Boredom busters for lami mare

[Vermeer]

The old girl is still in lami camp (aka pen in corner of the field) ... She is bored stiff. She's not really an interactive type so wondering if she would even bother with a treat ball... But wondering about logs, plants (that are obviously laminitis safe) or just about anything really...! Doesn't have to be food orientated, just anything that will add some interest.

Any suggestions please?

 

[Barton Bounty]

Is she allowed apples or carrots or other veg? You could put them in a bucket of water and she could bob for them

 

[Melandmary]

Do you have a hay ball? Or if unshod you can use a small holed net….I am collecting sticky willies, nettles, cowslips and stuffing their hay ball with them. For my ems pony who gets little turn out on grass and lives on a dry lot most of her time, she enjoys this. Also a treat ball with thunderbrooks haycobs in as they are suitable. I saw a great idea for a boxed herb planter today that I am going to recreate on an enrichment site. you could also use a combination of hay blocks, haylage , hay and chaffs so that her feed allowance is more varied and she has to work at getting it.

 

[stangs]

You'll probably have to rotate enrichment often to stop her losing interest, and some of these would need human supervision, but:
- Providing a scent board (or just towels dipped in novel smells)
- Providing different herbal teas (from horse-safe herbs, not human teas with hibiscus) in different buckets for her to sniff or try
- Tying a broom head to the fence so she can scratch herself against it
- Providing hay balls on the ground and adding some safe branches/weeds, or tying them up in different locations/heights, so she has to work for it a bit more
- Providing a weed forage net separate to her hay
- Adding novel objects to the environment (a pole for her to navigate around, or toys like a rubber feed bowl or jolly ball)

Just be careful that you're only feeding herbs and minimally sweet vegetables/wild fruit, and not any fruit. A laminitic may benefit herbs such as the ones listed here (take that link with a pinch of salt though). I've read that nettles are quite high in iron, but I haven't been able to find the numbers for them. You can get information on nutritional values for fruits, veg and wild fruit here though, if it's of any help.

 

[Vermeer]

Thanks all