Hello everyone.
My barn manager recently contacted me letting me know that the last few nights my gelding has kicked the door of his stall completely off the run into the aisle and has proceeded to pull supplement bags and blankets off stall doors. This is a very new behavior- in the 3 and 1/2 years that I have owned him he has never done this. He showed a good deal in June. He showed 2 weeks with 2 day breaks between each week, a week off, 2 more weeks the same way, and then 2 weeks off. This has obviously become a problem because he is not only damaging the property, but he is wreaking havoc in the barn aisle and could potentially hurt himself or other horses. I am not sure why he is doing this and am unsure of how to solve it. I don’t want him or the other horses to get hurt. I don’t know if this is from him being bored in the stall or what. He has a very sweet temperament and has always gotten along with the others horses next to him. Any help or advice would be much appreciated, thank you so much!
First I would determine how to reinforce the door. For some horses this seems to be a learned behavior. Was he stabled next to kickers/pawers at the shows? Any signs of pacing or weaving in the stall?
[QUOTE=Horsegal984;8244715]
First I would determine how to reinforce the door. For some horses this seems to be a learned behavior. Was he stabled next to kickers/pawers at the shows? Any signs of pacing or weaving in the stall?[/QUOTE]
They are planning on putting chains on his door for now, but that’s only a temporary fix. He was not stabled next to pawers or kickers and doesn’t pace or weave. I’m really at a loss for how he just suddenly started this behavior!
once horses have figured out how to do something, they are persistent doing it. And he gets rewarded with food and adventure during the night. No idea how your door looks like, but you need to install a very solid door with a lock he cannot open.
[QUOTE=Manni01;8244730]
once horses have figured out how to do something, they are persistent doing it. And he gets rewarded with food and adventure during the night. No idea how your door looks like, but you need to install a very solid door with a lock he cannot open.[/QUOTE]
:lol:
Good thing I wasn’t in the middle of drinking my morning tea otherwise you would owe me a new keyboard.
Can you put webbings up - ones that he can’t get hung up in by kicking at them? Or can you safely run a hot wire across the opening, in conjunction with a solid barrier?
Oh hey, my very first horse had this same exact annoying habit!
She was a pissy-wall kicker when she didn’t get her way/fed fast enough. The one time she kicked her stall door and popped it open, it became a habit.
So the door was reinforced with chains. She kicked harder and broke the chain. Thicker chain added. She kicked that door right off it’s hinges. (swing door) One time she double barreled it hard enough that it went across the aisle and was still leaning on the opposite stall’s door. :eek:
She’d leave the stall and then go open other stalls, chase that horse out and eat their food.
If it happened when I wasn’t there, the BO would call and the first thing I’d hear answering the phone was, “Ya know, I REALLY hate your fecking horse.” I’d tell him, “Then you shouldn’t have sold it to me!” I spent more money replacing crap she broke than I did on anything else, LOL!
What worked for us was attaching 2 thick padded gym mats to the interior of her door, new giant hinges and 2 serious looking latches. If she kicked the door, the mats seemed to absorb most of the impact.
My last mare was also a stall kicker. Not repeatedly, just when she got pissed off. (which was often enough) At first we used kick chains on her while boarding, but she hated those so much that she refused to move all night long and would be stiff as hell every morning.
So I’d just pay to replace broken boards.
When we brought her home, her stall had stall mats on the walls. Attached to 2x4s along the top under the bars, so they hung about 1" away from the actual wall. Kept her legs safe from injury, the walls safe from breaking. At first we just let them hang loose, after a bit of time we added another 2x4 to the bottom and attached there too so the mat wouldn’t swing with her kicks. Not sure if that would work with a sliding door, but if there’s room for it to still slide I’d give that a try. Worked like a charm!
(and yes, I have a sick addiction to wicked pissy alpha mares, LOL)
Is he getting enough hay?
Something new must be bugging him at night. Maybe another horse, a cat, a racoon, bees?!?
Some horses are real escape artist but after 3+ years of ownership, you would have known better as this is a new behavior.
Could you install a camcorder?
A few things:
- Turnout- is he getting out enough?
- Ventilation- is there a reason he is trying to escape? Is there a fan on his stall for the really hot nights?
- Is it a slide-open door? Make sure you put a bracket at the bottom of the door where it closes so there is no outward swing. Once horses learn that the bottom of the door can swing, they learn some really annoying stuff.
- Put a thick rubber mat on the inside of the door so the kicking is less enjoyable.
- Put some kicking chains on his legs so that he is punished for the kicking. He may not like it so much if the chains nip him in the leg.
- Hay, give him a hay bag to keep him busy all night.
Good luck! Let us know what works!
Not to ask an obvious question, but how do they know he’s kicking?
Have they heard him or caught him in the act? Found damage that correlates with kicking/pawing? Other than he’s in the aisle and the door’s off the hinges in the AM, how do they know this is what is actually happening?
If this truly is new, and the horse was not a stall kicker before, something is setting this horse off. Horses don’t just “learn” these sorts of things for fun or to torture their human counterparts. There’s a reason he’s feeling the need to get out. I’d second getting a video camera on that stall pronto so someone can see what’s actually going on.
Ulcers
Does this behavior happen only at night? Is he OK when stalled during the day?
Does he behave in this manner only during feeding time?
Turn him out for a month, at night, in whatever ring or paddock is available. As long as you’re not in predator territory and the fencing is horse proof he should be fine. He may forget the behavior.
The few shows my guy went to overnight he loved, there was so much attention and interaction at all hours of the day and night, he thrived on it.
Kind of a let down going home and not getting all the attention.
If he can’t be left out at night, have them put some kind of stall guard inside the door so that if he does manage to break the door down, even with chains on it, there will be an extra layer to hopefully contain him.
And try a slow feeder haybag to keep him busy longer.
I agree that you need to make sure he is kicking the door. He could just be really itching his bum, and knocking the door off, or really smart and figured out how to get the door apart.
If that is the case, then the solution is different.
Yes, the first thing I would suspect is ulcers. Kicking, biting at the wood, chewing, I would first think ulcers, for my horse. He took down everything and then we treated for ulcers and he was a prince.
Hi Guys! Thank you so so much for all of your advice and all of the suggestions, it has been so helpful to read your opinions and think through some things. To provide more information–
My horse is turned out all day in a large grassy paddock with 2 other horses from around 8 to 3. The ventilation really should not be a problem… the doors to their shared runs are only closed with a gate type door, not with a solid door. He gets 4 flakes of hay at dinner around 4 (he’s a big guy–18 hands, almost 2000 pounds) so that shouldn’t really be a problem but of course it could be an issue. I’m worried he might get agitated with a slow feeder and that would just cause more problems, but that’s for sure a possibility.
I might see if we can put our GoPro in his stall one night so that I can see if he is kicking it. My barn manager told me that he is damaging the door so that does make me believe he is kicking it. It is a sliding door, not a swing-open door. I see that it might be possible he has found a way to open it. It has a latch that you flip that keeps the door from opening. He’s very smart, but if he could just open it like that I wouldn’t think he would be damaging the door. I may suggest installing mats to see if that helps at all!
He isn’t stalled during the day, so it’s tough to say whether or not that would be a problem. Like I mentioned earlier, he is out almost all day. At horse shows he never kicks at the door, and he is stalled all day there.
Putting him out at night, unfortunately, is not really an option for me. No other horses have ever gone out at night and he would not appreciate being out alone. I did ask if we could leave his run open at night to see if that would help, so we’ll see.
I definitely considered ulcers, because this is such an unusual behavior. Is there any way to be sure he has them without scoping? If not, for prevention, is Gastroguard the way to go?
Sorry that was so long. Thank you all so much again, you are all so wonderful for helping me out with this!
Turnout
He is either unhappy or bored. Turn him out 24/7. Happier, healthier horse. :yes:
I would install the go-pro (with audio) ASAP and see what he’s doing before he decides to kick.
