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Chewing problem

From: Andi

Happy Trails:

Here's a tough question and I'd appreciate any input!

I'm a 32 yr horse owner/rider & Presently my husband & I have 2 riding geldings. Five years ago I was given a delightful 1/4/welsh pony mare as a barn mate for my gelding. Juliet is  13 years old this March. She stands 13 hands and receives 3x/s day feed of alfalfa supplemented with: LMF horse ration with forco, salt, corn oil, and apple cider given once daily. She has a mineral AND salt block in her corral. I add rolled barley & bran when work load increases, and decrease accordingly.

Her exercise includes lunging, riding, ponying and recently beginning cart training. Her in/out barn area opens to a full acre. She is in excellent weight & muscle tone and is sound as a dollar(smile) She also has tires, balls with ropes to play with and a barn mate she adores.

BUT.....she is a chewer. She will chew trees, the side of our barn, the wood posts holding up fencing... ANYTHING and everything. We've used no climb fencing with hot wire and this keeps her destruction at bay.  We've been forced to chicken mesh every one of our oak trees, but she manages to still get into the root system.

Is there ANYTHING that can be done other than putting her in a small pipe corral area? WE recently lent her to a friend for two months  during the holidays. She had 13 grandchildren, all who ride & I thought perhaps a greater increase in  activity might simmer the chewing down. WRONG! It got worse once she left both me and her barn mate. They adored her and could not believe her calm and gentle manner with all the children, but they returned her yesterday due to her destructive behavior.

This is a delightful, non pony-ish type mare with a long life ahead of her. HELP!!

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. Andi


Hi Andi!

Oh dear, that IS a problem. I don't think that the pipe corral will be a good solution, though -- she'll be healthier and happier if she's turned out to exercise freely with her friends. I'd bring your vet in on this, and tell him exactly what you've told me. He may be able to analyze her diet and figure out what, if anything may be missing. In the meanwhile, here are my thoughts on the subject.

Horses are designed to eat all day -- not a lot, but continuously. Some horses have a real need to be chewing all the time, and some have a real taste for bark. It's standard procedure to protect trees in pastures -- either with chicken wire, as you've done, or by building small fences around the trees (and, in some cases, covering the fences with chicken wire!).

Some horses will chew if they aren't getting enough roughage in their diet --  hay-deprived horses will often chew whatever is available to them: fences, posts, other horses' tails. The easiest "fix" to attempt is simply keeping hay in front of the horse 24/7. Some owners put a round hay-bale in the pasture to keep their horses chewing something they're actually supposed to chew. If you haven't tried this, why not give it a go?

Some horses will chew in search of salt. Since horses don't always find it easy to lick salt blocks, they can be salt-deprived even with full-time access to a salt block. You might try softening the top of her salt block with a handful of water to make it easier for her to lick up, just in case she's trying to find salt elsewhere.

If your pony already has full-time access to hay and/or pasture, but is nonetheless chewing all the wood in sight, I have another suggestion: get her some wood of her own. Seriously. Every once in a while, there's a horse that just wants to chew bark and branches, and won't be happy with anything else. Instead of locking her up in "solitary" in a small pipe corral, see whether you can find someone with unsprayed apple trees. It sounds silly, but giving her a few large branches of apple wood may help a lot. She needs to chew, and you need to have her chewing something OTHER than your fences, posts, and live trees. With your veterinarian's approval, of course, why not give her some nice big pieces of tree, and let her chew to her heart's content?

Jessica

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