Ok, gross but real - horse eating other horses's poop

[DSDECKERT]

anyone ever have an issue with this? My 14 year old gelding, Jochi, is eating my 6 year old's poop. I just had Darius floated, but he still seems to be leaving quite a bit of grain, and I'm sure that's what Jochi is after, because he's an easy keeper and HE thinks he's starving. We have grass, and he gets hay 2 x a day.

So gross, how do I stop him?

[paintedhorizon]

This is called coprophagy. Mostly foals do this but in adult horses it is possibly mineral deficiency.

If he has a balanced ration and free access to trace mineral salt, I wouldn't worry about it as long as he is on a good deworming program and he is not showing other signs of deficiency, weight loss, poor hair coat, lack of energy ect.....

[DSDECKERT]

Yah - he's fat if anything! Gets Purina weight control grain, has a salt block in his stall as well as in the pasture, gets electrolytes in summer.....definitely not lacking anything, i think he's just a pig! (and gross)

Thanks for the reminder, I need to hit them with wormer this week!

[motorgypsy]

Well since horse poop is just recycled grass and grain it's not nearly as bad a dogs eating cat poop and very very decayed carrion. Chinook ate her own once which we thought was kind of weird but it was a one time thing. I've actually thought that if a horse is going to go in for colic surgery the owner should save some of the horse's manure to feed back once they are healed up and healthy since it is their identity.