06/21/2024
Every horse will react differently to stomach ulcers. We’ve seen some with tiny ulcers that are falling apart and others that have horrible ulcers and have a minor symptom. Case in point…our daughter’s younger horse we just got in September seemed to adjust to the herd ok. It was the normal chasing and territorial behavior in the beginning but all settled and get along fine. He’s a very laid back and friendly now 4 yr old. He showed no signs of ulcers in the way his coat looked, attitude or cinchiness. He has had the majority of that time to be a horse until the beginning of June. In the last few weeks we had noticed he wouldn’t clean up his grain but would eat hay. We attributed this to the fact that they had finally graduated to full time on pasture and he was just filling up on grass. We cut his grain back and over the next week or so he still didn’t clean it up. Never acted colicy or pawed when he ate like some do. We decided to go ahead and scope him. Low and behold, some of the worst ulcers we’ve seen to date! Needless to say he is now being treated but I share that so you can see there is a wide variety of symptoms and reaction to degrees of ulcers. He has had these for some time as evident by the chronic looking nature of them but never let on.
On the flip side is our son’s horse who started acting up at shows. Kicking out, hu***ng up a bit etc. we thought it could be the fact that he hasn’t been to any shows since last fair but decided to check anyway. He has minor ulcers compared to my daughter’s horse but reacts differently to them.
SO, if your horses behavior is different then what they normally are. Don’t immediately chalk it up to a training issue. It might very well be, but it could also be that he has a reason for his behavior.