Depressed Horse

Wow.  [] Sounds like she doesn't feel well.  Maybe she needs a goat.

I guess I've never heard of a depressed horse before.  Is she kept w/ other horses or alone?  If she's alone, giving her some company would probably work wonders.  If she is bored, giving her something to do would help.  Does she eat OK?

Horses do get depressed. A dog is a dog all day long and their personalities are fairly consistent. With a horse, they can be different every day. A lot of people do not want mares because of their moodiness but I think geldings can be just as moody.

My wife's horse, a gelding, was very depressed last January after he sent her to the hospital for a week. He was use to seeing her every day and didn't see her for about 2 weeks and he wasn't right the whole time. When he first saw her again it was interesting to watch, he came into the barn and stopped to greet her which is not normal as he knew there was food in his stall. It was a long time before she could actually do anything with him and he remained depressed for a while.

My mare can very moody and has issues if I mess with the other mares, she doesn't care if I mess with the geldings. If I would go out of town for a long time she usually gave me hell when I got back. A few weeks ago she hurt her leg so I didn't ride her for 2 weeks, and when I finally did again she acted like I had been gone and I tried to to tell her it was HER fault this time, though she did not agree!  HAHAHAHA

Anyway, the jest is, they do indeed have some serious emotions going on at times. What is her living situation? Only horse, in a stall all day, that sort of thing! His issue could be physical as well.

Paul

What brought on the depression?  I have had a couple of horses go through it, but knew what caused it so I was able to work with that aspect of it.
 
Not all horses can handle being alone.

"heavyweight, lethargic, miserable and generaly depressed" can equal serious metabolic issues.
 
I would ask the vet to check her insulin levels and do an ACTH test to check her glucose levels.
 
You didn't mention what she's eating, but if she's on any sort of grain or grain products, especially sweet feed, changing her diet would be something to consider.
 
I have two insulin resistant horses and my 23 yr old was pretty much like what you described when it exploded on him 3 years ago.  While founder or laminits is very common in these types of horses, he has never done either.

Mine are off of all grain.

Well lucky lives out consistently with two other horses (a mare and her foal of this year) on a 20 acre field. Their diet is garlic chaff, pony nuts, bread, bran and garlic powder in the summer. She eats like she's been starved all her life, aka, she's a piggy! She was depressed when we bought her so I have no idea! I don't think a goat would help, seeing as she has company already. She is handled every day but not ridden, she hasn't been ridden for a while, firstly because of having her foal, and then she went lame. Now I can only ride her at weekends because is it dark by the time I get home from work or college. Are there more symptoms to Insulin resistance or just lethargy and depression? 

Excessive urination, an "easy keeper", lameness especially in the joint can all be part of it.  If she were in my pasture I would have bloodwork done to be sure nothing else was going on.

Ok, I'm not sure if she pee's excessively, but I'll keep an eye out. Truth be told I'm a bit wary about blood work, as vets bills for that sort of thing usually excess £400 ($600?) and as much as I love my horse, which is a hell of a lot, I really cannot afford that when only getting £30 a month for Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) from college. =[ =[ Thank you for your help everyone!    

I think Walkin the Walk has hit the nail on the head. Metabolic. You've got several enemies at work here, sugar, starch, iron overload, possible depressed thyroid, and poor circulation/inflammation in the feet. In other words, she's entered the world of a diabetic and she's plugged up, in pain.
Get the farrier on board with her weight and any possible changes in her feet. Laminitis and founder are biggies with this disease. A horse can founder overnight if he gets in the grain bin, but can also hang onto the edge of founder for years as well.
No grass. Grass hay, not alfalfa. Water, 1tbn. of salt/day with a balanced mineral delivered in a handful of whole oats. No apples, carrots or treats and move. You're going to have to harden your heart. Horses are like kids in a candy store! Tough love time!
If the pasture is a primary part of your lifestyle, then get her a muzzle to regulate her intake. She'll hate it, but atleast she will be out there moving around.
Feed her 1.5% of her weight in hay, if she's only getting hay. (a normal weight horse gets 2%) Monitor the weight loss which should be slow and steady. If she doesn't respond, either with weight loss or decreasing depression, then you should call the vet for a blood test to check the thyroid and is inexpensive to fix. The thyroid is the metabolism regulator. If its depressed, its sluggish. Everytime the horse eats, it adds to being plugged up because the metabolism is slow and not burning the calories. Even with diet and exercise, calories are not being burned properly....so no weight loss, for all the effort.
There's a product that just hit North America and it was invented by veterinarians in the UK just for this.  Out of all the feed labels I've analyzed, this is the ONLY one that raised my eyebrows. Its called Formula4Feet. If you pinch for anything....make it this...even if its only to get her over the hump for 3 months. Everything that is needed for balanced nutrition is in this product. This is going to be your biggest plus.
Other than that, there's slow feeders. Small mesh hay nets that slow down hay intake. The problem with feeding a horse meals, is that they are not meant for it. They are grazing animals. The time spent with no hay waiting for the next meal is starvation time to the horse and why she is so hungry when you arrive. Because they are grazing animals, they constantly produce stomach acid (unlike us) to handle that constant intake. When there's no food in the stomach, that acid has nothing to work on, sloshes around into places that its not meant to be, causing ulcers. The slow feeder takes longer to feed the same amount of hay and narrows down that starvation time. You have a happier horse longer, not eating wads of hay and avoiding choke etc. I save $400/yr on my hay costs because of them.  It doesn't matter if the horse is too fat or too thin, it regulates so well that weight is brought back to normal. They'll be warmer in the wee hours of a winter morning as well.
The most important thing is movement. If she's not lame....make her move. Every step that she takes increases insulin sensitivity...literally reversing the problem and taking you away from this. Just a few changes can make all the difference.
 I hope this helps and happy trails!

The grass is pretty poor this time of year, with low sugar content, thankfully. Before we put lucky out onto the big field she was like a hat rack, even though she was having a large breakfast and tea and turned out 24/7 on decent grass. We have wormed them. We were told it was because she was nursing, so I haven't been too concerned about that, as she is now keeping her weight up. When we first got her, and up until she foaled, she was quite badly overweight, and it took a lot of work to get the weight off her. Eating a lot is a cob thing admittedly, but I agree I need to save up for the blood work.

Garlic chaff is a hay, Mollases and garlic powder mix, its like rough chop. I think Chaff is just an English term. We don't feed hay, as we live on a farm and get good quality barley straw. Their current food mix is Chaff, Bran, a little bit of bread and pony nuts. Is it worth me getting her teeth checked out? 

Thankyou for all your help!          

It would be worth it if you had a GOOD dentist.  I've been reading up on this site about Natural Equine Dentistry. It's where my horses are staying, too.
http://www.balancedhorsedentistry.com/about.html

Equine influenza is caused by several strains of the Influenza A virus endemic to horses. Viruses that cause equine influenza were first isolated in 1956. The viruses can cross the species-barrier to cause anepizootic disease in humans, and recently, in dogs. 
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Earl Nunes