...and on the eighth day God created the horse in perfect image, to romp, graze, gallop, play and make manure wherever it darn well pleases, in divine grace.
Did you ever see your horse just picking at his grain or his hay, and wonder why he isn’t consuming it? Did you become concerned because he left some of it laying, and thought he might be sick?
Some simple deduction might arrive, with the conclusion that you had given him some fabulous, green, second-cutting orchard grass hay or some really sticky molasses sweet feed the day before.
He wasn’t sick, he’s just being picky.
I’ve seen it myself. One time, my whole herd of 22 horses left a first-cutting laying there uneaten, well through the morning.
Horses are like people, they have preferences on what they like to eat and things they really enjoy.
I had this one old boy that had come up from Texas. He had hardly any teeth, poor devil, so I’d take those Wrangler pellets, 3 pounds of them, and add hot water to make a soup.
That horse thought he was in heaven, and he would actually close his eyes and take long sips of it, savoring it like a person. I can see him yet. (1)
Horses have taste buds, just like people, and they function as chemical receptors, and the Glosso-Pharyngeal nerve or the Trigeminus nerve may become activated.
The majority of taste buds are located on the base of the tongue or the soft palate, and are ovoid in shape. (2)
The horse has some extra taste buds located on the Epiglottis, that funny-looking-flap-of-skin-thing that hangs down in the back of the mouth. The Epiglottis covers the windpipe opening during the swallowing process, and he gets an extra burst of flavor on the way down. (3)
The horse does not have any taste buds on the tip of the tongue.
You can see why finding a dead rodent in a #50 pound sack of grain might ruin your horse’s breakfast experience. Not only does the dead animal spoil all the grain around it as it decays, but toxins can also be released.
Return all #50 pounds back to the mill or retailer, along with the evidence.
The cheek teeth grind food into small particles and this is mixed with alkaline saliva. There are three pairs of salivary glands, the Parotid, the Submaxillary and the Sublingual.
Of these, the Parotids are the largest and are located behind the jaw and under the ear. The Submaxillary glands are located partly under the Parotid glands, and partly inside of the jaw bone itself. The Sublingual gland is found under the tongue, and can be felt just under the skin, in between the bones of the jaw. It’s like a little bubble that will flex when you push on it. (4)
Horses when full grown can secrete up to 10 gallons of saliva per day! (5)
Horses should eat slowly, although they sometimes gobble their grain. Grain should take about 5 to 10 minutes per pound to consume. (Yeah, right.)
Hay is consumed at their leisure, and usually it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to eat a pound of hay. Hay will absorb four times its weight in saliva, and oats will absorb slightly more than that. (6)
Saliva is the digestive juice that acts on starches and sugars, and lubricates the food for swallowing, helped by the tongue as it pushes the food towards the pharynx.
When the horse drinks, the tongue is used like a piston on a suction pump, drawing the water back, just like we do when we drink from a straw.
The horse consumes ½ a pint of water per swallow.
Have you ever watched your horse take a long pull of fresh water? You can see his ears wiggle while he drinks, with the ears going forward as he pulls the water and falling back as he swallows. (7)
And you thought you were the only one who likes spearmint gumdrops, peppermint sticks, or a nice, cool drink of water on a hot summer day..
Remember to keep horse grain/feed pans and water buckets clean, and only serve fresh, clean grain and water.
I have found dead rodents in newly-opened sacks of grain, right from the mill, and once at a large stable I found an entire feed pan just crawling with hundreds of maggots. The horse wasn’t eating properly, hadn’t consumed all his grain for days. His saliva had mixed with the molasses and uneaten grain, all organic components, and the rotten smell and mixture of molasses had attracted flies. Gross.
I’ve also seen mice inside my closed grain bins. I don’t know how they did it, but they were there. I sicced the barn cats on ‘em; it was fun.
Bats and spiders fly, crawl, or fall into feed pans and water buckets, where they die. Everything must be wiped out and cleaned properly.
Rats travel around, and about once every five or six years, one will show up at my place.
A long time ago, we found a rat, ( not Templeton from Charlotte’s Web) happily enjoying a sweet feed breakfast right beside Foxy, in his feed pan.
Talk about a double-take -WTH!
Rat traps are a scary thing, but they do the trick, as does Blue Death, properly used and hidden where only the darkest of loathsome critters can find it.
Pay attention to feed pans and wall hangers, along with outside water troughs; just when you think you’ve seen it all...
Wiping my sword and shield to the immortal words of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, “Happy Trails to You.”
1: Appendix Quarter Horse, “Old Joe,” from Waco, Texas, late of Espyville.
2-7: “Horseman’s Veterinary Encyclopedia,” by Will A. Hadden III, DVM