After watching that video of a horse eating a chick, I can’t help but think he’s luring them... But I still want to believe in the friendship between horses and birds
You should read some Beatrix Potter books. Towns of anthropomorphic animals that live, work, and play together, and every now and then one of them eats another. I suspect Mrs Potter was a farmer, or at least rural.
There's been wildlife camera footage of deer eating mice and squirrels. Bucks eat the skin that falls off their antlers, so I'm sure it's one of those odd cravings that means their body is lacking in something.
Women that are Pregnant are warned to keep note of any cravings and if there are any super odd ones like dirt to get checked up immediately
I had hyper-emesis the entire pregnancy and all I wanted was dry eggo waffles and watermelon. I ate pounds of Indian food the night I gave birth. It was glorious.
Ah, good old pica. It can be useful if it's connected to a specific deficiency. I hadn't been feeling well for a while. A friend of mine who is a nurse saw me eating cup after cup of ice. She told me to get my iron tested ASAP. Turns out I was severely anemic. After some IV iron, the pica went away. Now, if I get the urge to eat ice, it's a sign I might be getting low again.
There are so many cases of herbivores eating smaller animals or birds in the wild and/or unprompted. Most of the time it's opportunistic or likely from a craving brought on by a deficiency. Low on calcium? Phosphorous? Eat some bones. Cows eat bones sometimes. Carcasses, too. There is a problem on an island that's a nesting site for arctic turns where sheep keep eating the chicks. Trail cams catch deer eating squirrels. Even pandas will eat meat occasionally. I've known horses I didn't trust around any animal small enough to fit in their mouth.
Yes, I agree probably some sort of deficiency or stress since it’s so unusual out of their norm but they are still certainly herbivores and capable of getting all of their nutrients from plants
Phosphorus is actually not easily available in plants. Animals eating bones for calcium and phosphorus is common. It's called osteophagy. It's not a stress response.
It may not be as much in plants as it is in animals but a healthy plant based diet will have enough, for humans, that’s why such a deficiency doesn’t really exist for humans, but for animals that graze only on certain grasses are more at risk because of lack of variety.
That’s what I think, stressed or malnourished. That’s actually similar to a lot of other species, probably early humans as well. Since we started off as primates eating mostly plants and scavenging a bit. But damn I sure did get downloaded for saying that lol
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u/The_Bacon_Strip_ 3d ago
After watching that video of a horse eating a chick, I can’t help but think he’s luring them... But I still want to believe in the friendship between horses and birds