Spring Sillies Came Early

 Since my last post on Peebs over a month ago (whoops bad blogger) he had continued his upward trend on remembering how to horse after a fall/early winter of rehabbing. We were jumping small fences, working on the connection, and building up his muscle and stamina. Then I decided that he could be moved into the big pasture with fresher grass (not that the grass is really good right now, but this pasture hasn't had horses on it since June of last year) instead of his regular, grazed down pasture. 

Big mistake. 

"Me, be naughty? Fake news."-Peebs, most definitely

Peebs went from his normal fairly lazy, mostly unflappable, friendly self to a cracked out, spooky rage monster bully. He played hard to catch in the pasture when normally he's first in line at the gate at dinner time. He was spooking at everything, humans walking down the driveway, the neighbors dog, ghosts only he could see. He was belligerent under saddle, throwing his head around, pushing against all my aids, and just generally not fun to ride. Even longing him didn't seem to help; he was tired, but still felt wired and frazzled. 

It took me a few days of panicking that he was ulcery to realize that the change coincided with his move to the new pasture. He is on a really good GI supplement, Purina Outlast, has 24/7 access to turnout/pasture (even if it mostly grazed down), fed nice quality Timothy hay and hay pellets. He'd also gained weight. So ulcers didn't seem super likely. The most likely culprit was the fresh pasture. Apparently Peebs turns into a toddler who just ate an entire birthday cake with a gallon of Mountain Dew when he's on fresh pasture. 

So he got his big pasture privileges rescinded and is back in the smaller, grazed down one.  And not even a week off pasture he's feeling much more like himself. He's still a little buzzy, but is able to focus, and put in some good work. We've even been able to return to jumping and his brain hasn't leaked out of his ears. So note to self: no fresh pasture for Peebs. Only grazed down, older grass for him from now on.