Eating Mud

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mickey

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My horse has never done this before, until the last couple of days. The minute he gets turned out in the morning he nuzzles the soil and licks it, making a small hole.
He was on benevit all last month (not because of this issue, just because I got a good one off deal on it). I stopped the benevit about a week ago when it run out.
Now I know that he is eating the mud because of some mineral deficiency. Does anyone know what he is deficient in?
I bought a large box of mineral/vitamin lick today so I am hoping that this will help resolve the issue......don't really want to add more powders to his feed. Not planning on buying benevit again really. Am I doing enough?
Also, he has always (for years) had this habit of licking metalwork (outside of stables for instance), after being given a treat. He will also stand and lick my hand for ten minutes after a treat! Any ideas about this one?
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See how he gets on with the lick. I would say it was a mineral thing. My old donkey used to lick FB for hours after they had both had an orange to eat
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Only oranges though, I assue they made his tongue tingle or something so he was trying to 'scratch' it on FB!
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Mine did that after going onto box rest and getting led out in hand for grass. we got him one of the himalayan salt licks and it sorted it out. he was obsessed with it for about a week then started to leave it and stopped eating the mud so it reduced the craving. if it is some sort of salt thing then you will have salt on your hands. he also licks metal but i reckon hes just crackers or because its cooler.
 
I know a horse he licks galvanised gates, I wonder if he needs zinc?

My horse licks mud occasionally, but refuses mineral licks. Its a particular mud he likes near the banks of a stream in his field.
 
Teddy licks all sorts of things, im fairly sure he is lacking in some mins but he is obviously finding ways to replace these or trying to so im leaving him to it currently.

he always licks the metal on his stable door, sometimes licks mud or eats it, licks wood, and most other metal things. but will refuse salt or mineral licks, so im leaving him to it atm
 
Our mare did this last year - feed company said to increase the fibre (hay rather than grass at this time of year) in her diet and give her a salt lick in the field and the stable. She stopped licking the mud within about 3 days and hasn't done it since. Worth a try?
 
The symptoms of your horse are just like two of mine...they started doing it about 2 months ago and i'd never seen them do it before. I bought a big standard field lick and left them a bale of hay in the hay rack for them....they seem to be doing it less but one horse does it more than the others. Having read this I think i'll try a good old salt lick.
 
My horse once ravenously ate soil at a show when he developed colic. He was tearing it out of the ground like he was eating a lovely piece of grass or something. It was very disturbing at the time, as I had never seen a horse trying to cram anything down its throat so desperately. The vet said that in the wild the horse would eat soil to try to alleviate the pain from the colic and settle his stomach. Very interesting. I do realise this is different from licking the soil so don't worry, like previous posters said, its probably a mineral deficiency. My horse didn't even have colic particularly bad that day, just another routine gassy colic like always. x
 
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