Solutions for wood chewing?

[missdixie]

My horse is chewing wood all over in her stall, and even the fence posts outside when she gets turnout in her large paddock. I have no idea why, I thought it was because she's bored but the chewing in turnout threw me off. I sprayed the crap out of everything with Chew Stop, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. Could this be a vitamin deficiency of some kind? My friend gave her mare Red Cell when she was chewing and she stopped. What have you guys tried?

[carla]

I've heard of rubbing a bar of soap all over the wood edges.. not sure how different that would be from Chew Stop, though.

Not sure if it could mean some sort of deficiency. Good thought, though.

[Cat]

I'm looking forward to hearing answers to this. My donkey does it like crazy - I swear I don't have a board that hasn't been chewed on - except the ones with hotwire, but that isn't possible in some areas like in the barn. We've tried the soap, but no luck, I think he enjoyed it!

[pandorasmom]

Soap.. I got a big bottle of pink soap (can't remember the name, but it's like Dawn and smells a real sweet awful smell almost :p lol) and rubbed it all of the wood Panda was chewing. She's been Cribbing collar free for probably 6 months now and in that time I've only soaped the stall one other time after the inital time and it wasn't because I saw her chewing but I wanted to be sure she knew there was soap still there. To this day I've not seen her chew any of the wood I put soap on.
I tried the Cribbing collar but she found our how to work around it, I put toys in for her, etc. and she gets bored so easily she would crib. I tried the soap and it worked perfect!

[RipSpark]

Did she used to chew? I was always told that it can come from a deficiency, or of course being bored....We had a horse boarded here that chewed like crazy. They put her on the supplement to stop chewing and it didn't do anything. It has a guarentee though so it wouldn't hurt to try that I guess. Does she have minerals(loose or block)? Two of our rescues ponies starting chewing as well, they ate all the little trees down, all the fence posts, and even started on the gate. It got so bad they ate through a few of the pieces of the wood. We are pretty sure that theres came from a deficiency of some kind. It seems like once they start they don't want to stop ;-) TBs are so bad about chewing, but mainly due to being bored. People have all these little tricks, like spreading different things on the wood, etc. They seem to work for some people and not for others.

[Lynn_70]

My gelding used to chew wood. I started putting out a free choice loose mineral bucket and it has stopped, even during bad bug season and now winter.
I use Manna Pro 12-12-12 mix. It's about $30 for 50#. That lasts my 4 horses about 5-6 months.

LC

[missdixie]

She never used to chew- she has a pink salt/mineral block in her stall, but I'm wondering if I should try adding something else....

[Lynn_70]

I had a mineral block out too but it just wasn't enough. The 12-12-12 also has more stuff in it than a reg block. They do use the loose mineral alot more than the blocks too. They get a lot more bang for their buck so to speak.
It is a cheap option to try for a couple months vs. repairing all the wood. I had tried chew stop also with very little success. I have also heard, paint wood with used motor oil, yuck, but supposedly it works.
LC

[pandorasmom]

I have put loose minerals in for Panda and she wouldn't touch them. I also bought her a hard mineral block and she ate/licked about a 1/4 of it and left the rest and hasn't touched anymore.

[RipSpark]

Usually if the horse stops licking the block or wanting the minerals it is because they have enough in their diet. I suppose some just don't like it though... Some also get bored with licking the block and it can bother their tounge.

Yeah replacing all the wood gets quite expensive ;-) At our school barn the horses have hay 24/7 this keeps them from getting bored and also keeps something in their stomachs. That isn't very practical for most people though. Like my horses a. would colic on that, b. would become little pigs, and c. I would go broke lol ;-)

Wood chewing is just a pain in the butt really. You can't keep going around painting everything with something to make them stop chewing. Half the time the horses keep on at it. A lot of that stuff comes off after is rains too. You could have the vet take some blood and check to see the horses levels of everything.

[luvs2ride1979]

If this is a new habit, I'd look at her feed. A new batch of hay could be deficient in something. The grain you buy could have altered their formula some without making any feed tag changes.

If you're not feeding a fortified grain/pellet, or you're feeding below the bag recommendations, I would definitely consider adding something to her diet. SmartPak has a large selection of Multivitamins/Miners. I've had good luck with their SmartVite Maintenance Grass. I just ordered GrandVite to try that out (stateline has it on sale). Here's a comparison chart of the multivitamins that SmartPak carries:
http://www.smartpakequine.com/charts/multivitaminssuppcompare.html
I'd recommend something high in B-Vitamins.

[missdixie]

Hey there's an idea. I switched her back from alfalfa to grass hay this past month, because she seemed to enjoy the grass more, but maybe it's lacking something. It's high quality stuff but who knows. She also gets about a quart of Strategy per day. I've got almost a full bucket of Millennium Gold multivitamins, maybe I will start her back on it and see if it helps!

[PatriotsDreamer]

2 words (sp)ciyan pepper!!!!

[zoel_222]

She's probably just bored. That usually seems to be the problem. When I keep my girls real busy they don't chew on anything.

I never had any luck with Chew Stop either. I take chili powder and cayenne(grrr I can't spell that one either) pepper and mix it with paint and paint everywhere my horses like to chew. I still remember the first time Chica went to take a bite out of the wall after I painted it. She stuck her tongue out and her eyes bulged out of her head and she bolted straight for the trough and drank like 10 gallons of water. Hehe poor girl. :rolleyes: You do have to reapply the stuff every 4 or 6 weeks though.

[luvs2ride1979]

Hey there's an idea. I switched her back from alfalfa to grass hay this past month, because she seemed to enjoy the grass more, but maybe it's lacking something. It's high quality stuff but who knows. She also gets about a quart of Strategy per day. I've got almost a full bucket of Millennium Gold multivitamins, maybe I will start her back on it and see if it helps!

Yup, that's probably it! You might consider adding some alfalfa pellets to her strategy and throw those vitamins in there too. Give it about a week to see if it makes any difference.

1 2qt scoop of alfalfa pellets weighs about 2-2.5 lbs, so start with 0.5 to 1 scoop a day. If she gains weight, cut back to 0.5 scoop or cut back the strategy.

The qt of strategy really isn't providing enough "nutrition" to be worth feeding. You need to feed 4-7 lbs for all the vitamins a pleasure horse needs. Personally, I would stop feeding it altogether (slowly cut back until it's gone) and replace it with Alfalfa pellets and a vitamin supplement.

[JennyandJosey]

I can tell you what my BO does. He puts out round bales and fills them with dried up corn stalks/husks. He says they chew on that instead of the wood. I can't say how well it works or even if it's a good idea, but that's what he does.

[westmanfarrier]

Even with a paddock, it still isn't turnout with a herd. They develop bad habits, and once they figure them out, they stick. Detergent and habaneros is what my clients like as a deterrent.

My sisters horse developed this habit, and it continued even out to pasture, he would find the corner posts and chew on them. We put Crib Halt on the posts, and found him licking it :(. Hot peppers did the trick.

[miatapony]

Ok i use this stuff calle Bitter Apple it worked great for runner when he had wood to chew on .. now it is cinder block .. he like to try to eat that i havent coated that yet but it is next on the list with bitter apple . you can get it from all diffrent kinds of store also . petsmart petco and some feed stores have it also. good luck

[Gliderider]

I had a horse that was bad about chewing wood and I had an old timer tell me to put I think it was 1/4 cup or maybe 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar on his grain once a day and it did work. He stopped his wood chewing after about 2 wks of getting the apple cider vinegar. I also have painted with old used motor oil and it helps. I do that now in the winter when the horses are stalled more and they don't chew.

[shewasmyshadow]

I had a wood chewer too! It started out of the blue. She was on a mineral/salt lick and was going through it like candy. She chewed only at night or when we weren't around. She also licked the wood. LICK, LICK, LICK. She did do that when I was watching her.

Here's a video of her poor stall:

100_1987.flv - Video - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

As you can see I tried EVERYTHING I painted cayenne (sp?) pepper on the edges, rubber soap on it, sprayed Chew Stop, and covered the edges with metal protectors. Nothing worked!

So, then I started looking at that supplement the Quitt stuff. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's like guaranteed to make them stop. Anyways, I read the label and I was like this is a vitamin/mineral supplement. So, I went out and got a daily vit/mineral supplement and fed that with the grass hay rationer (the stuff that gives them all the important stuff they would get in grain without the fat/calories). Anyways, within about 1-2 weeks the chewing/licking completely stopped.

[westmanfarrier]

Horses are not blessed with a rough tongue like cows, so they have to work a lot harder at those blocks.

I also have to wonder if licking a block could be the same boredom that drives them to lick or chew other things.

[missdixie]

Wow, lots of great advice, and interesting food for thought WF!

[offgridgirl]

Ivory soap worked for me. I sanded the rough edges of the board and rubbed a bar in all the creavies! Works great!!