Cob Jockey

So, a while back, I started buying Connor Himalayan salt blocks, as an experiment to  see if Connor could be trusted with a salt block.

Two things about Connor: he drinks.  A lot.  And he pees. A TON.  We have done all the requisite veterinary work to be able to say that this is just normal for him.  And besides, it seems to be somewhat genetic.  The first Castleberry Cob I ever lived with, Shae, peed so much the barn manager at the college relegated him to pasture life.

But I was taught in Equine Nutrition that horses should always have free choice salt and water, so I gave it a try out of curiosity.

Everything seemed to be okay.  His peeing wasn't totally out of control, he was enjoying it but not too much.  And then...


I came out to the barn one night around 6pm, when he had been in for about two hours, and his hind legs were TOTALLY stocked up.  The above picture was taken after lunging, which caused them to go down pretty quickly.  It was the week before championships, so I wrapped him overnight as a precaution.

Trainer said he was fine the whole next day, but Liz texted me to tell me he stocked up again about an hour after getting into his stall for the evening.

Now, I know standing around in a stall can cause them to stock up, but it's never happened to Connor, so I started looking for another reason.  I had her pull the salt out of his stall that night as an experiment, and...

He never stocked up again.

So the moral of that story is, my horse can't be trusted with a salt block.  The end.

First of all...99 followers.  You know what that means.  When we get to 100 there will be a cool contest!  Promise it will be a cool contest, too.  One more person!

Today I'm sharing a (VERY) simple DIY poor man's solution to a basic problem: salt blocks and ponies.  Connor likes them, but like anything else, if it can be played with, he'll have it on his head/off its hanger/under his hooves/thrown in the air/some combination of all of that within minutes.  See also his last salt block:

Salt block: 0, pony: 1.  This photo was taken in March, and this block was provided by the barn.  The pieces got too small and the whole block was wasted.

We've done pre-purchased Himalayan salt on a rope, and it works well, but it's more expensive and just not necessary.  Plain old white or brown mineral salt licks provide everything they need at less cost, and are available locally at the farm goods store a mile from my house.

But I don't have a salt block holder in his stall and obviously...see above...putting it in his feed pan doesn't end well.  So I do it myself.  This also can be done with smaller pieces of salt that they've broken off.  There's not much to it, just drill and hang!

Step 1: Procure salt block and rope.  Twine works fine.  I used clothesline and expect to replace it regularly.


Step 2: Prepare drilling surface.  I used scrap wood to lift the block off of my workbench.

Step 3: Insert appropriate drill bit into drill.  I used my second biggest bit, about the diameter of my pinkie, because my clothesline was thick.  As a general rule, use a slightly thicker diameter bit than the rope you're using.

Step 4: Drill, baby, drill.


Step 5: Admire


Step 6: Tie it up in the stall.  Try to take a picture for blogland, get thwarted:


Step 6, take 2:


Anyone else ever done DIY salt on a rope?