Cocked tail

[wild millers]

We have a suffolk mare in her late teens that we’ve been working for about 5 years now. Sometime late last summer, if I remember right, she began carrying her tail cocked up when in harness. To be truthful, I don’t remember when it started or if any strange event happened to her but she continues to carry it cocked up even now. As if she is passing gas or getting ready to poo. Not sure if it’s related or not but I notice that she also has a much less graceful stride than her teammates. Fairly short and she drags her back toes a bit. While her team mates rear hoof prints will often cover or overstep their front prints, she is lucky if her rear prints touch the front ones. She is an odd horse to be sure, for many other reasons, but she just doesn’t look comfortable in harness now. All that said, she seems otherwise happy to be harnessed and put to work, without complaining or balking in any way. Has anyone ever seen this or have any wisdom to share? Someone has mentioned to us the possibility of a horse chiropractor to address the issue, that is if it is an adjustment issue. Anyone with horse chiro experiences? Thank you

[carl ny]

Don’t know if this will help but won’t hurt.Take a quarter and run it down each side of the back bone,in that little hollow spot just off center.Pres firmly but not real hard.Note any place that you see her flinch.Then use your thumbs to massage those spots,sometimes you have to massage pretty hard.Do the quarter thing again to see if she has improved.I had a horse massage therapist show this to me and have had good success. HTH

carl ny

[wild millers]

Thanks Carl, we’ll give that a try. My wife Annalisa is a licensed massage therapist though she hasn’t tried working on the horses yet.

[carl ny]

Let me know how it goes.

carl ny

[Rod44]

A horse chiro may work. I stopped at my Amish shoer one day and there was a chiro working on a horse. There was another horse tied next to it for shoeing. The guy happened to mention that the horse had a “tight” tail. I was hard to lift to put on the crouper. The chiro said no problem and gave is a couple pulls and said try it now. You could lift it with one finger!

[dominiquer60]

Horse Chiropractors can be a great thing if you can find one and a good one at that. In some states they are not legally allowed to practice unless they are a vet, but that doesn’t stop many of them thankfully. We have had one come out a couple of times and it has helped, it would help more if we had the time to work and stretch each animal like we should. Any adjustment holds better with muscle work and stretching.

Tail pulls may help her. Assuming she has a full tail, grab her tail and all long hairs and a neat bunch and slowly pull toward you belly button. This is the basic pull you can also slowly change the pull to the right or left and play with angles. She may find it strange at first, but as she relaxes she should want to help by leaning into the pull. This may not solve her problem, but it may help improve her issue or help loosen her up for a chiropractor.

I have used a chiropractor for driving and riding horses and the result have been good, I noticed more improvement with the riding horses, I think because I was more in tune with them and I rode them daily. The draft horses don’t get the attention that I would like to give them, then again I used to have the time when I rode everyday, now I don’t.

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