Bored horses eating tree bark

[CanterQueen]

My horses are killing my trees! We've put up chicken wire on all of the trees, but they manage to get at the base and above the wire (we can go higher, but I doubt we can get it around the large bases). I've tried McNasty and that works for a little while -- but I have to keep applying it and there are a lot of trees!

What can I put out there to cure the boredom? They get plenty of hay, but it's not in front of them 24/7 (they're fat and sassy as it is). There's a young gelding and a young mini-donkey in the group -- both run around and play a lot, but the three adult geldings don't seem to be very entertained by their shanangans.

What can I do to keep the big boys un-bored? We've hung a Jolly Ball from one of the trees, but that's about if for entertainment.

Help!!!

[JB]

It doesn't even have to be boredom.

Especially coming soon, sap starts flowing and they love that in some trees.

And, sometimes they just like the bark. You could try cutting down one of the dead ones and putting sections of the trunk farther away in the pasture and see if they find that's easier to chew on than the standing trees.

Fencing off the trees is about your only other option.

[CanterQueen]

Fencing off the trees is about your only other option.

I can't do this -- way too many trees and they are spread out all over the pasture. :no:

[buck22]

I went through this with my horse so I'll share my story. He was boarded on 2 wooded acres with a small peaceful herd, lived out 24/7 and had all the lush soft 2nd cutting grass hay he could eat.

One day he started eating tree bark, which turned into eating anything wood at all, fences, barn, jumps, everything. And ingested it.

I tried everything from toys to sprays to supplementing his diet with minerals, working him hard 3-4x per week, nothing worked.

In the end, it turned out he was IR, despite being in good weight and not overly fat or cresty. Though he had no grain in his diet, hay stretcher and beet pulp at the time, the unrinsed beet pulp and the super rich beautiful second cutting hay was still too much for him. He was balancing his gut with roughage. (in hindsight, his starting chewing wood coincided with us beginning to feed that years hay).

I got rid of the excess sugars, and he's never chewed again, and he lives out 24/7 in wooded paddocks. Changing his diet was like flipping a lightswitch, it happened that fast.


If its not diet related, your only options are to fence off the trees, give them something else to chew on like pruning piles from apple or peach orchards, the lick-it toys work pretty good actually (backfired in my case, but the whole herd really enjoyed them)..... or, muzzles.

I was contemplating the fleece lined cribbing muzzle for my own horse when I discovered the diet thing.

my old BO, and friend, has removed every 'termite' from her property (we were asked to leave too). In her experience, once the bark is stripped from the tree completely around, the tree dies soon after.

[deltawave]

Give them some old logs to chew on, and go higher with the chicken wire. Otherwise you'll have a lot of dead trees.

[Patty Stiller]

My two numb skulls just got booted (yesterday) from the friends field they have been in because in one day they decided to strip the bark totally off about 12 young elm trees. Yes they may need something that is in the bark, who knows what ... but then again they may just have found it interesting to do out of boredom....:mad:

[Lord Helpus]

My experience is that horses that eat wood need more roughage. Period.

Perhaps your lovely second cutting hay is too soft and too lovely. Try getting some ugly, stemmy hay and feeding it for a while.

When I lived in Ky, my horses began eating wood in the spring when the gorgeous Ky grass was coming in. The horses grazed almost 24/7 and did not want hay anymore; I could not imagine that they were short of roughage, but they were. My vet explained that spring grass has an incredibly high % of water and is very low on roughage. To solve this problem, I had to bring them in for 8 hours a day and feed them ugly looking hay.

No more wood eating.

Try to change the kind of hay you are feeding -- get the stemmy ugly stuff and see if it helps.

Other wise, you can wrap your trees, add a muzzle or let them eat the trees. But that will not take care of their need for forage.

[Hilltopfarmva]

Well, we keep hay out 24/7 and we have a lot of horses. Plus the ones that come in get the good baled hay. They EAT the trees and eat the fence posts. They have salt out all the time and i swear it is freaking boredoom. They have a very low molasses feed and it more fiber. It is sooooo frustrating. I know exactly how you are feeling.

[Steif]

I'm in the same boat too. They were getting lovely soft second cutting and just recently started on the trees again. Bought two types of hay, one was the first cutting of the "filet mignon" and they wouldn't touch it, the second was hay that literally looks like straw and they love it. My hay guy just scratched his head and said maybe they want more roughage and he's right. I also have orchard grass round bales that look horrible and they'll eat that.

[cssutton]

Oat hay has a lot of roughage and horses will eat it like crazy because of the oats.

You must start them on it gradually if they have not been on it as they can make hogs of themselves and get impaction.

You don't say how many trees you have.

Years ago, I had a pasture now no longer in use that had a huge oak tree in it. To stop the horses from chewing it, I built a small wood fence around it. They would chew on the fence which was easily replaceable.

They also chewed on the many less desirable trees.

You can build the fence in the traditional manner fences are built, or you can take 10 or 12 ft boards and stand them on end, making vertical panels that surround the tree. This method takes more lumber but eliminates the need to dig post holes in an area full of very uncooperative roots.

CSSJR

[tartan]

I have two that would stand on their back legs with their front hooves on the sugar maple trees to chew in the winter:eek: I am dead serious!

24/7 access to a round bale, 24/7 turnout, getting a small ration of oats, totally healthy, etc.

Many damaged trees later, we fenced the sugar maples off, but they still chew the fence posts. The trees were black where the wood was chewed for a while, but now several years later they have made a full recovery.

I have tried sprays, mesh coverings, everything, and the only thing I have found to work is hot wire.

Good luck!

[buck22]

Perhaps your lovely second cutting hay is too soft and too lovely. Try getting some ugly, stemmy hay and feeding it for a while.
I'm the one with the lovely soft second cutting, not the op, but your post describes what worked for my own horse. in the end it was him craving roughage.


op, you mentioned the horses have lots of hay, but not 24/7.... perhaps a nibble net would serve you well!

and the nose-it ball keeps my horses entertained now. my horses are fatty-cakes too, so I fill the nose-its with hay pellets and roasted peanuts in the shell.


also on the roughage front, beet pulp may help.

[okggo]

Yup. Same boat. Ours are IN LOVE with the Cedars. We had a couple fall down in the blizzard(s) and that has totally set them off - I've been throwing snowballs at the beavers all morning. We put up plastic chicken wire around the live trees and they rip it right off. Just soaked in Texas Pete but our luck they'll like the new seasoning. We can't do much more at the moment because we are still fairly snowed in.

Ours have 24/7 round bale, plus I throw them higher quality hay in the run-in - they have salt blocks, mineral blocks and get TC feeds. They have always been partial to the cedars, we put the wire around them and haven't had a huge problem - but now that the snow is so bad and the trees are partially fallen, they literally stand there all day and gnaw. Grr.

[pines4equines]

Our problem is a Willow tree which is nature's aspirin. This lame horse loves that tree who can't have bute (and no BL solution either).

I have fenced it off but really to not much avail. But whenever any branches, twigs, leaves fall off this tree, I do make sure the horses have access to those. It does stop the nibbling for a wee bit.

[Arcadien]

Where I'm boarding now, the lovely pasture trees are wrapped in ugly orange snow fence. I've been meaning to ask the owner if it has proven successful in preventing chewing, and also if she hasn't had any horses try chewing the plastic, but maybe someone here has tried snow fence?

If it has worked for her I was going to try it on some of my lovelier older oaks. I've had the weird experience in that they choose one or two trees and devour all the bark on those, leaving many other trees of the same kind perfectly untouched. Its quite a mystery to me how they choose!

Though I can and do fence them out of my wooded paddock most of the time, I have limited grazing so I like to give them access to it once in awhile. I'm going to try my best to protect the few last lovely old oaks in there!