Posted 2015-09-28 11:43 PM Subject: How do you keep a horse from getting buddy sour or herd sour?
Don't Wanna Make This Awkward
Posts: 3106 Location: Texas
My horse has obviously decided he likes one of the mares in the pasture next to his or he is just really enjoying 24/7 turnout(he gets brought in for feeding 2x a day). Today I brought him in to his stall to saddle and ride and he threw a fit. Walked back to the barn fine but started tearing up his stall and calling to his buddies as soon as he was in the barn. I just left him there for a few minutes hoping he would calm down, but he didn't so I took him to the round pen and worked him in there for an hour, which was a much harder work out than he would have gotten with me riding. Then I put him back in his stall where he will stay until the morning. So tomorrow afternoon when I go to catch him i'm hoping for a better attitude.
Would you have done anything differently? Is this a good step to fixing the problem? This is his only flaw and I use to let him get away with acting like this, but today he just made me mad. He almost didn't get dinner tonight, which has never happened in his whole life.
Posted 2015-09-29 8:11 AM Subject: RE: How do you keep a horse from getting buddy sour or herd sour?
Expert
Posts: 1612 Location: Cocoa, Florida
There's a lot of ways you can break that habit, no way is the right or wrong way but here's some suggestions that we do. We only have 5 horses at the house and they all get a little buddy sour especially the babies. We have two that are really bad, the two original mares. (We have 5 mares lol)
When riding we learned a drill through a Clinton Anderson clinic, if you take your horses away from each other (when riding in arena or trails) and they want to turn back or go towards their "buddy" you let them go there and then WORK them around the buddy. We lope circles around the other horse or trot and constantly change directions because when you change directions you have control and their attention. Sometimes you may get close to running into each other but keep working your horse around the other horse then when you've worked them pretty good let them walk away and breath and relax. As soon as they want to go back to the buddy horse again work them again around the other horse until you have walked your horse away and it wants nothing to do with its buddy. This system works great for us, it's gotten to the point where they won't even look at each other at a show or arena.
If they are barn sour or want to go back to the trailer, do the same thing, work them in the area they want to be in and then let them relax when you take them back.
We also rotate horses in pasture/barn. We separate the ones that tend to cling to each other. One horse gets rotated out by themselves in the pasture each day.
Hopefully some of this advice helps, it has worked well for us! Good luck
Posted 2015-09-29 11:44 AM Subject: RE: How do you keep a horse from getting buddy sour or herd sour?
Elite Veteran
Posts: 725
RnRJack - 2015-09-29 8:11 AM
There's a lot of ways you can break that habit, no way is the right or wrong way but here's some suggestions that we do. We only have 5 horses at the house and they all get a little buddy sour especially the babies. We have two that are really bad, the two original mares. (We have 5 mares lol)
When riding we learned a drill through a Clinton Anderson clinic, if you take your horses away from each other (when riding in arena or trails) and they want to turn back or go towards their "buddy" you let them go there and then WORK them around the buddy. We lope circles around the other horse or trot and constantly change directions because when you change directions you have control and their attention. Sometimes you may get close to running into each other but keep working your horse around the other horse then when you've worked them pretty good let them walk away and breath and relax. As soon as they want to go back to the buddy horse again work them again around the other horse until you have walked your horse away and it wants nothing to do with its buddy. This system works great for us, it's gotten to the point where they won't even look at each other at a show or arena.
If they are barn sour or want to go back to the trailer, do the same thing, work them in the area they want to be in and then let them relax when you take them back.
We also rotate horses in pasture/barn. We separate the ones that tend to cling to each other. One horse gets rotated out by themselves in the pasture each day.
Hopefully some of this advice helps, it has worked well for us! Good luck
This is some great advice that I will definitely use! Thanks!
How do you keep a horse from getting buddy sour or herd sour?
