Paddock lick - but where's it gone?

We had to go and get BG another bag of food at the weekend and I also wanted to pick her up some Apple Crunchies. I never used to give her any treats, it’s a bad habit I’ve got into, but she still knows her place and does not nip. Whilst there I also had a look at the paddock licks they had in the shop. I have been ummmming and ahhhing for ages over whether to get her one. As her hooves can get hot on the spring grass the sugars in them probably aren’t the best thing for her, but she does love them and I want to give her something more of interest in her field now she has no companions. P1’s owner put one in the field before and BG loved it, after her breakfast every morning she would go and lick and lick at it.

In the end I thought we’d give it a go. My main concern was that she would like it too much and it would be bad for her, in which case I would need to restrict her access to it. We took it up on Sunday night when it was a little windy, BG has been a bit jumpy in her section of the field recently. She had her tea and I got all the mud off her and then I put the lick down. She gave it one sniff, snorted in horror and flew up the field as fast as her legs would carry her! It smells like molasses to me so not sure why she didn’t like the smell of it. She wasn’t going to come anywhere near it though.

So I went home thinking ‘and we thought she was going to like it too much’ and that maybe she needs another horse to show her this blue box isn’t scary and is actually a tasty treat.

We got up there yesterday morning and she walked down the field to wait for her breakfast, and there she spotted the paddock lick. She was still very nervous of it, edging towards it, then back again, and finally when she dipped her nose in it she did a bit of a bobbing duck impression as if she still wasn’t totally convinced it wasn’t going to bop her on the nose.

I got her food ready and took that over and by then she had figured out it was tasty, I had to put her breakfast right next to her to get her to drag her attention away from the lick. When I left I had to remove the lick from the paddock as I was afraid she’d be there all day licking it other-wise, almost as if she felt duty bound to finish it since it was there. I don’t think she clicked that I had removed it as, as I walked away, she was looking round and round her sniffing the ground and hunting for it.

Last night after her tea we hung her evening hay net up and then put the lick back in the field across the other side so she didn’t see us do it. That way I hoped it would take her a while to find it and we wouldn’t get up there in the morning and find all she had done all night was lick it.

Got up there this morning and she started to move down the field to greet us before suddenly springing into a trot. I think she had only just noticed the lick despite it being there all night. She trotted down to it and her nose went straight in. Again she needed persuading to leave it for her breakfast and she returned straight to it afterwards whilst I poo-picked the field.

I think she feels a bit like she isn’t supposed to have it as she gets very nervous when we go near her as she’s licking it. Almost like she’s trying to hide that she’s having it, she’s not quite sure she’s allowed to.

I removed it again this morning to stop her having too much, I’m hoping eventually I can just leave it in the field and she’ll monitor her own in-take but I don’t want to risk it yet. Having said that I wonder if by removing it she’s going to feel that when it is there she has to have as much as possible.

She didn’t realised I’d taken it again so I left behind a very bewildered BG turning round and round on the spot looking for it.