Getting your horsie children to take small bites when they eat

Jacqueline Mansfield (jaxson@leopard.com)
Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:31:46 -0700

My horse does the same thing, takes too big of a mouthful of food and ends
up letting some of it drop out of his mouth when he chews.

I also had an ancient old ranch horse (years ago) who used to do this so I
had the vet out to float his teeth. The vet couldn't find anything wrong
with my horse's teeth and told me he suspected the horse was just taking
too big a mouthful of food at a time and couldn't hold it all in when he
would chew. Too bad we can't teach our horses table manners!!!! = ) The
vet suggested I put large smooth rocks in my horse's feed bin so that he
would have to eat around the rocks and wouldn't be able to take such a big
mouthful at one time.

Another (better) idea is to pour your horse's feed into a very large feed
trough (some people feed out of old bath tubs, anything of that size would
be adequate) so that his/her food is spread thin over a larger surface area
and he/she isn't able to grab such a big mouthful at a time. The large
surface area of the feed trough also helps to catch the food that the horse
drops out - I guess horses don't care about backwash or prechewed food! = )
Heehee.

I don't know about finded undigested oats in the manure...

I hope this helps!!

Jacqueline Mansfield and Winza, no table-manners-boy
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Author owned by Winza, 14 year old Crabbet Arabian gelding

Carl Zwanzig: "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark
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