I apologize ahead of time, but this will be lengthy.
We have a client, who we have trained horses for previously, that sent us a Shire stallion. The stallion is 8 years old and was previously kept in a field with two geldings, we were told they were this stallion's offspring. Anyway, the new owner purchased the horse in June and he arrived toward the middle of the month at his new home. This gentleman has the best intentions for his horses, but knows very little. The stallion was there for a few days displaying nervous behavior, pacing in his stall, rearing, whinnying, etc...Nothing aggressive. So with the intentions of letting the horse blow off a little steam, the new owner turned the stallion out in a large paddock, board fence no hot wire. The new owner was walking a filly past the paddock and the stallion came thru the fence. The new owner let the filly go. He said the stallion showed no aggression and no attempt to breed her. Just sort of hung out with her, until they were both caught.
He decided that he didn't have the facility to contain the stallion and asked us to board him until he got his fence updated and figured a way to redesign his stalls. (They are solid with an open front, so the horses can't see each other on the side; there is only one row of stalls so there are no horses across from each other either) He also asked that the horse be put into a regular trainng routine.
Enter our farm. We have currently 6 of our own stallions, and 90% of our training business is stallions. We are not newcomers to problem horses. Our stallions are all socialized, healthy and mentally sound. We have a strict breeding and training program. Our stallions are even turned out with each other outside of breeding season, and are all perfectly fine with each other. Even in the middle of breeding season, our stallions are kept side by side in open grill stalls, and we have no issues. There are two people, myself and my husband who handle the stallions exclusively. We have received problem stallions before, and had great success.
The Shire stallion came to us in mid June, and displayed symptoms of separation anxiety, so we gave him a stall buddy that was put in the adjoining stall beside the Shire stallion. This seemed to calm him down greatly as he bonded with him. He began training to drive and by mid July seemed well adjusted, was working well and we were having no real problems to speak of.
Late August rolls around and David started loosing weight, fairly quickly, so we started him on a fatty acid supplement. Although he did not loose any more weight, he wasn't gaining it either. So our vet came out for basic tests, fecal and blood. The fecal results were clean and the blood tests resulted that he had very mild anemia. His teeth were looked at by an Equine Dentist and checked out fine. A week or two later, The stallion started to show signs of aggression toward his stall buddy and any horse that walked past his stall, regardless of sex. So our vet thought it was possible that due to his nervous behavior he could have developed ulcers, he was prescribed Ranitidine (an antacid) he was placed on it for three weeks with no result. At this point he is rearing and laying his ears back as horses are walked past him. So we placed him in a paddock that is next to a paddock of right around 8 horses. (The paddock is separated by about ten feet and of course lined in hot wire). He does better out there, seems happier, until you need to work horses in his sight or walk them past the paddock, in which he runs the fence line with his ears semi-pinned. He still works fine in the arena, but he does seem to challenge us, and of course we are pretty careful on how we correct him and praise him a lot. He has not shown any aggression toward us yet.
We recently took him to OSU to have him scoped for ulcers, he was clean. The vet out there was less than helpful, and basically assumed that his behavior was our fault, and I assure you, if I thought it was us, we would refer him elsewhere! The vets comment to us was "you need to show him who is boss". I was at loss for words, we left needless to say. The attending vet then told the owner, he should just be put down, gelding isn't going to help him.
We even tried a chicken in his stall...didn't work out.
We have tried herbal calming formulas, no luck. Our vet suggested a low dose of Fluphenazine, but I understand it can be very toxic if too much is given and because it isn't labeled for use in horses, we are obviously a little hesitant to try it.
This is a nice traditional type Shire stallion and has offspring, that are carbon copies. He is worth saving when looking at the breeding aspect. Of course the owner is considering gelding, but even then, I feel that we will still have underlying behavioral issues.
Any suggestions, I have no idea what else to try???
Unfortunately, it is difficult (if not almost impossible) to try and identify a causative agent via the internet.
Generally in a change of attitude situation there is something that has changed beyond the attitude, with pain a possible cause, or a change in the "stallion hierarchy" as a result of introduction to a new set of herd parameters (with the handling humans included as part of the herd).
In view of the fact that you are located in PA, I would encourage you to contact Dr. Sue McDonnell at the University of Pennsylvania (New Bolton Center), who is a behaviour specialist with a specific interest in stallions. As you are [reasonably] close by, having her visit and evaluate the situation would probably be extremely valuable. Dr. McDonnell is a super person to work with and I am sure will have excellent input.
Late August rolls around and David started loosing weight, fairly quickly, so we started him on a fatty acid supplement.
...........
A week or two later, The stallion started to show signs of aggression toward his stall buddy and any horse that walked past his stall, regardless of sex ............
Could there have been something in the supplement that triggered a change in behavior? Is he still on the supplement?
Late August he started loosing weight...
When is your breeding Season? Did something happen right before that? Was he bred at all this year? Was his favorite mare bred to another stallion? Did he watch any other stallions breeding?
It could be that the 'newness' of the situation (new facility, new people, learning respect) has started to wear off and he's starting to test things out a bit.
Another thought would be to have his hormone levels checked? Maybe he just 'can't deal with his hormones' once they start flowing...I've worked with a few grumpy stallions before, and found that during breeding season the best thing we could do for them after breeding was to take them out on the trails for a few hours and let them work it off.
I would also expirement a little and see if there is a certain horse he's pissed at! Maybe he just get's upset when your working a certain color of a horse?
Had any horses gotten loose right before he started getting grumpy or loosing weight?
Tape worms can cause quick weight loss...we don't see them much in CA though, he might have picked something up when he went to his new owners farm.
Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 09:42 am:
Our breeding season here starts officially in March and runs thru July. He was bred four times, we used another stallion to tease. We have two separate locations, a "breeding barn" where our outside mares to be bred and our own personal brood mares are kept. Our stallions all do their covering here. Then we have a "Training" barn, where the indoor and all of our young stock, horses in for training and our competition horses are housed. All of our stallions compete, so they are stabled at our training barn. The only time they are at the breeding barn is to breed. All of our stallions at the training barn are horses and while there have very little tendency to want to act studly toward a mare, same at competitions. When they are at the breeding barn, they are permitted to behave more like stallion,within reason, talk to the mares, tease, etc... This is the same course that we put David thru and by his fourth breeding, he was jumping on command. So I doubt it is breeding related. He is pretty well adjusted in that respect.
None of the mares he bred were on property.
We breed Vanners and Drums, 20 out of 25 horses here, are pinto marked in some way, so if he dislikes pintos...we are in trouble! lol
We have tried seeing if it were one particular horse that he dislikes, the ONLY horses he will accept are babies! I'm not risking my weanlings by attempting to put them together in a paddock though. But side by side in stalls they are fine. And that would be my solution, except, my weanlings are leaving me in a week or two!
I asked the vet in Ohio to check his hormone levels, and her reply was they thought "he needed to be shown who is boss". I assure you this is a mannerly stallion when in hand. He stands 18 hands and knows it, but he rarely takes a step out of line. You don't even have to shake a rope at him, you say his name deeply and he is right back in line. You rarely correct this stallion and he loves to be loved on. He is very sensitive! If you stand at the front of his stall he is content, you leave, he is bouncing off the walls, which leads me to believe it is separation anxiety. Until he acts like he wants to kill one of our other horses! I would tend to say maybe it is jealousy...but I doubt horses experience that?
We did try something a little different last night when stalling him and it seemed to work out. We have some "semi-short" Prifert fabricated stalls, that sit in the breezeway between our indoor and barn. We placed him in there, with no other horses in sight, and he can literally place his head above the stall and look out. I wasn't keen on it, but he was comfy and no vocalization! So at this point, if he continues to behave as well as what he did yesterday, I think we figured out how to keep him happy!
We are still going to try to consult with New Bolton and see what else we can figure out. Our vet is coming Monday to draw blood for testing of hormone levels.
I still appreciate comments on the situation though!
Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 10:28 am:
Hi Vonnie,
I live just outside of Latrobe, PA and have been checking out your website recently. I have a 3 year old Morgan stud that I am interested in sending out for a bit of training in the coming year. Can you contact me off of the list @ GlennEdynMorgans@Adelphia.net?
I have dealt with jealousy in horses before. I had one stallion that had to be the first horse ridden in the morning or he would try to tear down the barn until I cam back and then would sulk in the corner (and when he sulked in the corner, it wasn't safe to enter his stall)..
So jealousy may be an issue...
Maybe you could make him a scarecrow :-) Since he's happy when someone is standing by his stall!
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