Hello everyone. My mare is 4.5 yrs old, I bought her as a weanling. I'm curious about her new behaviors since we moved from CO to CA, from our small acreage and one other horse, to a large ranch with cattle and lots of other horses around. At our old place, she was a playful kid and lived with my gelding, not seeing a lot of other horses although I did haul her around to a few races to see the sights. Since we've moved, she's gone from playful funny filly to bossy, *****y, move it or lose it mare and when turned out with her neighbor gelding (who she loves) she herds him all around if I ask them to move around the arena. She ignores him if I'm not asking them to exercise. Someone told me it's her cow breeding...?  She is heavily cow bred but she's pretty extreme with the herding horses thing lol. The mares I've always had were brood mares and not my barrel prospects, so this is a new mare adventure for me ;)

I wonder because of her age if she is starting to come into heat.. that can change their moods drasically. My mares are in with a gelding that they could care less about. But when they are in heat they start to chase him around and try to go after the mares on the other side of the fence. My other thought is maybe the move caused stress and she could have developed ulcers. It would be worth checking into that. Horses are animals that need routine and a move can cause a lot of stress.

Hi, I agree about the possibility of ulcers, she's been on omeprazole for 11 days now, vet came out to do her chiro adjustment and we discussed and went forward with trying treatment. Teeth were also recently done, so that's all good. She started cycling early December, so maybe her system is trying to sort itself out..Today was actually the first day she wasn't acting gritchy and she had zero interest in the other gelding she normally flirts with, so, maybe things will be improving. It's  always like a puzzle, trying to figure them out. If she continues her odd behaviours, I'll look at hind gut treatment and then if that's not it, we'll look at her repro system.

Sounds like to me she's PMS'ing. With her being that moody I think shes not feeling to hot so shes mad at everybody around her.