If you don’t keep your horse as busy as a little
beaver, he might become a wood chuck.
How much wood would a wood chuck chuck, if your wood chuck was
actually chucking wood instead of eating it?
Who knows? I don’t. But I do know that Dobbin’s impersonation is
detrimental to the appearance of wood fences and stall doors. And
wood chewing--if you are a horse--is a costly vice which can be
quite dangerous. Splinters in the horse’s stomach and intestines can
cause colic. Internal infections and bleeding, and deaths linked to
wood chewing are not unusual.
Wood chewing is generally a habit the horse develops out of
nervousness or boredom. But it can also be a symptom of another
serious problem. It can mean the horse lacks certain nutrients in
his diet or his feed does not satisfy his natural desire for
roughage. The most common missing nutrient is salt. Be sure your
horse has free access to a salt block or is fed about a handful of
table salt each day.
If the feeding program is nutritionally satisfactory, then what
contributes to making our life easier may be a contributor to the
wood chewing activity.
Examples which can be related to wood chewing include feeding
pellets exclusively, using small box stalls, and not providing the
horse sufficient exercise.
From the owner’s viewpoint, pellets are a convenient form of
feed. But studies by Dr. G.F.W. Haenlein indicate that horses fed
pellets exclusively develop a strong urge to chew after their
appetites have been satisfied.
There is nothing wrong with the pellets, it is the lack of
roughage in its natural form which creates the desire to chew.
The only experiment I ever conducted proved to me that Dr.
Haenlein’s more extensive research was absolutely correct. Horses
which chewed wood when pellets were fed exclusively would stop wood
chewing when pellets were fed in combination with grass or hay. And
when a horse has grass or hay to chew, he usually spends more time
eating, therefore, he has less time to chew wood.
Keeping horses in box stalls certainly makes their care a lot
easier. And for some, the 12X12-foot pen is the only solution for a
lack of space.
But any small enclosure doesn’t make sense to the horse.
Being confined in a small place can have negative psychological
effects. Horses want to see all the activity going on. They don’t
like it when they can hear activity, but can’t see it. Being
confined, a horse cannot run and play at will, and he cannot graze
over great distances. So wood chewing becomes a way in which the
stalled horse demonstrates his displeasure with his cozy cottage.
If a stalled horse has no wood to chew, he may find a
substitute--the sucking of air, which soon makes him a cribber.
Get the horse out of the stall daily. Ride him, give him time in
a turn out pen, or get him on a walking machine. Solitary
confinement is not good for horses.
Nervousness caused by a lack of exercise often results in wood
chewing. The horse simply has excess energy. Eventually he finds
that wood chewing relieves some of the tension just as many humans
get rid of their nervous frustration by biting their fingernails.
The right amount of exercise can usually be equated to having the
horse performing a task at which he improves. What does that mean?
It means if you take a horse from his stall and start riding him, he
will improve his gait or gaits as he begins to experience sufficient
exercise. For example, if you are trotting, the horse lacking
sufficient exercise may want to rush, jump or playup. As the
exercise continues--with breaks to walk, canter and rest--the horse
will smooth out his trot, become receptive to shortening or
lengthening his stride and become lighter in hand and more supple.
About the same time you observe this improvement in the horse’s
performance, you can be pretty sure he has had at least a minimum
amount of exercise.
The correct amount of exercise cannot be measured by your watch.
Ten minutes of wild running on a lunge line is dangerous. Sufficient
and correct exercise on the lunge line will produce an improvement
in the horse’s performance, not sweat and heavy breathing.
Reducing tension, eliminating boredom and/or supplying the proper
roughage and nutrients are the only satisfactory solutions to the
wood chewing problem.
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