Biting - A Common Vice?

Flipo's Mum

Heavy owner of a Heavy
Aug 17, 2009
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Perthshire, Scotland
Flipo bit me tonight. Totally by accident. I was giving him a treat and somehow the jaws of doom ended up closing around my index finger. There was that moment of 'wholly crap is he going to snap it' and I was strangely mute until he wasn't forthcoming and I managed to stick my thumb in the corner of his mouth to get him to release.

Anyway, it got me thinking. I never see anyone comment on here about biting as a vice. Is it common? My mate's horse is pretty bad for nipping folk, my wee highland was very mouthy and you couldn't treat him at all, but does anyone have this problem, and what do they do to sort it. I remember reading in some children's book about the man who baked a potato and then tied it to his arm so that the horse bit into the mushiness and obviously didn't like the experience.
 
Someone has been feeding my horse titbits as he has started nipping and pawing expecting food :stomp: Tonight he did actually bite me when none was forth coming. He got a hard slap, I don't subscribe to softly softly treatment to behaviour like that.

He now has a note on his stable door. I thought he had been feeling a bit full of himself this last week, that would account for his weight gain too. :stomp:
 
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Interesting question. I have a feeling that biting is more common than you'd think, because in my experience a lot of owners don't even realise that's what their horse is doing! I've met quite a few horses who nip/bite whose owners think they are just "being playful"...
 
Silver will threaten if you are grooming but that's it - a threat.

Piggy on the other hand :stomp: he is a mouthy little toad and just does not learn. He gets a tap on the nose for it. People think he's cute. People treat him. He does his party tricks (undoing zips, stealing from pockets, undoing buttons, pulls people's trousers down) and they think its funny... And treat again ;(

I won't hand feed him as a result
 
When kind elderly man was feeding ours carrots over door the gelding started to nip so we had to stop treats unless he had worked and doing stretches afterwards.

The mare does not nip for treats and very polite but she has nipped when sore or being girthed and it usually it becasue she is in discomfort in some way and a clear indicator something is wrong though she will threaten other times if touch tummy or too near her lady bits lol she doesnt actually bite :tongue:
 
Ziggy bit me once during his first back treatment, when he was scared by the new experience and wild with pain. He really meant it! It was my upper arm and it hurt like &*@£$%!.

He has never bitten me again and doesn't get mouthy even though I use treats. I am so unfamiliar with this vice that when I said hello to a pony over a fence the other day and it nipped me, I was too astonished even to admonish it.

So I'm no help, am I?
 
I have had 'nipping' but not actual biting. I think biting develops if nipping is not 'nipped in the bud', its generally a 'respect' thing.

Some pick it up worse than others. Cherie will push her luck when being groomed if shes in a grumpy(she has little respect for any one except herself lol). I usually just shout at her and smack her on the neck and it goes away. She will also threaten to kick but never actually kick. It just depends with her what mood she is in. Generally she is sweet as a lamb but she does have her marish days.

Summer is a mouthy sort. I have to be careful not to feed her treats or I could see problems developing. She is a pretty submissive type though so its really easy to discourage her by just using a harsh word.

Evie would not dream of biting. She is not keen on being girthed up (she has a long memory of a time when someone used to try and squeeze her into a girth that was too small). She pulls a few faces but that's it.

I think the type of biting Flipo has described is purely accidental. A case of having the finger in the wrong place at the wrong time lol.
 
I think you have to remember that they cannot see what is in your hand and a stuck out finger is in danger!

Scully will bite out but rarely at me - usually the leadrope or the stable door jamb takes the brunt of it. I am not sure it is anything to do with treats - she is treated by hand and is always very gentle taking the treat.
 
Mac bit me the other day and drew blood, I was doing his carrot stretches and he got my finger as well as the carrot so it was accidental.

He used to nip and bite a lot when I first had him, particularly when being groomed or having the girth done up but he hasn't done that for a long time now. He has also twice bitten children who were standing outside his stable, that was after he had been continually tormented by a dog. He was moved to a different stable where it's quieter and we haven't had any trouble since.

I don't often give him treats and it's an unwritten rule on our yard that no-one feeds treats to other people's horses but I have had words with a couple of people I caught handing out treats to him.
 
When I first got Storm she bit a lot - it was a form of her trying to dominate me? I am not sure but I cured it gradually by being firm and pushing her away. She used to go for my arms - I tied brushes to them at one point because I knew the situations she would try and nip in. For example, she would nip last thing at night when being fleeced up (this was back when we were on a yard and I used to put a fleece on her because others did the same!) anyway, I knew she was going to do it, so I tied her grooming brushes onto the arm that she went for and it did give her a bit of a surprise (its so long ago I can't remember properly). Anyway, in the end I either dodged out of her way when I knew it was coming or just firmly said "no" and pushed her away. She gave up in the end, I think because our relationship developed into something like it is now and we respect each other. I don't know if she'd done it in the past - I think she saw me as a push over at one point and didn't have much respect. She is apt to nip now if you are in the wrong place and she wants to pull faces at Chloe - not long ago one evening she was leering at Chloe from her stable door (she does pull awful faces at other horses, always has done, she used to do it to Joe!) and I was in the way and my arm bore the brunt of her nipping moody ways! I shrieked with pain and it made her jump back - since then she's not done it!!!
 
Tobes will bite if he thinks he can get away with it. Usually in times of stress - he bit me once when he was being shod and in a rip and I whacked him really hard around the head - very non NH and all that, but it hurt, and I have found one quick and hard reprimand usually does the trick.

Some horses are naturally more pushy/domineering/try their luck - if you treated Tobes he would bite all the time I reckon.

The other time he bit was totally my own fault and much the same circumstances as when Flip bit you - I was removing a large piece of beech that he had nicked as we were waiting at a gate and my finger was just in the wrong place!!!
 
Belle is very gentle with her mouth, even my friends toddler can give her a treat without incident, she is quite mouthy with other stuff though, for example she will have to mouth the noseband of her head collar for a second before I put it on and I cannot leave anything hanging on the bridle hook by her stable door, otherwise it gets 'played with', but as for biting no never.
 
Jack picked me up off the floor when he grabbed my arm during a chiro visit. He was fear aggressive and hadn't been well treated. He didn't like humans.
 
I think serious serial biting is usually associated with horses that have been mistreated and more often that not happens in the confined space of stables. Hitting a serial biter might be valid self defence but it doesn't do anything to help the issue.

Biting or more likely threatening to bite, as an objection, isn't that uncommon, it's just the horse shouting about something, so it usually pays to think about what and why they're doing it and whether we can do anything to address their problem.
 
Nope mine do not bite or nip, they get a treat when the bridle is removed after work and when returned to their field for the night or stable in the winter, never in between.

OH will give them a carrot but he likes to spoil them or bribe them to be nice to them when he rides:giggle:

I do not do biting at all but I do understand when doing stretches that sometimes they can catch you.
 
I turn out a horse with Poppy who tries to nip me - well, she grazes my arm with her bared teeth, she hasn't actually got hold of any flesh yet. To be fair though, her owner rarely visits her and never rides her, and she sees me lavishing attention on Poppy. She's very, very fresh, even just taking her to the field and back. I think she's doing it because she's bored and a bit cross.
 
the only time i've been bitten is when i tried to give minnie a treat from horseback and the angle was just wrong so my finger ended up in her mouth.
she gets mouthier when nervous but so far so good.
My other mare has bitten (with the intent to bite) my OH before but that's because she doesn't like him. She's not bitten me yet and we've owned her for 10 years.
I would expect biting to be pretty rare. It would be super scary if they did start biting. Yikes! Even just the accidental bite was pretty painful.
 
My 1st pony was a serial biter, and she truly meant it!

She would bite you if you walked past her stable, picking out feet, girthing, grooming etc.

One day, she bit me on the inside of my thigh, :hot:, whilst I was picking out her feet. My reaction was to bite her back. She never bit me again.
 
There are two on the yard who will try and bite you as you go past, and a couple of others who try to bite the other horses as they are led past. Its horrible and I hate it, and I always growl at them if they try it. But not everyone does, so it doesnt really improve.

I know that two of them have a past that is not altogether pleasant, and one is a stallion that is never ridden, and one is a mare that was fine until her mum got a youngster, so we think she does it for attention. So they all have reasons to bite, but I dont think its acceptable behaviour under any circumstances.

Cracker is not a biter, he is an unzipper of pockets, an undoer of knots and stable bolts, and even has a go at buttons, and gives kisses for polos. So he is very mouthy, but has never ever bitten unintentionally or otherwise. We would have strong words if he did. There have to be boundaries, and not trying to take chunks out of me is non negotiable.
 
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