Help! My 2yo is chewing our mare!

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pips2015

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Hi! Any help welcome - my 2 year old has started chewing our mare's mane and tail and it's coming out in clumps. They're both rescue horses. 2 yo has no health issues etc and is otherwise a happy spicy normal youngster! Have tried mustard in her mane and plaiting and to no effect! Short of splitting them (which I really don't want to do) we're running out of ideas. Any ideas/advice more than welcome...... Don't want a mare with no mane! Thanks☺️
 
You can buy proprietory products like Cribox or try a variety of DIY solutions. I have a tub of my own mixture of industrial Vaseline (petroleum jelly off Ebay) with copious quantities of paprika mixed in. The fun part is watching them get their first taste! It looks like the day after a night on the curry...but it works! :)
 
Generally they do this if they have insufficient fibre in their diet - try making hay available for much of the day. Stop Chew is disgusting but certainly works well. At one of the studs I used to work in they put a liniment cream through the tail, but I can't remember the name
 
Thanks both! Will definitely try both - hay hasn't stopped her as of yet. I'm just running out of ideas! I put mustard on the mare last night and well, it was just added seasoning! My 2yo is a rescue and I've only had her a fortnight so I wondered if it was a settling in thing?.. Although I would have thought she'd have done it earlier! Mare has adopted a bit of a maternal role with her and, despite normally being hot-headed, doesn't seem to mind!!!! Thanks for the suggestions! Will let you know the outcome!
 
Tnavas said:
Generally they do this if they have insufficient fibre in their diet - try making hay available for much of the day. Stop Chew is disgusting but certainly works well. At one of the studs I used to work in they put a liniment cream through the tail, but I can't remember the name
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I'm not sure if that is correct but I have one mare here and ALL her foals have been mane/tail chewers while none in the same age group will be until her current foal teaches them! We are on top of it now and as soon as her foal is seen with hair in it's mouth, the bucket comes out and tails and manes are annointed. So in this example at least, it is definitely a genetic trait and nothing to do with diet. I do not say that the chewing is genetic, only that the temperament that causes a foal to chew seems to be. Like nail biting in children?
 
Dry Rot said:
I'm not sure if that is correct but I have one mare here and ALL her foals have been mane/tail chewers while none in the same age group will be until her current foal teaches them! We are on top of it now and as soon as her foal is seen with hair in it's mouth, the bucket comes out and tails and manes are annointed. So in this example at least, it is definitely a genetic trait and nothing to do with diet. I do not say that the chewing is genetic, only that the temperament that causes a foal to chew seems to be. Like nail biting in children?
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Have you correlated the time of year, and the grass conditions st the time they start chewing - My mares and foals get additional hay as soon as the grass starts dying back through drought, general summer conditions etc. To date non of my foals have chewed tails but friends have during the dryest part of summer when grass growth declines. Feeding extra hay usually works.

Next foal, start feeding the hay before the foal starts eating tails.
 
Mine isn't a foal, she's 2 rising 3! We've got plenty of grass still, too - strip graze and haven't reached the back of the paddoxk yet. Have given more hay and to no avail! Thanks anyway :)
 
Tnavas said:
Have you correlated the time of year, and the grass conditions st the time they start chewing - My mares and foals get additional hay as soon as the grass starts dying back through drought, general summer conditions etc. To date non of my foals have chewed tails but friends have during the dryest part of summer when grass growth declines. Feeding extra hay usually works.

Next foal, start feeding the hay before the foal starts eating tails.
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Tried that and it didn't work. But it is just the foals from this mare. I do often feed hay when there is new grass as I agree about the importance of roughage.
 
pips2015 said:
Thanks both! Will definitely try both - hay hasn't stopped her as of yet. I'm just running out of ideas! I put mustard on the mare last night and well, it was just added seasoning! My 2yo is a rescue and I've only had her a fortnight so I wondered if it was a settling in thing?.. Although I would have thought she'd have done it earlier! Mare has adopted a bit of a maternal role with her and, despite normally being hot-headed, doesn't seem to mind!!!! Thanks for the suggestions! Will let you know the outcome!
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Is there a possibility she has ulcers?
 
She was fully vetted last week for everything - I am now thinking it's behavioural as she seems to have lessened the habit with the improvement of the weather.
 
I have the same issue my 3yo is having her mane chewed off by 20yo, it could be the cause of the grass not growing in this heatwave. I have a fly rug with a neck piece but that hasn't worked and I've tried braiding it but that made it worse, she looks like she has gollums hair on the lower part of her mane.

I've had a look to see what people have said and I heard it could be that the horse(S) have a lack of calcium intake and you can use loose mineral blocks instead of trace mineral blocks to help boost the calcium and stop the mane chewing. I don't know how true the calcium deficiency is so I wouldn't know if giving them loose blocks would help.

There are a few ideas of putting hot sauce on top of the braid, something called bitter apple spray which is meant for dogs to stop them licking their paws and wounds and someone has used a trick of dish soap on top of the braid but they said to make sure not to get it on the scalp as it can be itchy and it can make the hair look grease but you can wash it out so issue there really.

I hope you find something that helps I know how annoying it is to bring your horse in and to see rats tails trailing down the side of their head. Mine used to have a double mane that's how bad it is and I hope I fine something that works, I was thinking of using pure tea tree oil maybe that will ward off the mane chewer and possibly flies as well.

Good luck 🍀
 
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