Alfalfa and change of behavior

I just recently started to add some alfa cubes to my paint's diet. Has anyone seen a change in behavior when adding some higher protein to their horses diet? He has always been pretty easy going, but during the last week he has been pinning his ears at me when he is eating and tried to side kick me, which is completely out of character. Thus to say he had a crazed woman on his butt with a lunge whip. Anyway, I notice a change of behaivor and the only thing I have changed is adding alfa cubes. Any opinions would be welcomed.

Yepper, get him off those alfalfa cubes five minutes ago - lol lol

If you want to add some extra forage for the sake of adding forage, give your horse timothy pellets or straight timothy cubes, if you can find them.

If the alfalfa was for more energy, and your Paint is not over weight, try adding equine rice barn. It provides horses with a cool energy without making nutcases out of them. It is also for weight gain, however.

I have a horse with food intolerances and alfalfa is one of the things that makes him crazy

He is also oat & corn intolerant but the thing that drives him to really have murder in his eyes is soy - lol loll ol

When y 25 yr old was a Youngin' he could not handle alfalfa. He literally would stand straight up and climb his stall walls - and that was only being shut in for the night

Now that he is 25 and equine metabolic syndrome has caused him to lose muscle mass, I feed him one pound daily of timothy/alfalfa cubes and he does fine. It's given him back some stamina the EMS stole from him.

Thank you. He's as of this morning off of it, and thank you for the other options and ideas. Wow what a change in his demeanor so quickly.

Yep! My mare has a starch sensitivity as well as a sensitivity to Alfalfa. She turns into a fire breathing dragon. I use cocosoya oil for weight gain/shine.

Could also be the high calcium in alfalfa messing up the magnesium balance - Mg deficiency/imbalance is also related to behavioural probs.

Added a bit of oil to his diet. He skin is dry and will help with some weight and shine...without all the drama.

Hmmmmm Mocha.....I recently added some moistened alfalfa cubes to my mares' diets too and one of them has been out of character with her being cranky too!

My gelding TB goes all crackhead on even grass mix. He's not mean, but seriously wound tight!
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My old lady got crazy on alfalfa cubes too. She got cranky, aggressive towards other horses and ridiculous to ride. The week or so she was getting alfalfa was the only time I've ever felt unsafe on her back

Interesting....my pinto has always tried to be boss mare over my percheron, but after a couple attempts, mostly at feed time, my percheron will put her in her place. Now, my pinto 'is' boss mare at feed time with my percheron. Funny, because it seemed to have the opposite affect on my percheron. I'm getting rid of the alfalfa cubes.