Sunday, March 14, 2010

Mares

I think I've finally got Psycho Gwen figured out...

I lunged Coriander yesterday and today at the walk for 10 minutes.  Well, mostly at the walk, he threw in a little canter just for fun.  I don't blame him, the footing in the ring is really good right now and he's been plowing through snow and mud for a long time.

Yesterday I gave another try at lunging Gwen.  She would circle around me once or twice and then stop and look at me, saying "where's my treat?"  It's going to take a while before she understands what I'm looking for, but she kept herself to a walk and was very calm the whole time.

Today I had a totally different horse.  Psycho Gwen was in.  I wrangled her out to the ring with the lunge line but I knew before I got her out there that it would be pointless to try to lunge her.  She kept screaming for Coriander the whole time I had him out and then she tried to circle around me all the way to the ring.  I turned her loose and she took off galloping and bucking (Once again, WOW athletic.  I'll try to video her some day).  She would occasionally stop next to me for a treat but then take off again.  She ran herself into quite a sweat.

I *think* she's in heat, but I'm used to seeing "hussy" heat.  You know: teasing the boys, peeing all over, raised tails and winking.  Gwen doesn't do that, she did seem to pee more than usual today but besides that I all have to go on was her being much more anxious than usual about being separated from Coriander.  When I track back and look at my tags, the last times I saw Psycho Gwen were right in the middle of the month (February is missing but I don't think I noticed because the weather was so awful I didn't do anything with her in the middle of the month).  It seems pretty likely that this behavior is hormonal, I guess I have a mare-y mare.  Hmm, maybe I should look into Regu-mate?

4 comments:

  1. Funny, I heard one of the boarders saying that her mare was being hormonal. Her horse is very vocal right now. Regu-mate might be the answer for both of you. :-)

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  2. The mare I ride for my lessons gets very vocal when she's in heat too, but she's a bit of a hussy, you need a pry-bar to get her away from the geldings. I'm going to look into Regu-mate. I think it may be necessary if I ever want to take her to shows. Fortunately she's proving to be very regular, I can pretty much guarantee she'll be nutty around the 15th of the month.

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  3. Sounds like fun. It's good you've tracked it and can tell when she's about to psycho out on you. I should probably do that with Dusty. She never gets crazy though just PMS moody. She's such a tomboy that I think it's an annoyance for her. And poor old Sweetie I feel sorry for her at 26 I think she feels enough is enough. She's a little moody too. I think I'm pretty lucky with these two mares. I've seen some much worse with their behaviors.

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  4. Wow, poor Sweetie, you just prompted me to do a search on horse menopause. It looks like mares become infertile when they get older but will still cycle. Poor girls never get a break.

    GHM, do you have any good stories about crazy mares in heat?

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