My Horse Is Pawing the Ground When Eating

Pawing is a horse's unique way of communicating and a coping mechanism for dealing with an underlying issue. As the leader, it's your job to interpret your horse's unique body language. There are many reasons that a horse paws at the ground, such as excitement, impatience, anxiety, frustration, stress, poor diet, as a sign of illness or to get attention.

  1. Feeding Time

    • A horse may paw at the ground when eating simply because it's happy and excited. However, if your horse is lower in the herd hierarchy, it may feel threatened that another horse is going to steal its food and pawing is its way of telling the other horses to stay away. If it was previously malnourished and became used to not being fed over an extended period of time, the behavior may be a deep-rooted, compulsive behavior. If this is the case, it can be difficult to cure, even though the source of stress is gone.

    Causes and Corrections

    • Feeding your horse infrequently, offering poor quality hay, or providing the wrong portions of forage versus grain can cause behavioral or health problems. If you feed your horse on the ground, you may be introducing intestinal obstructions, such as sand impactions or other foreign bodies, leading to the possibility of colic. Provide your horse an above-ground feeder. Feed your horse away from the rest of the herd so that it does not feel threatened during feeding time. Avoid offering treats, which may create anxiety during feeding time and deteriorate the effectiveness of your leadership. To minimize colic and behavioral issues resulting from an improper diet, feed your horse at least twice a day and provide smaller, more frequent meals. Consistently feed your horse at the same time each day and perform diet changes gradually to allow your horse's body to adjust. Ensure your horse has fresh, clean water at all times; examine the type and quality of hay you use and avoid offering an unnecessary amount of grain. The amount of grain offered should correspond to your horse's individual activity level. At a minimum, half of your horse's energy should come from hay or forage.

    Behavior Modifications

    • Ignore the negative behavior as much as possible if it's not causing harm. If the pawing is receiving attention from you (good or bad) the horse will be more likely to continue. Praise the horse and give it attention only when the pawing stops. Supply a distraction, such as toys or a companion. Provide ample daily exercise and socialization opportunities, which will diminish frustration and anxiety issues.

    Consequences

    • Generally, a horse that paws only during feeding isn't a serious problem. However, chronic pawing can result in tipping over feeders and water buckets, damaging stall walls, wearing away hooves, losing or damaging shoes and digging holes. Continuous pawing over a long period of time can cause an imbalance to the horse's muscle tone since the repetition requires a great deal of energy from the leg.