Some of you might be rolling their eyes, others like me are surprised: apparently horses like to lick car paint, damaging cars, and one Dutch nature association in Nijmegen, Gelderland is warming people about it with the pictogram above.
I have zero scientific knowledge of why horses like car paint and metallic paint in particular, so I’m going with a Google search for plausible answers:
– They like shiny things
– They really need salt
– Lack of nutrients from the plants in their pasture (I vote for this one)
– Boredom
– They like the taste of metal
In any case, it’s bad for them and bad for your car! And it’s like chips (crisps) for humans: once they taste it, they want more.
The idea is to park your car far away from the horses. Having to explain horse damage to your insurance company is probably difficult as well.
(Link and pictogram: naturetoday.com)
The city of Etten-Leur in Noord-Brabant has purchased 18 tonnes of bath salts to sprinkle roads with, in an attempt to keep the roads from freezing.