Has anyone ever dealt with a horse that's been into locoweed? I always knew that cows had a problem with it at times, but I was recently reading a book that described the behavior of horses that had been into it. I had a horse at one time that I couldn't break because he was so crazy, but I never thought of that as a possibility?

Out in West Texas they have Loco Weed. It's a little leafy plant that's drought resistant. If a grazing animal eats it they go totally wild. A friend of mine had to remove a calf that was on Loco, it took 5 grown men to put that calf into a trailer. They aren't just hard to handle, they are fighting wild. I doubt that you could even get close to a Loco'ed horse.

We had one when I was a kid that got into some...she progressively got worse and sporadic..would be riding along and out of the blue sh'd do a full somersault to rid her rider..I mean, tuck her head and roll! She became very unpredictable, aggressive and unhandleable over a very short time and we had to have her put down before she injured or killed someone, including herself.

The Old Cowboys claim that the meat is dangerous to eat. I have no experience to go on but tend to believe it.

Supposedly if a grazing animal has plenty of other things to eat they won't eat Loco. I'd imagine that if they were in a place where there was nothing to snack on they might pick some up. See if you can get some more info from the Equine Dept at Texas A&M U. They have given me good info, for free, in the past.

The horse I had was very sweet in general, though even when he was being worked on the ground he was super "soft". He tended to be more reactive vs. responsive. The real problem though cam when I rode him. He would be fine (I never got him to faster than a walk) walking around the roundpen and then all of a sudden he's go nuts - for no reason. I don't mean just bucking. He would jump forward, drop to his knees, do a somersault (throwing me!) and then race around or kick like a maniac. I worked with him for 9 months and never got past any of it. I rode him a lot and he only threw me a total of 5 times; the problem was that there was no rhyme or reason to why he would go crazy. I finally couldn't take any more and gave him away. I'm glad I've been able to go on to other and better horses, but it just bugs me not knowing what was wrong with him. I never consider loco, but was reading about it recently and wondered if there was any possibility that that might have caused some of his difficulties.