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  Discussion on Horse leaning on wall and jerking head
Author Message
New Member:
gtoupin

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008 - 1:34 pm:

I moved my horse to a small barn where the owners live upstairs about four months ago. Four times now they have been wakened at night by a lot of banging in the barn. They go down and find my horse sort of leaning against the wall and jerking his head/neck around. He's wide awake and terrified but can't seem to stand without the support of the wall. I come out and calm him down and he returns to normal but seems very tired. He's well fed, wormed and vaccinated regularly, and fit. Nothing else is out of the ordinary. He's only 8. My vet seems at a loss. Has anyone seen this?
Member:
canter

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008 - 4:20 pm:

It sounds as if he's having a seizure. I recommend you run a search on this site for seizure info, print it and discuss with your vet
Member:
scooter

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008 - 7:00 pm:

Hi Gina, The owners of the barn I use to work at lived upstairs, and they also kept a monitor on.

There was a horse there that would do the same thing as you say, the reason was she was territorial of her stall and would bang/and or lean her butt against the wall, sometimes kick and wring her neck, ect. If we were present she USUALLY didn't do this. She didn't want the horse in the next stalls next to her. She couldn't see them, but knew they were there. We had very strong stall walls come down because of this...it wasn't just her. Maybe it is as simple as she doesn't like her neighbor. We usually moved them around until they found someone they liked, or an older non threatening horse. That usually cured it.

Hope it is something as simple as this.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008 - 7:39 pm:

Gina as the posts above demonstrate it is difficult to say what is going on. The article on seizures is at, Diseases of Horses » Nervous System » Seizures & Fainting. It may be hard to get the veterinarian there while it is going on, I wonder if you could video tape it?
DrO
New Member:
gtoupin

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 16, 2008 - 11:39 am:

We did blood tests on this horse and it has low selenium levels, which can cause this behaviour. He's being heavily supplemented, much happier, and hopefully this is the end of it.

The diet he was on should have been sufficient. The hay was bought from a local feed store which doesn't test it. The nutritionist thinks that the field hadn't been fertilized and the hay here is generally poor anyways because of the heavy rainfall so without fertilization, it doesn't have any real nutritional value. I've changed to a different feed store.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Apr 17, 2008 - 7:49 am:

Thought the effects of low selenium have long been studied in horses I have never heard of low selenium causing "banging in the barn... leaning against the wall and jerking his head/neck around. He's wide awake and terrified" If his selenium is chronically low why does he have normal periods?

While it is true that mineral content is quite variable in forages, it is not true that ANY grass hay doesn't have nutritional value. The most expensive parts of your horses diet is protein and energy and these can be judged somewhat by the appearance of the hay for more on this see Horse Care » Equine Nutrition, Horse Feeds, Feeding » Forages for Horses, an Overview.

Generally mineral requirements are balanced with the use of a trace mineral block or loose salts and for areas known to be low in Se there are fortified products. For more on this and selenium in the diet see Horse Care » Equine Nutrition, Horse Feeds, Feeding » Minerals and Electrolytes for Horses, an Overview. There is also a specific article on selenium at Horse Care » Equine Nutrition, Horse Feeds, Feeding » Selenium in Horses.

All of these points our summarized in our Nutrition Overview article which might be good to review. By the way what was your horses serum selenium value including the units and lab normals?
DrO
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