by Marcia King
Does your horse have unexplained, occasional cravings for woody snacks? Are gourmet items such as Fence Board Flambe, Stall Door Surprise, and Tree Trunk Tantalizers on his list of menu favourites? If so, it could be the weather!
“When it’s cold, and if people don’t feed enough hay, then horses will definitely chew on wood if they don’t have enough roughage,” says Wayne Loch, PhD (animal science) and associate professor of Animal Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
“Horses depend upon fermentation from the digestion of roughages to keep them warm in the winter. If they’re short on roughage and it’s cold, they may chew on wood.
“In January and February when the weather is its coldest, we get a lot of calls about horses chewing on trees.
“The fact that it’s colder, the horse has a little higher requirement for energy to maintain body heat, so they go to chewing on wood that’s been softened up and gives them a source of fibre.”
The solution? More hay. “We suggest owners provide all the hay they can and see if that doesn’t eliminate the chewing,” says Gary Heusner, PhD, extension service equine scientist at the University of Georgia.
“We’ve also found that some hays are low in potassium. In that case, we recommend more potassium in the diet to see if that alleviates the wood chewing.
“Most of the time, once it starts warming up and the grasses get a little more growth and fibre content to them, and the wood isn’t as soft from the wetness, these horses stop chewing.”
