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[RC] Behavior management documented on bloodhorse.com - Beth LeggieriAm posting an excerpt from a featured article on www.bloodhorse.com about the vet center where Barbaro is housed, the New Bolton Center in Pennsylvania. The original article appeared in August, 2000. The entire article can be found at: Of note is their documentation on feral horse behavior and correction of behavior problems. Once again, the endurance community is ahead of the learning curve. *** McDonnell also has been involved in developing treatment protocols for the problem known as a stereotypy, the frequent, almost mechanical repetition by a horse of a movement or behavior. Feeding the nutritional supplement l-tryptophan, which occurs naturally at high levels in grass and grass hay, is one strategy.
Administering anti-obsessive-compulsive, psychotropic drugs is another. But in the end, the best solution may be to try to incorporate as many natural elements as possible into the horse's management. McDonnell takes her cues from the semi-feral ponies; instead of endlessly pacing, weaving, and cribbing, they munch contentedly on their grass or interact with their pasture mates. "You can greatly relieve stereotypes and other undesirable behaviors by manipulating what the horse eats," McDonnell said. "This is not always possible with the equine athlete, but in general, you should try to move more toward a natural diet of grass and hay. If you go cold turkey, and cut out all their grain, it's hard to watch over the short-term because they will lose weight. But eventually, their hind gut flora will get back to normal and their appetite will kick in. They'll get a nice kind of beautiful, well-balanced look to them, and they'll turn
into a sensible animal. "Very often," she added, "we get horses donated to our teaching program because they are so bad. We save them up for the clinics we conduct, and we'll just turn many of them out in a pasture and leave them alone. After a couple of weeks outside, there is no problem horse to show the students. They just self-correct. They lock in on the grass, and their motivation to eat seems to overpower all their undesirable behaviors." *** Beth Denton, TX
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