Anti-Cast Strips or Other Methods

[Milocalwinnings]

What is everyone’s go to method to prevent a horse from getting cast in their stall? My gelding likes to lay near the wall, and twice in the last four months has gotten himself cast. Thankfully I was there both times (once I was in the barn and last night I was asleep but live above the barn so I woke up to the racket of him trying to get unstuck)… but I work nights and if this happened on a night I was working I would have no idea until the next morning.

I see there are anti cast strips that I can buy… do those actually work/help in your experience? I’ve also heard of people banking shavings along the side but I can’t see that helping unless I would need to bank a significant amount or shavings… how much do I need to bank? Are there any other methods you’ve used that help?

[BlueDrifter]

I haven’t done it, but a gal at a former barn would bank shavings. It takes a lot of shavings, but they stay clean, and she just pulls down from the clean pile to replace dirty shavings, and restocks against the edges.

Her horse loved it!! It was like having a couch to lean against.

I have also seen rubber mat strips bolted to solid walls as anticast strips.

[trubandloki]

What the anticast strips do is give them something to push against to be able to move themselves away from the wall. The rest of the wall is smooth so they can’t manage to push away when they are that close.

[horsepoor]

When one of mine was on stall rest, he got cast on a regular basis until I added some anti-cast boards. We just used 2x4s and screwed them to the walls at the height where I could see his hoof marks from struggling to get up (I want to say about 3’ off the ground, but I don’t know for sure without going down to measure). He did not get cast again after those were installed and we all managed to survive the stall rest period. It was a cheap and easy fix and worked better than banking bedding for us - I had tried that first and he still got stuck.

(I accidentally responded to a specific post rather than the thread, so hoping I did it right this time)

[Dbliron]

I found the anti-cast strips worked amazingly well. I had a mare who’d get cast nearly every night, but once we installed the strips she was never stuck again.

[Pally]

Yup the strips work. I’ve seen horses push off them, and would regularly see the scrape marks on one horse’s wall under them (despite the fact he also had big banks) yet never found him cast. They are nothing fancy. Basically a board bolted to the wall.

[Weezer]

Several years ago I knew a horse who got caste a couple times. Once he got his foot rammed through the bars of his stall window and he had to be cut out!! They put an anti-caste surcingle on him and that seemed to solve the problem.

[Milocalwinnings]

Ugh, he did it again tonight! This time thankfully his back end was against the dutch door so though he panicked a little he was able to bust open the door and that gave him enough room to free himself before I got to the barn.

Going to go out and get some 2x4s this morning. Hopefully they help.

[Weezer]

Is it possible to leave him out with a buddy overnight? That might be better than worrying about him getting stuck in his stall.

[sascha]

He may be purposely casting himself to relieve ulcer pain and just not positioning himself quite right and flopping over too far. Really skilled ulcer casting horses will have it down pat that they end up with their legs near vertical with just enough wiggle room to flop themselves back over when thet want to get up.

It’s a bit hard to believe until you’ve seen repeated, purposeful casting and subsequently seen the remarkable change to zero casting after a few days of ulcer meds.

[Milocalwinnings]

@sascha Interesting… I’ll have to try him on some ulcer meds to see if that resolves or reduces the issue.

[sascha]

I think the one we fixed 20+ years ago got ranitidine. I remember hav ing to go to the vet compounding pharmacy direct to pick it up. Years later one of my cats ended up as poster child on their transport trucks Anyway, Mr. Oscar stopped casting himself in under 2 days IIRC so worth a try to get a week’s worth of one of the gut coating type drugs to see if that stops it and then if it does, decide your best drug (frequency of administering, location of suspected ulcer/s, cost, etc.)going forward based on that.