remove themselves from that perceived danger is what keeps us alive.
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What I am about to suggest is not going to change everything, as in I suspect that a veterinarian may still be needed.
BUT in the past two years, riding around 5-6 different horses (all lesson horses), I have found that titanium/titanium coated bits gave me the best results with horses who did.not.want.to.take.contact.at.all (including rooting.)
My riding teacher says I have excellent hands. With stainless steel bits the horses took contact fine (usually) but it took me a looooong time to get some of them to truly relax into contact. I do not do hard contact, my contact is in ounces and my hand aids are in grams, usually.
I was riding an old, very badly conformed, very badly trained14 hand QH gelding who had the thickest throatlatch of any horse I’ve seen except maybe for really tall draft horses, along with an upside down lowset neck and he was very croup high. When he was ridden he inverted, then he would root violently, then he would carry his rider off (no matter the gait) to the gate.
I made progress with him in the stainless steel bits. Then I decided to try the titanium/titanium coated bits. His contact improved immediately, he stopped rooting, his mouth became responsive to the bit, and he cheered up about riding quite a bit.
After that my riding teacher borrowed some of my titanium coated bits to try out on her not so good with contact lesson horses. These horses improved. In fact some of her horses “went on strike” (resumed their disobedient behavior) when she tried to use the stainless steel bits again.
But back to the old badly conformed QH. He improved greatly but there was still something not quite right with our contact. I invested in properly fitting Fager bits double bridle bits and once again he improved greatly, which is good because my MS made my hands and arms much weaker than usual (and my usual is weak, weak, weak.) He stopped bracing his poll, he relaxed his lower jaw and tongue, and he acted as if the double bridle was the answer he had been looking for his entire life. This improvement continued when my arms got stronger again so it was not all because of my weak hands.
I prefer the Fager bits, their designers seem to LISTEN to the horses. They have many styles of bits and it is hard to choose. If you go this route e-mail Louise Fagerson at Fager bits so she can tell you which bit would work best for you and your horse. The prices on their web pages can be converted to USD, but those prices include the VAT tax, I’ve been paying 25% less for the bits by the time my card is charged, and the Fager people do not charge for postage.
If nothing else seems to work after the veterinarians have done everything they can for your horse the Fager bits may be worth a try. Heck, it might be worth a try before you spend several more hundreds or thousands of dollars with the vet. Just remember these bits are not miracles, but the horses I ride really seem to like them in their mouths even when my hand tremors get a lot worse than usual.
I could have written this post about my welsh gelding a year ago. He’s not a cob, but he’s just about everything else in this post, or at least he was. I also got him in bad condition. I will PM you later when I have more time with all the things I tried, and what worked
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You are referring to tame cattle that can be handled. I am referring to semi tame cattle that can not be handled. However go out West where they muster untame cattle. The herding is done by helicopter so they can not fight. They are herded into temporary yards. If you want them to go through a gate. You stand in front of the gate. When they attack you jump out of the way and through they go and the gate is closed. I was told this by a close friend who went out there for a week.
Well, that’s certainly authoritative.
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I keep hoping there is an update about the original topic, yet more debate about cows… Laugh.
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“When wild cattle or sheep are handled the handler should work on the edge of the fight zone to avoid agitation…Many people make the mistake of deeply invading the flight zone when cattle are being driven down an alley or into an enclosed area such as a crowd pen. If the handler deeply penetrates the flight zone, the cattle may turn back and run over him. If the cattle attempt to turn back, the person should back up and retreat from inside the flight zone. The reason why the livestock attempt to turn back is because they are trying to escape from the person who is deep inside their flight zone.”
–Dr. Temple Grandin
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Yes we have known him for decades and he was the one who taught us about cattle when we moved here from complete newbies and made us start with quiet dairy cows.
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If you think Holstein heifers are “quiet dairy cows” you, um, … yeah.
The flight zone is a real thing. The preference of flight to fight is a real thing. However, if you’re dumb enough, or not careful enough to a) understand that different cattle have different flight zone diameters and b) cannot read the subtle signs of pre-flight zone invasion and c) get careless, you will get attacked or accidentally hurt to some degree or another.
My stupidest incident was not that long ago when we stupidly gave a heifer no choice but to squish the least threatening of 2 threats. Was I acting threatening at her hind end? Nope. Was the person who was at her front end acting threatening? Nope. But, the heifer perceived the person at her front to be the larger threat. Did she attack? Nope. She attempted to run from the perceived larger threat which got me (at her hind end) squished against a post. Did she attack me when I kicked the ever-loving shizzle out of her hind leg? Nope. By that time the perceived bigger threat had moved out of her flight zone so she was free to flee from my kicking and squawking. This is normal cow behaviour. Attacking is not. Are there (even Holsteins who have the maternal instinct of rocks) some who WILL attack? Yup. Some mamas with new calves will inflate their flight zones 10 fold or more, but, again, if you’re smart enough to stay out of that flight zone, you’re fine.
I don’t understand why it is so difficult to understand that cattle are flight animals.
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I never said they were not prey or flight animals, we just said they are different to horses. Put an electric fence up in a paddock that they are not used to, most horses will touch the wire and back away from it.
Have someone rent the paddock next to you due to a drought. Put in cattle not trained for an electric fence and drive 5 hours home. They touch the electric fence and go forward through it. That fence was high enough to keep 2 bulls apart fighting but untrained cattle no.
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Most of the horses I have encountered do not ever touch the electric fence, you must have a life of weird horse encounters.
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Honestly, I have a horse who knows that if she has a blanket or sheet on, she can go through the electric fence with nary a zap. She can also tell if the electric fencing isn’t on, for whatever reason.
I’m sure someone has called her a cow for being so willing to test the fences, but I’m pretty sure she’s really an equine.
Carry on.
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I don’t ever recall being asked to “train” cattle to the electric fence at work, and yet somehow cows and heifers alike respect it and don’t go forward through it. Weird.
The former neighbour’s sheep and ponies, otoh, they regularly busted through their electric fence and came to visit across the road. One memorable call from a friend, “I’m in the loft at your work trying to keep loose ponies from coming up here.” (And falling through the open floor :o since it was summer and boards were peeled back on the north side for maximum ventilation)
ETA - crowd gates for moving groups of cattle in a confined space - they are only made hot for training purposes, the same as the gates of a Eurorciser for horses. Because all frightening things being equal, cattle, like horses, will generally move away from a zap. Naughty ponies notwithstanding (and we never bothered to find out whether they actually went through a hot fence or if the fences wasn’t working)
I feel like this has devolved into a “who knows THE MOST about cattle” thread for some strange reason and seems to be taking on a slightly snarky tone. In an attempt to bring this back on track-OP, have you had any new exams since your last post? I’m so curious about your guy and really hope you can get to the bottom of this. Please give us an update when you have one!
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I will be another poster to praise you for trying so hard for this horse, thank you for being you!
From reading your posts, it seems that you have had the help of many professionals, yet you still feel that the horse is telling you something is still wrong. Hopefully it is a mix of the horse being uneducated in contact/correct movement, possible neck issues, and ulcers…I.e. relatively “simple” things.
How about ground/in-hand work to see if you can get a better feel of where he feels tense in the body. To see his corresponding behavior to simple touches on his-self.
Are you familiar with TTouch, a program by Linda Tellington-Jones? She has a few different books, etc. out to self-teach yourself or you may be able to find a practitioner near you. The method is fairly simple and straightforward. It incorporates a lot of massage, stretching, and gentle moving-away from pressure exercises. It has been around since the ‘70s.
Anyways, this could be a simple way to still work with him in a way that does not cause pain or confusion (as riding possibly does at this time).
Her website:
https://ttouch.com/
A sample video with background info:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg5ExVbTzK8
I wish you the best with him!
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Meh, threads devolve and come back around all the time. FWIW, it’s more of a don’t spread untruths than who knows the most kind of thing. I mean black isn’t white and cattle aren’t “fight” animals and that they are doesn’t need to be spread around the internet like gods honest truth for those that don’t know cattle to suck up and spread further.
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