Cob Jockey

I am fighting a losing battle with the grazing muzzle this year.

He definitely needs it.  He's fat.  I've cut his feed back once this year, and my trainer cut it back even further while I was out of town, and even then she said she knew my first words to her were going to be "That horse is fat," (Spoiler alert: they were).

Looking really good, but also he's a solid 6 moving toward 7 on the BCS right now.  He's down to getting a handful of ration balancer morning and night.

Last summer, Connor's geriatric pasture buddies minded their own business when it came to Connor's muzzle.  This summer, my trainer's pile of rambunctious eventers will.not.leave.him.alone.

They broke my beloved leather stable halter that his muzzle was attached to last summer because it was the only halter that didn't rub him.  So I went for a nylon halter with breakaway straps, not wanting to spend a literal fortune in leather halters that get broken within days.  Unfortunately, the breakaway has been gently rubbing the hair off the sides of his cheeks.


Having had no luck with moleskin in the past, I tried genuine sheepskin rolls next:


I picked sheepskin over fleece since sheepskin will breathe, and even though he's on night turnout, I still want airflow under there.

That's worked out pretty well so far, except the sides (which are velcro) didn't even last one night.  The crown, noseband and (half of the) throatlatch are all slide-ons, so they're much less likely to come off.  Unfortunately the cheeks are continuing to rub, and I don't know what to do about that.

Fat :(

My trainer has tried to help too, by stringing electric braid over top of the paddock fences so the horses can't play bitey face with him over the fence.  One step forward one step back though: he's now turned out in the same paddock with one of the more bitey dudes on the property.  I'm glad he has a buddy, but pulling my hair out trying to keep his muzzle on and not hurting him!

I know he hates it, but he can't possibly understand that the muzzle is way better than the alternatives (laminitis, founder).

Anyone have any good tips or tricks on either turnout halters or muzzles?

We've been at the new barn just over a month now, and somebody is...


...fat.

This is his first time on pasture in almost five years, so I've been watching for it, and it's not unexpected.  As a first step, I cut his feed back as far as I can, even though I know the feed isn't what's making him fat.  He's now getting a handful of Essential K ration balancer morning and night.  The barn owners just laugh, they've never seen a horse get this little feed before.


But I know he's happy being able to graze again, I'm worried for their white vinyl fencing if they drylot him (...#ponyyoga tends to be hard on fencing when the grass is greener on the other side) and I want to let the BO's keep their normal turnout routine, so there's only one compromise:

It's the pony version of this emoji: :-|

He's worn a grazing muzzle before, briefly in September of 2012, when one person told me he was fat and I believed them despite not really believing it myself.  Trust your gut, people!

Not fat.

Fat.  But also muscles! (But mostly fat.)

He's crafty, but he's not persistent, so while he'll try to get the muzzle off for a while, if it puts up a fight he'll (probably) leave it alone.

Also the reviews said this design could be improved by the addition of one more strap on the front, because the horse can basically pull it down and get it off otherwise, so I proactively added duct tape.  Again, he's not persistent, the grazing muzzle just needs to stand its ground for a few minutes.

My biggest concern with the grazing muzzle is the auto-waterers that are situated so that 2-3 pastures can share a single one.  The BOs swear they've had a horse with a grazing muzzle not have a problem with them, and I made sure this one fits.  Still, I'm going to leave a bucket out there for a while just in case.

(pre-duct tape, I tried a zip tie and didn't like it.)