Horses Eating Straw Bed..

tonitot

tonitot

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I have just changed Ethel's bedding from shavings to straw to try and help my money issue a bit. I didn't think she'd eat it as she's quite fussy and normally wont eat anything if she doesn't know what it is, but as soon as she went in she dived into the bank and was scoffing her face! I put her hay in and she concentrated on eating that, so I was wondering if they get over the novelty of having a new straw bed or if she's likely to keep eating it. I don't particuarly want her eating it as I know it can give them colic, but have heard there's a type of straw they can eat, which one is it? Also, what can I do to the bed to deter her from eating it, besides giving her a mountain of hay? :)
 
Some people suggest spraying the bed with dettol or something similar to put them off eating it.

IME they will only gorge on it if they are left hungry for a long while. We have some total fat pigs on straw and they nibble on the fresh straw but have never seen a case of colic in any of them.

Just make sure she has plenty of hay :)
 
When ours were on straw, we used a really weak solution of Jeys Fluid and drizzled it lightly on the bed from a watering can. Worked for ours! Good luck!
 
I had one of mine on straw at the the beginning of last year sprayed it regularly with disinfectant but he still kept eating it even with ad lib hay. He was leaving his hay to eat the straw and ended up with colic had to be tubed twice so no more straw beds for him, turned out to be a very expensive bed.
 
Unless she's eating it in large quantities I wouldn't worry. I, along with plenty of others, feed a bit of straw intentionally to fatties to help keep the weight off.
 
a tip that was given to me to stop my horses eating their straw beds was to get a weed sprayer (5 litre) and fill it with water and add a few caps (i use about 1/2 a cups worth) of dettol original, spray all over the beds after adding fresh straw (not all of it tho, 5 litres did lasted 1-2 weeks on 17 boxes) the bitter taste acts like cribox and is so much cheaper. i was very sceptical to do this but was assured it was safe so i tried it on a couple of them. worked a treat although i will admit a couple still munched away but then again ive had horses in the past that liked cribox, and after 2 years i have had no medical reproductions.
 
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