Re: Horses eating mud

[jtaylor@pyramid.net]

LINDA SWARTZ wrote:
> 
> When I was teaching Lamaze classes, I had to do research into why
> pregnant women wanted to eat dirt, clay or starch...  the cravings
> were triggered by mineral deficiencies and / or allergies which tend
> to trigger odd taste cravings.
> 
> I'm sorry but where I live, we do everything we can to reduce dirt
> ingestion (sand residue, colic)...  I have a chronic selenium
> deficient 29 yr. old quarter, gelding, who runs like a banshee  to my
> potted plants when he is loose in the yard.  He then moves cypress
> mulch, wood chips, or rocks to devour the potting soil. He very rarely
> if ever bothers with our pasture soil or puddles on trails.
> 
> He gets minerals, he gets well water that has sulfur content; he gets
> Seminole Senior, he gets alfalfa and Bermuda bats, he's on excellent
> pasture that is fertilized twice a year.  He get small amounts of
> veggies or watermelon or cantaloupe in the summers.  But he eats dirt.
>  I have narrowed some respiratory allergies to heavy oak and pine
> pollen seasons in him...but that doesn't explain the dirt except that
> the potting soil is fortified with fertilizers, humus, peat, and the
> residue has to offer something to his taste...  I too have been
> wondering for a very long time....
> 
> Linda in DeLeon Sprgs.  "land of sugar sand ridges and ocean leached
> soils".
Me too! My horse will go out of his way to eat sand at the bottom of
certain streams. He is in a pen full of sand but never touches it. Go
figure! Julie