Eating mud

[little_critter]

Just recently I’ve noticed my horse eating / licking mud in his field.
He gets the recommended daily amount of balancer so should be getting the vits & mins he needs. Could he be doing it for soothing effect? He seems absolutely fine in all other aspects.
If his stomach is uncomfortable is there anything I can add to his feed to help sooth it?
He’s fed Topspec balancer, Dengie healthy hoof and a handful of nuts. He gets ad lib hay.

 

[be positive]

Try adding some salt to his feed and giving a salt lick so he can lick that instead, one of mine was doing the same in the summer but stopped when he got salt.

 

[twiggy2]

If the salt does not work try a soil analysis or consider ulcers

 

[little_critter]

He has a salt lick but doesn't use it much (if at all). I'll try adding salt and see what that does.

 

[hopscotch bandit]

I had just unloaded my horse at a show ground and she pulled me over to a dirt patch and started licking and eating the dirt , no other symptoms apart from a little bit of pawing. I called the vets and said I'd transport her over to them (to save my call out) as she was a regular colicky horse with the same type of colic (gassy).

They said on no circumstances driver her to them (it was only about a mile away) and they would come to me at the show ground.
She had gassy/spasmodic colic again which was rectified with a bit of Buscopan. The vet said in the same way if we had indigestion we would have an Andrews antacid tablet or drink, the horses natural remedy to discomfort in the stomach is to lick or eat soil.

 

[Carrottom]

Adding salt to feed stopped one of mine.

 

[PurBee]

I think plenty of horses do this but not many people notice. Mine have created a little pond in the peaty area of one field, they love eating the black peat - plenty of carbon, humid acids, bacteria etc - good for bowel detox and repopulating flora. They also have a mud bank by their barn they paw at to get to the black soil and clay level, and they lick that. They’re manure is normal, they get vits and minerals balancer to hay, like yours, also they get a free choice vitmineral bucket, so I know it’s nothing nutritional lacking.
I read that decades ago racing stables would dig up huge blocks of soil and give it to the horses, who would consume it happily.
What type of soil do you have? Mine is varied and the horses never go for the indigestible loam, sandy light brown soils, always digestible dark peaty or clay...suggestive of using it for a bowel detox to soothe discomfort.

Discomfort from undetectable by smell or sight hay mould in the case of my horses. Find me hay stored in an open barn in the northern hemisphere free from lab detectable mould spores and I’ll give you my body weight in gold!
I love haylage but question where in nature do horses ever consume fermented food? Mine don’t do well on just haylage as forage.

 

[ester]

Frank has always eaten/licked mud in particular patches in any of our locations (clay and chalk/limestone) and when he had minerals balanced to forage.

I just let him get on with it, he never over did it.

Touching wood he's never had a colic episode in 14 years of ownership and definitely wouldn't be an ulcer candidate.

 

[little_critter]

Thanks everyone, I’m a natural worrier and while he seems fine in all other aspects I did wonder if he had some stomach discomfort which led me to wonder about ulcers....and that’s something I’d really rather not start poking around unless I really have to.
I’ll keep an eye on him, I’ve started adding salt to his feed.