From: Patrick
Dear Jessica, you do so much to help riders everywhere, I just wanted you to know that it's appreciated. Whenever I want good information with no commercials and no b.s., I count on you. Thank you.
One of our horses came to us about six months back, and since that time he has eaten his way through several boards and pieces of two gates. It's driving us nuts. We've tried various solutions painted on the wood, two commercial ones (chew stop and no chew) and they haven't made any difference in his behavior. We've also tried Tabasco sauce and liquid soap, but he still keeps chewing.
I know you'll ask me this, so the answer is that he really does get enough turnout time, like all day every day! He comes in at night and spends the night in his stall with about half a bale of hay, so it's not like he doesn't have anything to chew.
I forgot to mention this to my vet when she was out here in October. Should I call her, or is there anything she is likely to be able to do about it? I don't want to drug the horse, and I'm not real impressed with cribbing collars. Anyway he isn't technically cribbing, just chewing wood and eating it. Do you have any suggestions for me? All of our horses get mixed hay (alfalfa and orchard grass), sweetfeed, and they all have saltblocks, so I don't think it's a diet issue.
Thanks in advance! Patrick
I can think of several things that might help in this situation.
First, DO talk to your vet, and ask her to check your horse's teeth very, very carefully.
Second, get a copy of the NRC guidelines for horse nutrition (it's available in paper form, on diskette and, by now, probably on CD-Rom too) and figure out exactly what your horse needs -- then compare it to what he is getting. If, on paper, you are feeding a perfectly-balanced diet and meeting all of your horse's nutritional needs, then you'll need to dig deeper. This may involve having your pasture grass and your hay tested -- or, if there are known deficiencies in your area's soil, it may just mean that you'll need to purchase and feed a supplement formulated to make up for the specific deficiencies in your area.
Third, if your vet agrees, try feeding this horse more hay and less grain. In any case, I would strongly advise giving this horse oats rather than sweetfeed. There are horses that chew wood ONLY after they've eaten something very sweet -- and sweetfeed, with all of that molasses, definitely qualifies. It's quite possible that your horse may stop eating wood and focus on his hay instead, as long as he isn't getting molasses or other sugar in his diet.
One warning: if this works for you (eliminating molasses and sugar), be careful not to feed this horse sugar lumps or mints or cookies as treats, because ONE sugar lump can be enough to start the wood-chewing again. I don't know precisely why this happens, but I've seen it happen with more than one horse. This doesn't mean "no treats", but for horses like this, pasta (uncooked) is much less likely to bring on a wood-chewing session. And most horses adore pasta -- I always have a box of medium shells or rigatoni somewhere in my tack box. ;-)
Good luck! It's hard enough to keep up with the normal maintenance of wooden stall boards and fences and gates, without the wood-chewing assistance of a twelve-hundred-pound beaver. ;-)
Jessica
Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org
Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.