Horse eating poo....

Bertolie

Bertolie

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My mare is currently on box rest with laminitis. She is overweight and is on a strict diet of 1.5% bodyweight of soaked hay with two small feeds a day for her supplements. Due to my working hours she gets her hay three times a day....first thing in morning when all horses get a haynet, two further small nets put in around 10am for daytime, and then two further small nets put in at 6pm to last her the night.

Her nets are usually devoured within an hour or so of feeding and it is not possible to spread her nets out any more during the day. She has now started eating her poo, partly I assume due to hunger, partly boredom.

I have spoken to vet and he has advised that whilst unpleasant it will not do her any harm. She is getting a pre and probiotic and a vitamin and mineral supplement and has free access to a salt and mineral lick.

My question is can eating poo cause her to gain/not lose weight? She has been on a strict diet for eight weeks and whilst she appeared to drop weight at the beginning she seems to have 'stuck' - which coincides with the poo eating. I am not talking about nibbling her poo either, but probably 90% of her droppings leaving only small bits littering her shavings bed!

Any experiences of poop eating horses would be appreciated.
 
Could you give her a treat ball with a small handful of high fibre cubes? Thunderbrooks do some low sugar and starch ones. This might occupy her a bit.
Has she got a sa!t lick. Also anything else to play with? A football or traffic cone etc.
Anything to help boredom.
Could you give her a small hole net or double net her hay to make it last longer.
 
Just waiting for delivery of some suitable treats to go in her treat ball. She has a Himalayan salt like and a mineral salt lick. We tried a horse ball for her to throw around but it was ignored.....unless it involves food she is not interested! I also sourced some willow branches to hang in her stable for her to nibble on. She loved them but they were gone in 5 mins, same for wilted nettles!

Haynets are Shires greedy feeder ones with 1" holes and if i double net them she refuses to eat and just eats more poo!
 
I know its difficult. I had a pony on box rest for months with lami.
Mine loves his treat ball.
What about those hay block thing's? Would they help?
Also topspec zero chaff is very low cal. Would some of that help occupy her.
Garlic used to be used in dogs that ate poo but I'm not sure if thats recommended any more
 
When I had one on a similar regime I pulled loads of nettles and stuffed them into nets, 2 a day at least, they lasted ages but also took ages to pull up and killed my back but as he loved them it was worth it, I also gave a net of straw to last the night, the problem with things like hay blocks and treat balls is the extra calories they get that you can easily not take into account and they stop losing the weight so you need to cut back on the forage which they need.
I did give him a soup now and again, a very wet token feed that was more water than anything else, he tended to slurp it a bit then go back to it now and again so it lasted hours but you need somewhere secure to put it otherwise they kick it over, putting some soaked hay into double or triple nets to really make getting it tough works for some but it needs to just be part of the ration in case they get really frustrated.

The other thing that worked for a friend was to hang the net in the centre of the box so it was not against a wall, that made a huge difference to how fast they eat but it needs to be low enough so they are not stretching too high.
 
Last edited:
be positive said:
When I had one on a similar regime I pulled loads of nettles and stuffed them into nets, 2 a day at least, they lasted ages but also took ages to pull up and killed my back but as he loved them it was worth it, I also gave a net of straw to last the night, the problem with things like hay blocks and treat balls is the extra calories they get that you can easily not take into account and they stop losing the weight so you need to cut back on the forage which they need.
I did give him a soup now and again, a very wet token feed that was more water than anything else, he tended to slurp it a bit then go back to it now and again so it lasted hours but you need somewhere secure to put it otherwise they kick it over, putting some soaked hay into double or triple nets to really make getting it tough works for some but it needs to just be part of the ration in case they get really frustrated.

The other thing that worked for a friend was to hang the net in the centre of the box so it was not against a wall, that made a huge difference to how fast they eat but it needs to be low enough so they are not stretching too high.
Click to expand...

The net of nettles lasted about 5 mins! The trouble is whatever i give her she wolfs down as she is (or thinks she is) hungry! I have a feed company coming out to weigh her next week so will see if all my efforts are working. Im just concerned the consumption of poo is adding more calories to her diet, though nobody seems to be able to tell me if that is the case or not!
 
Our vet advised to hang a haynet in the middle of the stable so it swings and takes longer to eat. The blocks are just more calories so be careful feeding them. Are you allowed to walk her? if so try to give her a leg stretch 3 times a day to help with boredom.
 
I would imagine that shes getting some calories from the poo.

It is hard as most things are going to be extra calories hopefully the feed company will help.
Ive heard celery has little or no calories. Mine didnt like it.
Think equilibrium make low lami friendly treats
 
I got weight off mine, while giving her access to ad-lib forage, by giving her huge trugs of plain oat straw chaff (not TopChop Zero, it's too tasty). There are very few calories in plain straw, so you shouldn't need to adjust the hay ration by much. I spread out the hay feeds similarly to you and I knew if she truly was hungry when she ate the chaff. I didn't use haynets, we had a haybar but she got so that she could self-regulate properly by never being left with nothing to eat.
 
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