Hello. Any opinions on solid vs “air flow” (slatted) dividers? Do the air flow dividers make for a cooler ride in hotter temperatures? Do horses prefer to be able to see each other when they travel? One of our horses can be a bit witchy when loaded next to new horses so we are wondering if the solid dividers might actually make her happier.
I personally prefer the solid divider. I will frequently trailer my horses with horses from another farm or that live in another field from my horse. I don’t need them playing kissy face to meet each other in the trailer and doing the squeal and strike thing.
If you have a horse that can be dominant or witchy riding with a really submissive horse I think it makes for a more comfortable ride for the less dominant horse.
Even if they can’t see the horse next to them they know they are there. Trust me they still can get married to the horse in the trailer even if they can’t actually see them during the ride.
I have a fan in the front corners of my trailer for extra air flow on really hot days. I have the top vents too. I never gave much thought to if the solid divider made a difference on air flow.
1 Like
Our divider is solid between heads, expanded metal in a frame above the actual divider between horses. The expanded metal frame is triangular, coming back to slightly behind the withers in a straight load trailer. They can turn slightly, see who is beside them, but not make faces or threaten the other horse. Solid between heads, necks, means no arguing, no food stealing, makes for a peaceful ride. This is a stock trailer, slatted sides in summer, plus an overhead vent, so lots of air moving during travel.
If temps will be extremely hot we will ice the sawdust bedding for the trip. Cold hooves mean comfortable horses. Clean trailer immediately after trip, wet sawdust breeds mold VERY FAST.
Divider itself is a half divider, plywood on a frame, allowing feet to spread apart. Roads in this State are HORRENDOUS! Horses need room to spread legs to keep their footing. Driver can’t do anything about washboard cement on the INTERSTATE, and that is a “betterr” road. You can only slow down so much before you are a road hazard.
Horses seem to fight solid dividers, can’t spread out enough to stand comfortably on bad roads or with bad drivers. Wrap legs if you worry about one horse hurting the other while spread out.
1 Like
I’m assuming you mean head dividers and not the body divider, but just in case you are thinking both, those floor length body dividers are just more problems than they are worth for a horse trying to balance themselves.
I’ve always preferred slotted or no dividers, but I have a fairly small pool of horses who go in my trailer so dominance dynamics just aren’t enough of an issue to offset the reduction of air flow, plus it is nice to get to be able to get to both horses from one side if you have to refill hay bags or untie/snap on lead shanks for unloading. But if your dynamics are not like my dynamics, maybe a removable solid divider is the best of both worlds?
You would think removable would be obvious, but it isn’t always easy on some trailers. My old trail et had a removable divider, and I removed in pretty early on. I also found out when I went to sell it that the free floating center divider had just so ever so slightly warped the center pole both head and body divider attached to so it attached to the pole just fine, but the front pin at the head divider wouldn’t quite fit in the slot that kept it from swinging left to right. Oops.
Then the next trailer was a Sundowner Sunlite 2H BP. I can’t quite recall how or why, but the head divider was not really removable. Maybe it was permanently attached to that pole? Hah, it’s literally been gone a year this week and I cannot remember. Olde Brainz. Anyway the new trailer doesn’t have a head divider because of its custom configuration, but it’s 8’0 wide. If they don’t get along, once their heads are tied up at normal length, everyone is plenty far away from each other! But lessons learned: removable head dividers are good, but if you don’t have that body divider sitting on a back pole to support its weight, don’t leave the head divider out for extended periods since the weight of the body divider may warp the center pole!
1 Like
