Food agression!

[LB27]

My mini who is a year old Saturday is so mean when it comes to her grain! If she is eatting her grain she will constantly pin her ears, turn her butt towards me, bite and rear up if I'm near her while she's eating. How do I stop/fix this horrible behavior?? Thanks so much!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

You must be very firm about this. Your youngster is telling you she is the boss and that behaviour will show up in every area of your life together. If you don't onvince her she is second fiddle to you (and all people) you have set her up for a very hard life IMO. She will get worse unless you can change the way she sees your relationship. First you need to change the way you feed her grain. If it were me I would put a halter on her (with a chain over her nose if necessary for you to feel confidant in controlling her) then take her to her grain. if she begins to pin her ears forcefully back her away from it. Make her wait until she is calm and then try again to approach the feed. If she shows any aggression repeat the backing up. If you must carry a small crop to reinforce your command to move away from the food then do so. Only when she can approach the food without any pinned ears or other aggressive actions should you let her eat. At that point I would let her eat a bit then lead her away, remove her halter and walk away myself. She is then free to go and eat without disturbance. Mostly I leave my horses to eat their meals in peace but they must understand that the food is mine if I want it and I will not tolerate any attempts to drive me away. I have noted that many horses who begin this do so because they are not allowed to eat in peace and feel they must fight to keep from loosing their share to another horse or to a person.

 

[lucky seven]

I had this problem with Seven. I bought him when he was 3 yo, he will turn 6 this year and now I can finally say that his food agression problem is gone. It took taking a crop with me at meal times to use if he showed his butt to me when I fed him or to push me into a corner. That would work for awhile, but what finally changed his attitude was a generous amount of love and quietly talking to him. The force I used with the crop just made him more upset and tempermental. It took time, but now he understands that he is okay and I can stroke his body and move his hay without him getting nuts on me. I don't know what setting your little one came from, but Seven came from a herd setting where he had to fight for his food. Best of luck, I know my method probably wasn't the best or safest to use, but it worked for us.

 

[Carolyn R]

Yep, nip it in the butt. I have used a halter and lead to back than in a firm voice, and have also used a crop and or my body language and my own body to act rather than react, when it comes to my gypsy gelding when he was a few months old he thought he would begin by sneaking in a nip. It was quickly remedied by teaching him back back back meant get out of my space.

It is easiest if they respect or know their place on a lead away from food. Then transfer that to the food aggression situation. Sometimes they are a bit overly dramatic when training and sometimes some are more stubborn than others and take more assertive pressure to train. Honestly, when training on a lead, whether it is crowding, nipping, getting ahead of you......getting them to understand "BACK BACK BACK!" while using whatever means to achieve it (some horses only need you to yell it, stomp in their direction and pull the lead down and in towards them, others you may need to swat the ground with a whip while saying it, and others may need you to use a crop against their chest).

Trust me, you won't mame them, any of these methods are much gentler than how they treat each other other, yes, they may get wide eyed and temporarily think you are going to kill them, they key is, you only use as much pressure or force needed to achieve the result. In other words if yelling back back back and yanking the lead is enough, then that is all you use. Some horses are more stubborn about being in charge. I do not condone abuse, however, when they are seeing you as their counterpart, you must posess the role as the alpha, being in charge, a leader and being fair, using enough force to be in command without setting out to be aggressive.

You wouldn't set out running after them across the entire turnout with a whip after they have moved back several feet from your space, THAT would be aggressive. You will be surprised how groundwork/respect can correlate to situations like these. Neither of my big guys dare step up and push into their feed pans and eat prior me giving them the okay. Don't get me wrong, my mare gets huffyand sighs and, at times, if I did not turn and say back up, she would push her limits. I do not get angry at her frustration, it is her personality to stand back and huff like a pouting child, I only take discipline her if she acts on her impulse. She backs and stands, and patiently waits, even with a little mumbling under her breath, so to speak, she getsher feed.

There are times when it is human error and natural instinct that has brought on this behavior....such as putting a horse into a close group feeding situation where they feel they have to fight for their meal. This takes time to fix and change their mentality, but none the less they need to view you as being in charge.

 

[Jean_B]

My 2 year old colt was an idiot when I got him home at about 10 months, but I immediately put a stop to it. I good hard crack with a deep, gutteral very loud QUIT! And he never was allowed to eat ANY grain whatsoever until he stood quietly, allowed me to handle him without any theatrics. Sometimes that would take 20 to 30 minutes before he got his reward, but he finally figured it out. He's now a full 2 years old, very hormonal and will act like an idiot middle-school aged boy, until I walk up with that grain bucket. He stands rock still, ears up, gets scratches all over his entire body before he is allowed one bite.

 

[LB27]

Thanks everyone. I will have to try some of your suggestions. I've had her since she was weaned and she has been by herself up intil this past weekend. So she has not had to compete for her feed. Even now with my new mini she doesn't have to.

 

[Pippin']

If you just got a new Mini in with her it could be that she thinks you are going to give her food to them or the other Mini will come and take it from her even if it doesn't look like it. If the new one has any food issues it could also be that they are teaching your girl bad habits, foals seem to be especially prone to that.

The same happened to a family friend's big horses when they purchased their son a new Sorting horse. They originally had a crippled QH gelding and a Mustang\ATV gelding and both had their pecking order set and good (with the cripple being top) and when they brought in the son's new QH everything blew up. The new gelding was a jerk towards people (still wondering why they got him for their 12yr old green rider but that's a different can of worms) and soon their other two became the same and also started getting violent around food. They (more my mom and I) did the same as everyone has been saying though we ended up needed a long whip for the new boy because we needed him to stay that far away to be safe, It got a little better but they ended up separating at feeding time so that no one got hurt and they could work with the new guy separately. That may be something to think about, not saying it will get as bad as the above story but it's something to think about.

 

[Jill]

I don't know if this factors in to what you're doing, or might be good for others who are looking for advice... but HERE, horses need to behave long enough for us to give them their "grain" (complete pellets here). They are all beside themselves, but they have all worked out a pecking order, and that's a normal thing to happen. They have to respect us while we feed them, but I have never felt like they should have to tolerate us actually fooling with them as they eat. That only happens for ours 2-3 times a day, and doesn't take that long for them to finish pellets or grain. God knows I hate it if the phone rings as we sit down to dinner

Part of the issue is that "we" (most of us, me included) feed our horses just a number of times a day, and we do include concentrates -- and that's like gold to horses. They wait for the next time "it happens" from just about the last time it happened

My advice is to understand that horses fed in a group will take a bit of time to decide the pecking order (and some should be fed alone), and that meal time is just not the time to try and interact with your horse(s). For us here, we consider that to be their own, "personal" time and we do not try to interact with them once they've started to eat... no one really likes when that happens, not us, and not our horses

Good luck!

 

[Marty]

If I have one who thinks they are going to threaten me, that' doesn't cut it here. I just tie them up while they are eating and they learn real fast I will do whatever I need to do and they will behave.

Normally, I don't mess with them while they are eating. I look at it like I wouldn't want anyone combing my hair at the dinner table so why bug a horse while he's eating? However, they do need to tolerate my presence and allow me to be there if I so desire.