Expert: Lyn Kamer, C.E.S.M.T. - 10/22/2009

Question
My wife and I have a herd of 9 horses.  Gabe, my 18 year old Arab gelding is low man on the totem pole, and gets pushed around a lot, which is normal horse behavior.  However, within the last week he has been the target of very uncharacteristic attacks.  A Gelding pinned him in the barn and bit him five times.  They were not close together beforehand.  Our solution was to stop allowing them into the barn area while blanketing them before seperating them into their stalls.  Today however, it happened again.  Alice, our seven year old POA mare, made a bee line across the pasture, pinned him against a fence, and kicked him ten times before I could get there.  She only stopped because I chased her off.

Both of these attacks are extremely "un-horselike" behavior, and I'm not sure what to make of it.  In both instances, after about an hour, all of the horses involved go back to their normal behavior, and act like nothing happened.  As I said before, he always gets pushed around some, which is normal because of his herd status, but this is something completely different...

Answer
Travis,

This is one for the books.  I, too, have a herd of 9 horses and ponies.  I haven't seen this before and only suggestion I can give you is to get an animal communicator involved and find out what's going on.  Most work over the phone, they don't have to be there to talk to the horses.  This is, I agree, very un-horselike behavior and this needs to be addressed.  I would contact my communicator if this was going on here!  

Wish I could be more help.

Lyn