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Horse eating his own manure
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a.k.a.petpalace2@...
This evening when I went out in paddock to pick up horse manure like I do every evening, I found Apollo eating his own manure. Not just licking but taking mouthfuls. When I picked up that pile, he just moved on over to another one and proceeding to eat more mouthfuls. I've had horses for decades and never have seen this. Why would a horse that's on a very good diet want to eat his own manure? Could it be he needs more to eat? He's on a dry lot and gets total of 24 pounds of roughage consisting of hay & OD timothy balance cubes, divided into 4 equal feedings/day including flax, vitamin E and mineral supplements. I'd currently rate him as 5 for BCS. His cresty neck and tail head fat pads are both much smaller and softer than previously although still noticeable. Last calculated BW was 1458 lbs on 6/21/22, I'm going to increase his roughage up to 28 lbs which will be 2% of 1400 lbs as ideal weight. He started out at 1605 lbs in October 2021. Any comments or suggestions?
-- Karen B. Wisconsin 2022 Apollo Case History: https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Karen%20and%20Apollo Photo album: https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=275817 |
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Hi Karen
Here are some archived messages for possible issues with eating manure https://ecir.groups.io/g/main/message/149285 https://ecir.groups.io/g/main/message/124830 https://ecir.groups.io/g/main/message/107189 -- Nancy C in NH ECIR Moderator 2003 ECIR Group Inc. President/Treasurer 2021-2022 |
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Starshine Ranch
Hi Karen, I wonder if free feeding him would help so he didn't go looking for something else to eat.
I find it to be a wonderful way to feed and they adjust pretty quickly. -- Linda in Grass Valley, CA 2020 Midnight and Ostara https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Linda%20Midnight%20OStara |
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EMS horses cannot be free fed in most cases. They will overeat. Double or triple netted hay nets is the way to go, with weighed amounts of hay.
-- Eleanor in PA www.drkellon.com |
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Starshine Ranch
Hmmmm. Mine have been free feeding from 1" nets for 5 years now and their weight has stayed steady... Midnight is a bit overweight but Stara is perfect. I've mentioned before that I had to start free feeding Midnight because she is terrible prone to a gas colic so not much of a choice.
Linda in Grass Valley, CA 2020 Midnight and Ostara https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Linda%20Midnight%20OStara |
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I havea horse that eats his poop when I give him uckele Gut.
-- Lori, Abel, Bodie & Dusty 2016 Redding, CA https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Lori%20and%20Able%20-%20Bodie%20-%20Dusty https://ecir.groups.io/g/ |
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