Today we want to share the story of a young AQH gelding named Boguś, who went through a difficult adjustment period after changing his home and herd.
Boguś, although a confident and not very fearful horse, experienced significant stress, which likely led to the development of so-called "air swallowing," a compulsive behavior often triggered by stress or anxiety.
Boguś is a 2-year-old AQH gelding who began swallowing after changing his home and being separated from his previous herd, which was probably a huge source of stress for him.
Boguś is a very confident, fearless horse, and it seems little impresses him. When he joined the new herd, he was quite pushy towards the other horses, poking and nipping at them. He wandered around the paddock, for instance, pawing at a tarp under which straw was stored.
We noticed that he began to swallow about a month after his arrival, initially doing so mainly after eating at the feed trough.
We immediately implemented a preventative treatment for ulcers, switched his diet to one suitable for ulcer-prone horses, and administered Hempqualizer as nerve support—2 ml for a month, then 1 ml.
In the first week, the young horse calmed down significantly, stopped harassing other horses, and no longer paced nervously around the paddock. The swallowing remained unchanged; it even intensified during the veterinarian's visit and when one of the horses was taken to the clinic.
Now, after more than a month, I feel that his swallowing has become less frequent; he no longer does it after eating at the trough and only sporadically at the fence in slightly nervous situations. I hope that this calming effect on the condition will persist and eventually disappear completely.
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