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Stall Resting Horses
Stall Resting: Behavioral Problems with Confined Horses
Introduction
Occasionally a horse will contract an illness or have to recover from surgery that requires complete stall rest or perhaps he needs to be put up to prevent obesity on lush pasture. Also requiring stalling or a paddock is if the pasture becomes over grazed, fertilized, limed, or has had some type of herbicide placed on it. Whatever the cause it is sure to cause consternation to the horse. In nature, the horse is a gregarious, roaming animal that grazes constantly. When stalled the horse is frequently confined, alone, and with a limited amount to eat. When you consider the changes in habits that we ask of the horse, it is amazing that he adapts at all. When pushed too far he will find ways to satisfy his physical and psychological needs. What is too far varies widely from individual to individual. This article addresses the behavioral and medical problems you can encounter from stall resting and ways to help minimize these problems. For more information on nutritional substitutes to grass see,
Forage and Roughage, an Overview.
Behavioral Problems
Most of the problems with stall rest are behavioral. Occasionally you find a horse that seems to handle stall rest with great aplomb. However the majority of confined horses find themselves becoming increasingly anxious as though energy is building in him like a pressure cooker. Some will blow up in less than 24 hours others it may take a month, but usually it will come. Some horses will just develop stall vices like weaving or cribbing to manage their nervousness. Others at this point may try to kick down walls, become difficult to catch and handle, and/or even become aggressive, and represent a threat to those around him.
Caution should always be exercised with the long term stalled horse: even the horse that seems to be handling it well will frequently kick out unexpectedly. Keep yourself in the safe areas around your horse: out of kicking distance or on the shoulders with a good halter and lead in your hand.
Diet adjustments
There are two absolute requirements to help these horses: the energy in the diet needs to be greatly reduced and some type roughage should be available at all times. A good place to start for the majority of horses, would be to cut the concentrate portion of the diet by 3/4 (one scoop goes to 1/4 scoop) and making a mature but other wise good quality grass hay available free choice. Of course clean water should always be available. There will be exceptions, pregnancy for instance, to these guidelines and if the hay is not nice and green vitamin supplementation may be indicated. Be sure to go over this with your veterinarian who knows your horses needs. Following this change the condition of the horse needs to be watched. If the horse was in a slightly chubby to fat condition weight loss is OK, to the ribs are easily felt but not easily seen.
Provide Companionship
Once excess energy is removed from the diet and something to chew alway available, the next important consideration is companionship. In a large barn it might be possible to leave a buddy horse in during the day and rotate through the horses buddies so that he has someone to converse with but no one else is always in. Alternatively, a goat in the next stall might suffice. At the least a radio playing will help occupy the horse's mind and some horses respond very positively to this, I recommend country music.
Location of the horse in the barn can be important. Frequently the worse time for a horse is when his buddies are going out and he is left behind. Positioning him away from where the horses are leaving helps. Whether he can see his buddies out on the pasture is helpful differs from horse to horse: some will sit quietly hours at a time with their head out the window while other it seems to agitate. Being able to look out is important but whether he can view his pasture mates has to be experimented with.
Distraction
Horse toys have been marketed to distract a horse. Some horses will play with these others won't. Start with hanging a milk jug in the stall and see if he shows interest.
The ever clever Aussies have come up with a product called The Edinburgh Ball and described by Andrew McLean, BSc, Diploma of Education, PhD candidate, and Director of the Australian Equine Behaviour Centre in Victoria, Australia. The ball is a large, football-sized ball made of compressed, dehydrated hay and molasses. It is suspended from the ceiling and the horse grazes on it but because of its construction and that it swings, it requires quite some effort and time to consume it. It this is not available where you are at McLean says a homemade version can be made by putting hay into a haynet, then placing this in another hay net, and then putting this in another hay net. That's three nets, it and may require a fourth. This is tightly bounded up and then suspended at about head height and in a position that it is free to swing. It should keep him occupied for some time.
Medication
Promazine granules (from Fort Dodge) is a good choice if the horse remains agitated even in the face of good management. It should not be used in horses with liver problems. It is safe and inexpensive and usually twice daily administration is enough. If promazine granules are difficult to find, acepromazine injectable or tablets are inexpensive but may require three times daily administration,
...more.
There are some longer term tranquilizers,
reserpine
or
fluphenazine,
that have been used successfully but neither is approved in horses and both seem to have a lower therapeutic to toxic index than promazine. There are some herbal drugs, usually in paste form and available over the counter. They contain herbs and/or vitamin combinations that have reputations for calming people but none that I have seen are helpful. Whether they are not effective in horses or dosage is a problem is unknown.
For More Information on Stable Vices
Medical Problems
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