As an oral behavior, chewing or cribbing may be related to horses receiving high grain, low forage diets. Wood chewing may also be reduced by changing the horse’s housing and diet so it gets more forage and more time out of the stall. The pony may just be bored. To add more fiber to the diet feed more hay. It is recommended that the diet contain no less than 1% of body weight of a roughage source (e.g. hay, pasture, etc.). For example, an 1100 pound horse requires at least 11 pounds of roughage (1100 x 0.01 = 11). It is also important not to overfeed grain to horses because this can also result in digestive upset (i.e. colic or wood chewing). With your pony you may want to feed an all hay diet (2% of his body weight).
You are very lucky that you noticed the problem. Your vet wants you to provide enough water to help clean out the horse's system. Follow your vets directions and "Keep them fenced out of the trees."
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I have a horse and a pony that have been chewing the bark from trees. I have cut or blocked off their access to these trees. They are showing no signs of loss of energy and they both are eating and drinking properly. Is this a vitamin in their systems that they both are lacking?? They have plenty of hay, grain, and mineral salt. Is this a lacking of fiber in their diet?? What is a source of more fiber that I can feed them that will help?? They just started chewing this winter. My horse has been in this pasture for one year before and never chewed bark before. We just purchased the pony this fall and it is the first winter for her in this pasture.
Last Updated: January 06, 2009
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