Why does my dog eat horse poo?

sidesaddlegirl

sidesaddlegirl

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My 3 month Alsatian/Border Collie, Pepper, has started coming with my to the stables but she seems to have acquired a taste for the horse poo! I was getting the ponios ready to turn out this morning when one pooed and Pepper jumped in and started chomping down on it (yuck!). She's up to date on her vaccinations, I give her dog meat and dry food three times a day (so she's not starving) so why does she insist on eating horse poo?
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Her belly doesn't seem upset and she's going to the toilet normal. Has this happened to anyone else?
 
My mum's whippet does this. Although my dog doesn't. Doesn't seem to do him any harm. He is quite a help when I'm skipping out!
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My choc lab has constantly got his head in the wheelbarrow sifting out all the poo to eat...it totally baffles me...they say that labradors are greedy, but come on.....!!!!
 
My dogs eat horse poo and it upsets their stomachs so I don't take them to the yard any more.

Just a word of warning, moxidectin based wormers are toxic to Border Collies. I don't know about cross breeds, but I would be very careful not to take your dog on the yard at worming time.
 
yep, both my dogs do it! I have my horses at home and they have even been known to fetch it into the house- disgusting little creatures
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It never seems to upset their stomachs although if they eat any hoof after the farrier has been that makes them both sick.

The only time I would worry, with regards to poo eating is, as the other post above mentions, when its worming time as I'm sure I've read that certain wormers can be fatal to dogs.
 
It is thought that dogs in the wild will eat herbivore stools as part of their diet; a dog has a very short gut to process carrion without suffering food poisoning and therefore cannot breakdown plant cellulose to get at the nutrients, vitamins and minerals. This process takes a long time and a lengthy chewing and fermentation process. Dogs get some of the nutrients from eating the content of stomach and intestines of prey items, but may still be lacking.

Horses are poor processors of food as they have a relatively simple fermentation digestive system that processes food in one hit, unlike ruminants who regurgitate and with 4 parts to their stomachs get even more out of their meal, what comes out of them is mostly waste. Therefore in the horse dung, plant cellulose has been broken down but there are still nutrients to be had by the pooch, disgusting though it might seem to us!!

As a raw feeder mine will get a weekly veg feed but in order for them to get anything out of it I have to liquidise it to simulate it having beed chewed and partially digested. On this diet they rarely choose to eat horse dung but I do not discorage it if they do.

I do however draw the line at cat poo!!!!
 
count yourself lucky, our old fella used to eat it and then rub his neck and head in it... he'd love nothing more than a good roll on the stuff.

car would stink on the way home from the woods!
 
It has been suggested that in b*tches its a maternal thing (Eating poo) because up to 3 weeks old they clean up after their puppies. Plus I recon it must taste nice to them
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yoghourt for dogs....
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It's full of all the neat little intestinal bacteria they can't get anywhere else... and also gives them herbage that they'd otherwise get from eating the guts of their prey.

so it's good for them - my young lurcher had haemorrhagic diarrhoea and we spent a fortune trying to sort it out - no luck at all until she scoffed a heap of horse [****] and was cured within a day...

E
 
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