Thanks to Randy & Mary for suggesting this article.
Younger horses may relieve their boredom with a "Jolly Ball". These soft rubbery balls are pretty safe for the horse to play with - they pick them up in their teeth, kick them, etc. I have a float from a boat that works fairly well, but it is hard plastic and I think they would prefer the softer rubber material.
You can also tie empty 4L milk jugs on the fence for them to play with. Put a dozen small rocks in the bottom for a fun rattle. One trick that worked to amuse a stallion that used to be boarded here was to cut a small hole in the bottom corner of a milk jug, pour a cup or two of oats into the container, and then hang it from a tree by the handle. Cody would play with this until the oats ran out!
Consider providing the horses with an alternate chew toy - cut down a poplar tree in their field and let them chew on that. If you don't have poplar trees, experiment to see what types of wood your horses prefer. I have also found that horses like to dig up dead tree stumps and old logs, something in the rotting wood appeals to them.
However, be aware that when chewing any type of wood (a tree or your fence rails) your horse is at risk for slivers and chunks of wood being jammed into his gums or between his teeth. Be sure to inspect your horses daily for signs of trouble.
I also received this tip from one of our readers in the Horse Talk column - she suggests using a mix of hot spices (such as chili powder or cayenne) with lard or shortening. The fat makes the mixture stick well to wood and the spice will actually permeate the fat to make it all hot - she did suggest making sure the horses have easy access to water when you first put it on the fences!
You can also paint the rails with used motor oil, but it is messy and possibly illegal as used motor oil is supposed to be collected at an approved facility and disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. If you are willing to risk doing this, it does seem to work. Though, like creosote, you'd better not climb the fences after applying the oil - you will still be getting black marks on yourself or your horses several years later.
Again, there is the suggestion to look into more supplementation. One person on a mailing list I am on recommended chelated minerals, another mentioned a product called Probiotics. Any time a horse is chewing there is the possibility that it is due to a lack of some mineral, or that their gut needs certain bacterium reintroduced. It is always worth discussing these issues with your vet as they may be able to shed more light on the matter, knowing your area and its usual deficiencies.
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If you are new to Northern B.C. Horse, check out all the previous issues on the Archive page.
Kristi is building a great knowledge base about horses, with the emphasis on our area of the world.
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Many thanks to Nicole MacPherson and Julia Lord for their assistance with the three overo articles.
The frame overo is one that took me a bit of research as I was not familiar with it at all.
A frame overo seldom has white crossing the back line or under its belly, hence most of its white patches are contained along the neck, barrel and hip of the horse (though the white can and will cross over the top of the neck). This pattern earned its name by the placement of the white on the neck and body, creating a "framed" appearance of the horse's white patches, which tend to be crisp along the edges of the markings.
Frame overo tends to be responsible for the loudly marked overos - many of the horses we see in the top of the Paint horse world are frame overo. Some of the loudest overos are the combinations of frame and splash white or frame and sabino.
Many (but far from all) frame overos have one or both blue eyes (as compared to splash whites, which usually have blue eyes, or sabinos and tobianos which seldom have blue eyes). Facial white on a frame overo can be as minimal as a star (or even no marking at all), or it can be expressed with as much white as a bald or apron face, which is quite common in frame overos.
Unlike sabino and splash, frame overo does not put white markings on the horse's legs. Solid legs are one way to tell the horse is a frame overo rather than splash or sabino - however, when combined with one of the other overo genes, a frame may have white on the legs (again, combinations of overo genes can result in some pretty wildly marked horses!).
Please have a look at our photo examples.
Frame overo has one negative linked with it. The gene that causes the frame pattern is also the gene responsible for the Lethal White Overo syndrome.
A Lethal White Overo is a foal that is born completely white, of two frame gened parents. The foal will die within a few days due to an incomplete intestinal tract, and many people put them down at birth. Nobody knows why this happens, but this gene is ONLY fatal in homozygous form, meaning if both parents pass the LWO gene on to the foal.
Fortunately, LWO can be tested for. All LWO carriers are heterozygous (carrying one copy of the LWO gene) or they themselves would have been a lethal white and died shortly after birth. Because both parents have to be carriers in order for the foal to inherit two copies of the gene, and because both parents can only be heterozygous, then the chance of a lethal white is only 25% per frame to frame breeding. However, 25% is a very high risk to take when it means a whole year of waiting is gone, and with it an innocent foal.
Most knowledgeable people will test horses that are possibly frame overo, and if one parent is positive for LWO, then they will test the horse they are breeding to as well. If LWO is found, you would probably not breed those two individuals together. LWO has also been identified in some horses that do not appear frame, including some solid horses, but it is believed that, similar to sabino, these horses are actually minimal frame overos.
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