Clipping horse ears?

Question

my miniature filly will not let me shave her ears. we can shave everything else and bathe her with absolutely NO problems but she wont let us shave her ears. and twitching her does not help because then she bobs her head and spazzes out. help please! I have a show next week and its our first one. eeep!

Answer 1

If you have a show next week, she's not ready.  One week is an unrealistic time frame for teaching handling skills that last a lifetime.  

Horses have hair inside their ears for a reason -- to keep the bugs out.  If you shave the inside of her ears, she should wear a hood (ear hood) to protect her from the bugs.  This sounds fairly extreme especially for a mini; personally I would not do it for any horse.  

If you simply want to make the ears look neat while giving most protection, block-trim the ears; hold the back of the ear in your hand, gently sqeeze the sides of the ear together and run the clippers up the outside ear edges only, from the base to the tip, and you're done.

To teach her to accept this, use approach and retreat, without the clippers, until she will allow you to pet and handle her head and ears freely.  Then using this same technique, teach her to lower her head on cue.  (Natural Horsemanship).  If you do this correctly she will accept the clippers eventually, even without a halter.  

I know this is probably not the easy answer you wanted to hear, but its your relationship with your horse.  

Good luck!

Answer 2

have you ever used a twitch?  you put it on their upper lip and it gives them something to think about. get someone else to hold your horse while you clip its ears. and if that doesnt help use your palm to close its ears and lust get the fuzz off the outside and work your way inside the ear. depending on how formal your show is i wouldnt worry alot about the inside of the ear. but if your horse does good make sure you reward her!

good luck =]

Answer 3

I never clip the hair in any of my horses' ears.  I'd rather leave it in there for protection.  To neaten them up for a show, I will clip the hair only so that none of it sticks out past the edges of the ear (like if you drew a straight line from edge to edge).  I do it with scissors.

Answer 4

Buy horse earplugs.

1. They HATE the feeling of hair falling into their ears.

2. They hate the sound.

This fixes two things.

If she still wont stand, twitch her on tranq.. it's not cruel or anything and it will get the job done quickly rather than fighting with her and stressing her out for hours!

Horse ear plugs:

http://www.doversaddlery.com/product.asp...

http://www.horsesmarts.net/store/product...

Answer 5

you should try get 1 that is for dogs. they are really quite and they dont really notice it...

Answer 6

You can tell who has horses and who doesn't by the ignorant answer you get like "Why would want to shave her ears?"

We shave our horse's ears in the spring to keep the ear mites down and we do show our horses from time to time as well.

Anyway, if twitching doesn't help, you might have to tranquilize her and then twitch her.  We have a TWH mare right now that we are going to have to tranq because she reacts just like your mini.  Our vet even said that's what we'd have to do.  

Answer 7

oh my gosh why do you even WANT to shave her ears.that is soooooooooooo mean.i have a horse and i never shave it or do anything mean to her.that is we have such a close relationship

Answer 8

I am not surprised that she will not let you clip her ears.  Horse's hearing is so much more sensitive than ours.  Try putting cotton wool in her ears before trying to clip, or alternatively use a pair of scissors (with blunt ends of course), squeeze the ear together gently but firmly and cut down the line of the ear.

Answer 9

The vibration tickles her ears... and probably makes them itch a little that is why she is freaked I bet. I would try doing a treat training schedule with her. like put the clippers up to her ear... not trying to shave them but let her feel the vibration, then if she doesn't freak for like half a second then give her a treat. gradually make the time longer, and maybe you can get it done before the show. I am not a fan of ear twitching because sometimes it makes the horse head shy.

Just try to go as slow as possible and make it a positive experience. She has already learned that if she throws a fit you stop... or can't get it done. So try to start all over, and make her want you to do it because she knows a treat is coming.

Hope this helps! Good Luck at your show!

Answer 10

Twitches don't often work on some horses.  The best bet is to rig up a "Lip chain".  This goes from one ring on the side of the noseband of the halter, under her top lip and through the ring on the other side of the noseband of the halter.  You can tighten down on this when she acts up as you grab her ear to clip and she should just quiet right down after a few moments.  

You'd probably have to go out and purchase a chain dog leash and use that for the lip chain (Seeing how a horse stud shank would be a bit large for her.).

Answer 11

Teaching a horse to accept clipping inside their ears is often difficult, even if they aren't frightened or head shy.  My current yearling is super to trim everywhere else, and he gladly lets me rub the inside of his ears with my hands.  But when it comes to the clippers (which are quiet) he bobs and wiggles and causes quite a scene.  So I don't think your problem is that unusual.  Perhaps you can solve it before the show, then again, perhaps not.  I don't think the world will come to an end if you don't have her ears clipped, do everything else well and then don't worry if you don't get anywhere.  I showed my yearling at the breed level in In-Hand trail, halter and showmanship without clipped ears, and while it wasn't ideal, the world didn't come to an end, even at the level of showing!

I understand people's concerns about clipping a horse's ears.  Yes, I suppose the hair there does offer some protection, so I normally do not do my horses that aren't being shown.  But I'm not so convinced that the hairs in a horse's ears make a big difference or not.  Let me first of all say, I live in rural Alberta, Canada, where we have lots of small burrowing blackflies, gnats, mosquitos and flies in general.  Every year my horses suffer greatly from the backflies and gnats which get inside their ears and leave itchy scabby bite marks.  They get bad enough that I keep fly masks with ear protection on my horses from morning to night.  In my observation there is no worsening of bites on the horses that have clipped ears compared to those that do.  Perhaps the long hairs slow down the bugs a bit, but blackflies find it very easy to crawl through that long hair inside the ear, and bite, too.  So I personally do not feel guilty or ashamed that my show horse's ears are clipped.  I keep them faithfully flymasked anyways, so it is not a problem, and when I ride I apply flyspray by hand to the inside of their ears.  I find that if I do this regularily they don't get the nasty bites and scabs and aren't scratching their heads constantly, once that happens it tough to keep fly masks on (due to all the scratching)

I wonder if you are twitching your mini properly.  Do you have equipment the right size for her?  Do you have an experienced person helping you?

Are your clippers truely quiet and non-irritating?  Have you put in time desensitizing your horse to having his ears touched regularily?  Have you tried earplugs?  (Some horses shake them out and it makes things worse)

If you have done all these things, and are still having problems, then I personally would give up!  If not, I would slowly persist, but be aware that problems aren't always solved by our timetable, you may have this solved for next year's show season, and not by this years!  Seriously.  

If you can't clip them for now, I would use scissors and trim them the best I could.  I would try to clip the outside edge if nothing else.  And lastly, I have read an article that talked about using "Neat" the hair shaving formula that women use on their legs, to do a horse's ears.  I've never tried it because I had concerns that I wouldn't be able to clean the excess "neat" out of their ears properly when we were done, and they would end up with irritation.  Has anyone out there tried it, and did it work?  It might be something to consider, IF you were going to spend a great length of time afterwards totally cleaning the product out of their ear.

Answer 12

What level of show is it?  For some smaller shows, clipping the inside of the ear is not nescessary.  If you must clip inside the ear, try doing it with a little disposable clipper.  They are sold at most pet stores that have horse stuff.  No noise or tickling to freak her out.  If you aren't already, try (this is hard to explain) to fold her ear over away from you, so the hair on the inside is now sticking out, and you can clip it better with less tickling.  

If you really really really cannot get her clipped, then put her in tight crossties that are tied high to tHe wall.  You want her nose to be as high as you can get it, so she has a hard time moving her head around.  Only do this if you really really have to.  

Good luck!

Answer 13

i have the same issue with my horse. i made ear plugs for her out of panty hoes and cotton balls and those seem to work pretty good. they block out a lot of the noise. she still isn't good with the clippers but has gotten a lot better with the scissors in her ears. i couldn't even go near her ears with the scissors either. if this doesn't work in time just use scissors and trim the edges of the ears to make all the hair even and cut all the hairs that stick out of her ears. most judges won't take points off b/c most realize that horses need this to protect themselves from flies and other things that get in their ears. :-) good luck

Answer 14

A great way to get her to like them is to get a hand-held massager, one that turns on and buzzes like the clippers, and then massage her all over, including her ears, so she associates the sound with something good. I know she doesn't mind the sound, but if you can make it so she LOVES the sound, she won't flinch away. Good luck! :)

Answer 15

Every body give me thumbs down like Sweety girl. I honestly don't know why people insist on clipping horses ears. This clipping thing is stupid. always wonder how this got started. God put hair in horses ears for a reason, not for stupid show people to shave it out. Hats off to the Foundation Quarter Horse Association for not allowing this. I will never clip my horses ears for any reason. All of you sheep out there should stop doing it. Loves the ponies, I guess those 30 horses in my pasture aren't mine.

Answer 16

What kind of clippers are you using?  It's worth the investment to get a super quiet, battery operated or rechargeable cordless.  No loud buzz, no dangling cord to freak them out.  

I'd work with her ears daily if I were you, at first without clippers.  Handle them extensively but gently, of course, then clip the halter path and move to the ears.

There is nothing mean or cruel about clipping ears.  In fact, it's a good idea to have any horse accustomed to things like this...what if an abcess or infected bite, or ear mites had to be treated?  Having a horse desensitized and not fearful of these things makes them easier to handle in unusual circumstances.

Answer 17

play gently with her ears so that she knows its OK for you to be ther. gentle touch, a rub or a kindly scratching,.. so that it does not feel threatened when the ears are manipulated.

Id try to use a blunt end scissors for the cutting or hair - the sound of an electric trimmer might be to much for her

good luck withthe ears and good luck at the show