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Post by kafee on Jan 17, 2013 18:00:16 GMT 1
I'm sorry to say when Taylor (21) started to suffer from Cushings a few years ago, he was bullied, and still is by Woody who is now 9.
Taylor was herd leader when Woody joined the herd as a foal, Raffles (24) second. Raffles is now leader, Woody second, Taylor third, Sky (5) fourth and Excaliber and Sunny at the bottom. I believe Taylor's fall in the pecking order is due to his illness, even though he is now on pergolide and well.
Interestingly, I put Tor in with Raffles when he arrived in 2010 as a yearling, and he took Tor under his protection. Tor still has his feed at the same time and next to Raffles, and can even share Raffles' bucket. The others accept this, even though they wouldn't be allowed the same priviledge.
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Post by cbc on Jan 17, 2013 19:33:24 GMT 1
Some years ago I was asked by a friend of a friend if I could help with turnout for a yearling who had a problem with one of his hock joints. He was being treated by a vet but with limited success. I let them bring the youngster to graze (early summer plenty of grass) with three of my youngsters who were to all intents and purposes a peaceful bunch of section D's. So he was lame, but not carrying any infection; the youngsters didnt take to him at all. While they didnt run him off, he was pushed away out of the group. Very sadly the vet recommended to the owner that he should be put down due to the problems he had.
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madmare1
Grand Prix Poster
The Gruesome Twosome
Posts: 1,500
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Post by madmare1 on Jan 17, 2013 19:34:50 GMT 1
Crystal (oldest mare) is the BOSS in the field, no other mare DARES to challenge her for supremacy, as Inaya and my friends 17hh heavy hunter Carina back her up with teeth and feet, not that Crystal isn't averse to fighting her own battles, proving she is not past it yet.
HOWEVER...last summer, my friend's mare, Bess (16hh maxi cob), started being deliberately excluded from the herd by Crystal....she had the start of Cushings, and had had (before my friend got her) a broken leg, that soemone cared enough to have repaired. Sadly, just before Christmas, she had to be PTS, her face swelled, she was tripping up, and falling over. We didn't know that she had a huge brain tumour, until the vet did a PM on her to discover why she went from fairly healthy 17yr old mare to dead within 2 weeks. Her decline was very fast.
At the time I didn't think anything of it, but know I think the horses must have known..Crystal never hurt Bess, just kept her away from the others.
Emma xx
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Post by SarahW on Jan 17, 2013 20:04:48 GMT 1
The day that Rosie went badly lame, having been herd leader for two years, Petra said "The Queen is dead, long live the Queen", took over leadership and bullied her. When Rosie was back to full health she never took over leadership again but was at least robust enough to prevent Petra bullying her.
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Post by jen1 on Jan 17, 2013 20:26:08 GMT 1
In all my years of having herds that are settled ive never experienced any like horses attacking, however I do feel horses that recieve lots of intervention from humans , dont seem as connected with herd life and can display, or I feel they display wrangling's of rank and order it seems they just dont know who is to lead, they lack confidence within the herd the passive ones ive had take oldie under there wing these would be the mid to low ranking horses, ive got 3 core herd leaders and the rest would passivly dominate a weaker 1 in what seems in human term be in a nicer way, bit like massaging there own ego's , so mi thinks the artical is rollox, lol
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Post by june on Jan 17, 2013 23:15:23 GMT 1
We have two Shetlands who live together. One is usually boss but also suffers from laminitis in the cold weather, despite managing her diet extremely carefully. When she is sore, the other Shetland takes over the boss role and is quite unpleasant to her. When she's sound it is the other way around, she bullies the other Shetand!
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Post by ladynowak on Jan 18, 2013 1:27:41 GMT 1
When my old boy was out with the other 3 (he'd never had a day away from bailey in 6 years and ebony for 4) and got poorly the first day he was away from them they were beside themselves. But after a week of time away from him their attitude had changed. He was without a doubt the top horse still.
I guess it's the difference between a passive leader and a very dominant alpha horse. He went, they followed. They knew he wasn't right but Bailey looked after him. He kept Taifs and Ebonys play fights well away from copper and if they got too close he sent them running. Copper lived out his last year with his friend by his side fighting the battles he would have fought in his younger days.
There was never an question as to his place in the herd. But, the others constantly battle amongst themselves to establish the pecking order. Bailey is top horse, but I can guarantee that if he was on his last legs the others would step up to the plate to take his top stop as he's not got that grace of the passive leader, he fought his way there. Think ebony would always be his best friend though and would let the other two take the top spots just so he didn't have any drama. Then again I've seen what Bailey does if a horse/pony he perceives to be weak is put out with him, the evil eyes glow red and he wants them out by any means (picking them up and tossing them about like a rag doll).
After copper was put to sleep I was expecting very 'upset' horses. But the change in them was remarkable. They went from being a bit edgy and not quite right to the most relaxed group of horses...it was like they all just breathed a sigh of relief.
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marvin
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 1,069
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Post by marvin on Jan 21, 2013 13:32:28 GMT 1
I have seen this sort of this quite a few times. Yrs ago my 1st horse used to live in a group of about 10 mixed geldings& mares. There were 2 older horses and one had navicular he was treated with bute etc. but he was more sensitive on his front feet poor chap was pushed out of the group all the time I did feel very sorry for him he had been in the same group for yrs, even his best mate shunned him a lot of the time. They had a shady tree and if he tried to go under it with them he got chased away by the top horse, even though they are sort of domesticated wild instincts cannot be bred out of them.
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lc
Olympic Poster
Posts: 670
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Post by lc on Jan 22, 2013 0:31:53 GMT 1
One of the horses at my old yard went down in the field, turned out to be a virus, the herd was established and apparently when the owners went in to the field to get the horse up, all the other horses were standing around her. My mare aparently was not happy with them approaching the sick horse and she's was very people friendly pony normally. They said it looked like she was trying to protect her, they certainly didn't attack her.
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