Living on a 'hobby' farm has it's ups and downs, but couple that with plans to move, and it makes it even worse.

Right now we have a situation where a few of our horses are trying their best to be a demolition derby team. Winter weather has hit, and they've become bored. To fight off boredom, they have decided it would be fun to chew some fences.

At first, this just seemed like an annoyance because the fence they were chewing each time was the only one we had just kind of thrown together out of any lumber we had left here. They were leaving the fence posts and the wire fencing alone, of course, because those all have a string of electric wire running across them. They may be dumb enough to chew wooden fences, but they aren't that dumb. lol (and note that I am an animal lover as anyone who knows me realizes, but the fact is horses, and most other animals can show some pretty high stupidity at times. Any TRUE animal lover who HAS animals, will attest to this fact.  

So we'd keep adding a new board to the top of this fence, all the while trying our best to figure out some way to stop this madness, without having to take out a second mortgage to do it. This is the part where the moving plans comes into play.

It is SO difficult to even THINK of spending a LOT of money on a solution when we have NO clue how long we'll be here! We have so many other things would could/should/need to spend money on that building an expensive fence out of something the horses can NOT chew, is just something I do not want to even think about. I'm hoping we can figure out a way to run the electric wire across this portion of the fence. And, now they've begun chewing the barn, so we have to figure out how to run it through there as well.

Darn horses. Not only am I stressing about what they are doing to the barn now, but the worry that they may do something stupid and hurt themselves is keeping me up at night. Last night just after midnight, I heard noises coming from the stall and sure enough, the mama and baby were chewing up a storm and they had chewed this one section in such a way that the baby could have gotten her head stuck if she chewed too much and then decided to try and put her head in there. Ugh! I had night mares about those two darn horses all night, when I actually could get to sleep.  I was not happy this morning. I may be tempted to keep them locked in the pasture until we get this problem solved. It's not that cold yet, and it's either be safe in the pasture, or in danger in the stall.

Anywho... I just wanted to do some rambling. I've been neglecting my journal lately and I forget that it's a good place to get these issues off my chest.

Pietra, an inexpensive (at least it was many moons ago when we did it) solution is to use Creosote on all wooden places where they are chewing. I'm not sure where we got it. It may be available at a feed store. Or, hardware store. It's what they put on power poles to keep them from rotting. Now, most power lines are buried or steel frame thingys...so finding it might be harder.

"An oily liquid having a burning taste and a penetrating odor, obtained by the distillation of coal and wood tar, used mainly as a preservative for wood and as an antiseptic."

Good luck! :)

Well, that sounds like fun. :(

Have you tried calling your vet for suggestions? It seems like a wierd habit for them to be picking up right now just cuz they're bored!

Carol