Porta-Grazer Can Help With Bad Stall Habits
Many people try to maintain weight by ration feeding. Meaning giving a small amount and the horse has nothing available until the next “meal”. However, when no forage is available the horse will do unnatural behaviors to create saliva to buffer the acid in an effort to soothe the pain. Behaviors may include cribbing, eating manure, destructive chewing, licking or constantly grazing the bare ground for anything that may be eaten. Many behaviors such as pawing, kicking walls, banging the feeder are ways to get your attention to bring forage, which relieves the pain. Horses will bolt their feed when forage is finally provided in an attempt to soothe the pain of an overly acidic stomach.
Did you know ration feeding can actually make your horse fat? Read this article by Juliet Getty PhD- How Forage Deprivation Keeps Your Horse Fat
How does Porta-Grazer help?
So how does Porta-Grazer help with these bad habits? Each bite is sized and thoroughly chewed saturating the forage with saliva and neutralizing the excess acid. Large bites of hay with small amounts of saliva will not bring the acid into ph balance and the horse will continue to eat until out of food. Small sized bites well saturated with saliva quickly bring the acid into pH balance. When in balance the horse will usually not continue to feed, unless the hay has high sugar content. By providing enough forage 24/7 to keep the stomach acid buffered the horse can calmly graze as needed.
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My wife purchased a Porta-Grazer at NFR last December. I was there with her and was very skeptical. We have a horse with severe ulcers, a cribber, kicker and just about everything else you list this product fixes, upon delivery of the feeder I thought here goes nothing. Well to my amazement in less that two weeks the horse has stopped all the above and the ulcers are much better. I am a believer!!!
Love mine! Worth every single penny. Very durable construction, these will last a lifetime. Bought my first one for a young, busy, anxious and ulcer-prone colt. He turned into a calm, relaxed horse in his stall within a few days. Got another horse last year with some naughty vices like stall kicking and angrily hitting his teeth on the stall bars. Bought another feeder for him,.