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Horse won't eat when wearing grazing muzzle

From: Rosie

Dear Jessica Thak you for your trememdous contribution to the welfare of horses and soothing of owner anxiety.

I have a 14.2, 11 year old thoroughbred x New Forest mare. She is what you refer to as an 'air fern. Consequently almost always over weight. She boards on a sheep farm where owners have little or no choice over types of pasture. Other horses seem to need to have it supplemented, while mine just eats and eats and grows fat on what appears to be nothing. We have no 'dry lot'.

In summer she lives out 24/7 with three or four other mares and in winter she comes in at night during which she has hay on demand and a small evening feed. In the summer she has a small handful of Alfa A with a cup of foot supplement once a day.

This year I have made a tremendous effort to address the weight problem. She is exercised for at least an hour every day, and we have the benefit of lots of hills for regular hill work where she lives. I bought a grazing muzzle abut three months ago - it is made of webbing and has a small circular hole in the end. I leave the one inch gap at the end, and check it carefully for size. If anything it's a little too large, but the size below seemed too small. I decided to try the muzzle for about six hours a day. While she is wearing it she looks extremely depressed, stands in one place with her head hanging, hardly moves, and makes no attempt to eat at all. I have seen her drink while wearing it.

The grass is very short and possibly not long enough to penetrate far enough for her to bite it off through the hole. After several weeks of observation I have concluded she is not eating at all while wearing the muzzle. I began bringing her into the stable instead where she would almost always lie down and sleep if there is no food on offer. If I put a little hay in with her she gorges it and polishes it off almost all at once.

Then I was told she would just eat more during the time she had access to grass in order to compensate, and therefore muzzling was cruel and pointless, and leaving her with no food at all was dangerously unnatural for her digestive system.

Another advisor said hosres come to no harm having food denied for part of the day... She certainly doesn't seem to be losing any weight, so maybe it is true she compensates during the nights on grass. But at least she doesn't seem to be putting more on which in previous years she has always done. I feel devastated by her sorrowful look every day I put on the muzzle, and upset by people suggesting I am being cruel. I have seen other horses wearing muzzles and grazing through them constantly. It just seems that ours is never going to get the knack. What should I do? Rosie


Hi Rosie!

People who think that you are cruel not to allow your mare to become terribly fat and quite possibly foundered are obviously NOT people who know much about horses. Do your best to educate them by explaining the purpose and function of a .. grazing muzzle, but if they persist, you should continue to do what's right for your horse, and disegard their comments. Just consider them in the same category as comments about the cruelty of flymasks! There will always be someone to accuse you of "blindfolding" a horse wearing a flymask; similarly, there will always be someone to accuse you of being cruel if you muzzle your mare to reduce her consumption of lush pasture grass. Most of these people can be taught what's what, provided that you have the patience and that they have a genuine interest in horses. But at the end of the day, it's you who are responsible for YOUR horse's health and happiness and soundness, so you have to look after her even if there are people making foolish comments from the sidelines.

Some horses adjust very easily to a grazing muzzle. Others take longer. One does hear occasionally of a horse that just doesn't learn to cope with the muzzle, but I've heard of that happening only three times. In two of the cases, the muzzle was not properly adjusted! In one case, it was far too small to allow the horse to chew; in the other case, it was adjusted so loosely that the horse couldn't get any grass through the hole at the end. In the third case, the horse's breathing was restricted due to a congenital malformation of the nostrils, and he simply couldn't tolerate ANYTHING covering his muzzle.

It's true whereas some horses immediately suss out how to eat whilst wearing the muzzle, and do their best to continue their favourite activity (non-stop grass consumption), and other horses are never very happy with the idea of eating through the muzzle, and so do very little grazing whilst wearing it, the result either way is the same: the horse is able to be turned out, move around freely, and enjoy fresh air and the company of other horses, and the horse EATS LESS whilst the grazing muzzle is in place. That, after all, is the POINT of the grazing muzzle!

Short grass, even very short grass, ought not to be a problem for your mare. Oddly enough, it's long grass that can be hard to eat through a grazing muzzle, as the stems bend instead of sticking up, and so don't pass through the hole in the bottom of the muzzle.

Check that your mare's grazing muzzle is properly adjusted - that is, loosely enough to allow her to chew easily You can test it by putting a handful of grass or other feed inside it (some people do this every day, just to make their horses more cheerful about the whole idea of having the muzzles put on). You should be able to fit two or three fingers between your mare's jaw and the grazing muzzle - which I assume you CAN do, since you've already said that hers is a bit loose. Some horses seem to be more comfortable in the model that clips to their own halter; others seem to be more comfortable in the all-in-one model. You can experiment to see which size and which model works best for your mare.

I've seen a few horses that, at first, couldn't quite "get" the idea that it was possible to eat whilst wearing the muzzle, but once their owners had double- and triple-checked the adjustment of the muzzles, they each put a handful of (variously) grass, hay pellets, or (truly!) julienned carrot strips into the muzzle before putting it on the horse's head in the morning, and the horses ALL came to the sudden conclusion that they could, indeed, eat and chew. ;-) In one case I know of, the horse still couldn't quite work out how to graze through the muzzle, so his owner enlarged the hole at the bottom - perhaps half an inch all the way around? - and he then realized that he COULD graze, and did so quite happily. He wears his muzzle whenever he isn't actually being fed or being ridden - probably 22 hours a day - and manages to consume enough pasture grass to keep himself in good (but not fat) condition.

Here are a few more thoughts on grazing muzzles - perhaps one or more of them will help you.

Most horses are deprived of food for some time each day - some are kept up in stalls, or live in drylots, and fed only two or three times a day. Some of these are allowed free-choice hay between feeding times; many are not. Horses do best when they can eat small amounts of roughage around the clock - which is exactly what the grazing muzzle is designed to allow them to do. A horse that is put into a stall for twelve hours and given a small quantity of hay - as many horses are, when they are brought in for the night - will generally consume all the hay within half an hour or an hour, and then go for many hours without food.

Some horses DO eat faster to compensate for "lost time" when their muzzles are removed, just as some horses will eat as fast as they can when they are kept in overnight and turned out in the morning (or vice versa) so continue to keep an eye on your mare. That said, I have yet to meet a horse that will gain the same amount of weight whether it is out on pasture for twelve or twenty-four hours a day. Your horse might do better to have her muzzle on for six hours, off for six, on for six, and off for six. She drinks with the muzzle on, which is a good sign. Whatever you do, be sure to take it off regularly and check her face for rubs! Fleece tubes meant to go onto halter straps can help keep the muzzle buckles from creating rubs. You can buy these or make your own from inexpensive fleece (if you make quite a few at once, you'll be able to take some home to wash and use clean ones - the fleece itself can cause rubs too, if it collects enough dirt).

Depending on whether your own schedule would permit this, more exercise each day might also be useful for your mare. If she has two hours of walking and trotting under saddle, that's (a) two hours of exercise, which will help her burn more calories, and (b) two hours during which she can't eat, which will reduce the overall number of calories she consumes that day. Mind you, some horses are such easy keepers that they need to wear grazing muzzles in pasture even when they are given two or three hours of daily exercise.

As the owner of an "air fern" (just show her a photograph of good grass and she gains weight), I know just how difficult it can be to balance a horse's needs for around-the-clock roughage and free exercise with its needs to be protected from the miseries of obesity and founder. Lush pastures and "air ferns" are just not compatible - "natural" free grazing will result in a fat and quite possibly a foundered horse! When that's the risk, you have to do SOMETHING to protect your horse. The grazing muzzles can help immensely - it's much better for a horse to walk around eating tiny amounts of grass all day than to be confined to a safe, foodless stall or pen.

People who talk about "cruelty" are obviously unaware of the risk of founder, and may be equally unaware of the cruelty of confinement! Grazing muzzles may look a bit funny - one of my students refers to the "Hannibal Lecter look" - but there's nothing funny about the pain experienced by a foundered horse. These muzzles have been an incredible boon for horses that would otherwise be confined to a (usually quite small) drylot or even to a stall, at night or during the day - or even 24/7, if the pasture grass is truly good. Horse owners generally hate to restrict their horses' free movement and ability to socialize, but in the absence of a grazing muzzle, drylots, small pens, and stalls are the only practical solutions. What does your veterinarian advise?

I hope that your mare will be able to adjust to her muzzle. Perhaps she'll like it better if you enlarge the hole slightly, or add some padding over the buckles, or put a handful of grass or a few treats into the muzzle each time you put it on her head. Alas, there is no perfect solution, as no one has yet invented a pill or an injection that would allow full-time eating without weight gain (and if someone invents such a pill, I want the first one for myself - my "air fern" mare will have to wait for the second one!). Try a little longer, make a few adjustments, and see what happens. It does sound to me as though you're having good success using the muzzle to keep your mare from gaining weight as she usually does at this time of year! You ARE having an effect - SOMETHING is making the difference between her usual weight gain and the current NO WEIGHT GAIN. I expect it's the grazing muzzle.

I hope you'll let me know what happens. Good luck!

Jessica

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