My Engagement Pony is Part Rodent

My Oldenburg/Arab mare is giving me fits.  I think she is part chipmunk, with a high percentage of beaver for good measure.  She likes to eat wood.  Not just nibble on it--but flat out chew. 

She ignores her multiple stall toys.  I have made the unfortunate joke that I literally need to keep fresh pine tree limbs in her stall to occupy her. 

My horses are fed at least four times a day.  Most of the time, it is closer to five, as I like to split their hay feedings into three portions.  They are out on their dry lot literally as much as physically possible.  As pampered TB broodmares on pasture have ulcers at the rate of 60%, I guess ulcers could be a possibility--but I honestly don't know what I would do about it.  All of my horses are on a limited grain scheme--they get the serious bulk of their calories via beet pulp, with a small amount of grain for the trace minerals and tastiness.  What else can I do????  She is not sensitive anywhere on her body that would make me think GI discomfort. 

And yet Magpie loves to chew on any kind of wood.  She is currently gleefully stripping trees.   She ignores her scrumptious hanging Jimmy ball (which all of the other mares go gaga for...and she ignores) and likes to nibble on the framing of her stall.

Not only is this annoying me to no end, but I am frazzled thinking about physical injuries to her mouth and GI tract, plus potential poisoning, and that is not even touching the factoid that my oh so impressionable Dutch filly thinks it is SO FUN to copy her.  Z.O.M.G.

While studying this morning, I suddenly thought of a solution.  A wire grazing muzzle.  Poor Magpie.  This is going to be interesting (insert evil, doxycycline fueled laugh).

In other news, I am going to bite the bullet to purchase a small digital camera.  Nothing special or really fancy---I want something small and portable that just takes better pictures than my Blackberry.  So hopefully I will have pictures to post soon (yay) because it is just too much to deal with uploading pictures from the phone.  Now back to pathology...