Buddy Sour

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Joined
Apr 20, 2005
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What can I try to help with this problem? Right now I do not have facilities to separate my two horses. One of them is fine when I take him away, but the other loses his mind. He did not use to be so bad, but I suppose the longer the two are together, the worse he has become. He MUST work away from his pasture mate sometimes so I need to figure out what to do.
 
Do you have a way of separating them during feeding time? Another thing to do may be to just take them each out for walks.....Trade them out. One day the nervous one and the next day, the one who is "fine".... and so on. After awhile, the herd-bound one will hopefully learn that his buddy WILL be back soon.

We have a couple of herd-bound big horses. My daughter takes each one away to work them in our round pen and then rides them a bit. Initially, they would holler at each other, and the left behind would fuss at the pasture gate, but now they know it's not going to be for long and their friend always comes back.
 
Would getting one more be an option? I had to do that once.. it was horrible and got to the point it was dangerous for me to try to ride out without taking both horses. I ended up taking in another horse for a while, and luckily that worked out fine.
 
I was in this position last year after we lost my mare. I could not take the mini anywhere without the other pony going nuts. He would upset himself to the point of colic. I gave up and got another mini.

One thing that I have done that sometimes worked with my others is take the "good one" for a short trailer ride. It gets them out of sight and sound of the herd bound one and after a few times of doing this it the herd bound one would realize that it wasn't the end of the world and the buddy will return.

But this did not work on my pony, but he went through a real decline when his made passed. He lost weight, got ulcery, pouted and was miserable until the "herd of three" was re established. I truly felt bad for the little guy. It's hard to be a sensitive soul sometimes :-(.
 

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