# Help with my mare squealing/striking



## morabhobbyhorse (Apr 17, 2011)

Since I got her 3 years ago, she has always done this around a new horse. But for the last three months she's been with a herd, and everyone has pecking order figure out. 
So a couple weeks ago I take her to the arena for a little ground work (very little it was so hot) and then bring her back up to the barn, get her and myself cooled off, then open the back gate to the barn in case she wants to say hi to her buds before I get around to opening THAT gate to let them all together again. She walks down to the gate and the next thing I hear is squealing, not sure if she was striking or not, was in the front of the barn. Now she had been separated from them about 3 hours and usually in their sight although they were calling as if she'd been taken away forever. 
I understood it when she first got there since everyone had to figure out who got to be where on the pecking order. Every where else she's been it's always just been her and another mare in the same pasture but they shared fence lines, so she would do this over the fence while they sniffed. Do you think it was because they were sniffing each other through the gate, or has this just become a habit with her, and is there anything I can do to stop it? It's annoying when it's so unnecessary and also I'm afraid if she still IS striking, she's going to hurt her legs on the gates. Thanks, Cheryl


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I don't know if there is anything you can do about her marish behaviour when she is off on her own, but you can reprimand her harshlly if she displays such behavior on line or under saddle, where it is absolutely not tolerable.
a good smack, a sharp "no!" and some work her hiney off will help dissuade this, but you have to be right quick about it. The instant she starts to act this way yo9u have to start her working and bring her attention back to you. the instant!


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## morabhobbyhorse (Apr 17, 2011)

Well Tiny, she doesn't do it then because I don't ride her up nose to nose with new horses. And I used to ride her in an arena that would have other horses in it. I just can't understand why she continues to do it through the fence with her herd mates. She doesn't do it on a line either at the new place. When I got a mineral salt block to take out for all of the horses, I let her lick a little and then brought her in to work with. The other 5 stayed right at that block the next three hours where it had been so hot, and there was no block out. When I took her out after playing around with her in the barn, I took a carrot, happy, lunge whip with me, never know what to call those things. And I made the other horses stay away so she could lick the salt and then get a drink. The last time I brought her in the barn I just had a hold of her fly mask, and big gelding got in front of us to the gate, and she didn't want to go up beside him, but I switched sides and got between them. I don't let the others pick on her or vice versa while I have her on a lead. I told the BO I was beginning to think her squeal was 'hello' to her, LOL. Thanks, Cheryl


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Well, as long as she isn't doing it under saddle or on line, then I guess you have to let her do it. She is low on the pecking order?


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## morabhobbyhorse (Apr 17, 2011)

3rd out of 6, not bad I don't think since the other 5 had been together a long time. Maybe I should put her rope halter on her and have the BO help me using her mare. Put 'em nose to nose or across a fence from each other where i could correct the behavior. I guess it's really not that big a deal, it just annoys me, LOL.


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## mls (Nov 28, 2006)

morabhobbyhorse said:


> I guess it's really not that big a deal, it just annoys me, LOL.


It's a behavior some mares simply have. Does it follow her heat cycle?

When they are out in the herd, I don't expect them to have the same manners they have in hand or under saddle.


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## morabhobbyhorse (Apr 17, 2011)

*No MLS, nothing like that.*

Nah, it ain't really 'marish' in that sense, she does it all the time  Well by all the time I mean like the incident I was talking about. When I first took her there we kept her separate but able to sniff the horses over the fence for the first two days and it was constant except at night this one gelding would lie down close to her on the other side of the fence, and she close to the fence too. I'm adding a picture of where we put her in with the rest of the herd on the third day. She is lying down on the left, then Creamy the pony is taking a sniff, next is Fausta, the alpha mare, then Sonny, the big gelding I mentioned lying down, and further over is Skeeter. You can see she's not in any distress, and is expecting Fausta to look out for predators I guess while she lies down. Now she's been with them day and night for 2 months and 4 days. She doesn't walk out of the barn into the group squealing. It seems now just when something divides them. She was kept alone in a small paddock by the previous owners and when I got her, she only saw horses other than her pasture mare across the electric fence. and she did it every time one tried to do that blowing thing through the strands of the fence. Actually now that I think of it, it's only been recently she'd let me blow in her nostrils. I mean I didn't try to make her before. I'm saying all this badly, but something from before I got her started this, and I don't exactly what. Or if there is just one 'what.'


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## Iseul (Mar 8, 2010)

Like most have said, it's just a mare thing. Not all mares do it, but there's not some long, complicated answer to it, haha. The mare I ride does it when standing around with other horses and out in the field. I smack her neck when I'm on her and she does it (been doing it less and less now), but it's not a problem. It's natural behaviour, and it shouldn't really be disciplined unless you're working with her (involves anything on lead or under saddle).
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Annnie31 (May 26, 2011)

Telling a mare who is visiting other horses over the fence not to squeal is like telling a dog not to bark. Some do, some dont...nature has its ways.


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