Slowing your speedy eater down at mealtime can help prevent issues such as choke and wasted feed

Carey A. Williams, MS, PhD, equates horses bolting feed to how some people approach holiday meals: “The horse thinks they’re so hungry, like someone who saves up for a Thanksgiving dinner,” says the extension specialist and professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “They don’t eat all day, and then the feast is laid out, and they scarf it down. Horses learn the behavior if they are around other horses that do it, too, or even when they’re younger. Maybe they learn from their mothers.”

Read more about how to manage a horse who bolts his food in this August 2022 article, Putting the Brakes on Bolting.