yellow clay.
He is not fat nor was he fat when we brought him home. He is
getting all the local grass he wants and it's a really good crop for our
area
(western Oregon). Does he need sore sort of nutritional
supplement for
nerviousness?
Hi Kathleen,
When a horse gets silly due to
nutrition, it's usually when he's on either an alfalfa ration or alot of
grain. There are several studies publish that can't find a relationship
between diet and loopiness, but we all know some horses get ditzy,
anyway.
In any event, there's nothing in
your diet that's missing or in excess that would be contributing to his
silliness---good pasture is the closest thing to nutritional magic there is in
the horse world. Being in the NW, you might want to make sure he's
getting sufficient selenium, but that won't affect his attitude.
Regarding the licking clay, make sure he has loose salt available.
Doesn't have to be fancy, just salt.
There *are* some nutritional
supplements that claim to help calm horses down, but the studies done on them
did not indicate improvement, and my own experience hasn't been very
encouraging, either. That was from my Saddlebred days and boy howdy,
those horses can get wound real tight. So I don't think this is a
problem with a nutritional fix (I wish these things were that
easy!)
Just a few suggestions---since he's
a sweetheart on the ground, he's obviously just getting silly when he gets out
under saddle. So maybe giving him some trail experience when you're not
on his back might calm him down? Is it feasible for you to pony him off
another (calmer) horse until the trail becomes old hat? How about
lunging the snot out of him before you take him out?
Good luck with him, I know you'll
do great in figuring this all out. I'm sure the training contingent on
RC will have better suggestions than I do on how to handle him.
:-)))
Susan G