Like what title said, do you like manger in horse trailer? Why? Are the storage underneath the manger useful? Or is it more a novel idea that never comes out right?
Will not buy a trailer with mangers. I have had two horses (one yearling and one older gelding, experienced trail horse) panick in a horse trailer with mangers and climb up in them. Both suffered from minor cuts and scrapes though the gelding suffered worse as he became lodged due to his size with his upper body in the manger for a few scary minutes. I am sure some people have them and love them but my experience is they make horses feel claustrophobic. If the trailer is metal, they are also often the first thing that rusts.
I run screaming in the other direction! They are a pain to load horses in and even the best loaders always seem to balk a little bit at them (including my old guy who had 3 bad trailering experiences and should have been awful, but always got on no matter what it looked like!). I think it’s a little confining for them and they can’t move their front legs much.
I don’t like the ‘hard’ mangers with storage underneath that prevents forward placement of the horse’s feet (and that becomes a balance/constraint issue if, god forbid, you have to slam on the brakes to avoid an idiot).
I do have ‘soft’ mangers that are suspended in the open front area- useful for long distance hauling which I do a lot, and useful because they also have access from the open escape door if tied for a long while wherever we are parked.
I do have a friend with a really old, small 2 horse BP that has the hard manager and door that opens behind the hitch where the saddle goes. Strikes me as kinda hard to negotiate, especially with a heavyish western saddle.
I’ve never had a problem with mine in the 19+ years I’ve owned it. :winkgrin: My horses self load and stand quietly munching hay while I haul. I’ve used it for minis, ponies, weanlings, yearlings, QHs, TBs, and WBs. Also sheep and goats. It doesn’t have a front tack room so I love the under manger storage. It’s great for English saddles but not as great for western saddles. If I’m only hauling one horse or the little guys I can use the manger for buckets, tack, or hay (properly tied down). It’s a WB sized trailer (Logan Trojan) so plenty of room in both width and length. I’ve never had any horse even think about jumping in the manger.
I hate slant loads and the only other type of trailer I’ve seen around these parts is a stock trailer which tend to have really low ceilings. I suppose if I was exposed to more types of trailers I might have a different opinion on the ones with a manger.
Used two-horse BP trailers with mangers for years. Had one mare jump into the manger like equislover’s horses did. Fortunately, no harm done, but they are not well designed for anything but smallish horses, IMO. Horses cannot get their legs out in front of themselves adequately to brace in a hard-braking situation, though I’ve seen enough horse’s butts hanging/straining against the back doors to believe that’s what they were TRYING to do.
That said, horses can get used to anything and we’ve all seen them traveling in some pretty godawful rigs. The last two-horse/manger trailer I had, I took the center divider out so my Arab could ride in it like his own little box stall. He preferred to stand backwards, which alarmed many passing motorists! (A fly mask protected his face from bugs and other flying junk.)
I’ve had both – as a couple of others have mentioned, I also had a mare who jumped up into the manger (got herself out with minor scrapes before we could get the truck stopped). They’re a b!tch to clean out – leave one bit of hay or grain, and it molds instantly. And if you put anything in the storage unit underneath, it will get dusty, dirty, and full of hay and grain from the manger above it.
My Turnbow walkthrough WB trailer, you will have to pry out of my cold, dead hands. Open, airy, horses love it, and I can walk a horse in and then get out the full-size door near their heads.
My Merhow 8’ wide slant load has them and I love them. They provide ample storage for our camping gear. The manger pan cannot leak dust into the storage area. The trailer is also 7 1/2 feet tall, so it is quite spacious.
My horses are all 15.2 or shorter and those mangers don’t present a problem at all. They certainly aren’t jammed in there, the manger is deep enough they can’t stick their heads out of the windows if the bars were dropped. They travel very comfortably.
[QUOTE=Beverley;7251474]
I don’t like the ‘hard’ mangers with storage underneath that prevents forward placement of the horse’s feet (and that becomes a balance/constraint issue if, god forbid, you have to slam on the brakes to avoid an idiot).
I do have ‘soft’ mangers that are suspended in the open front area- useful for long distance hauling which I do a lot, and useful because they also have access from the open escape door if tied for a long while wherever we are parked.
I do have a friend with a really old, small 2 horse BP that has the hard manager and door that opens behind the hitch where the saddle goes. Strikes me as kinda hard to negotiate, especially with a heavyish western saddle.[/QUOTE]
My first 2 horse bumper pull had the manger with tack underneath and you are right getting a bigger saddle in/out of that thing was a pain. It served me well for many years though… I never had a problem with the manger and liked having the place to put hay. I have a stock trailer now and like the loads of room for the horses, no place to put anything but that is what a 4 door truck is for!
I sold a horse and the guy who bought him had a 2 horse with the removable soft mangers that hung on the other side of the chest bar. I liked that but wonder if there is more injury involved if a horse gets hung up in that as opposed to the solid mangers??
HATE mangers. Have had them, done with them, ain’t going back and yes, they have been a deal breaker on an otherwise nice trailer I had eyed as a purchase.
Had a horse that climbed in mangers on purpose to look out the window for fun! Though I don’t see that happening again, I don’t want to clean them again either!
[QUOTE=candyappy;7251696]
I sold a horse and the guy who bought him had a 2 horse with the removable soft mangers that hung on the other side of the chest bar. I liked that but wonder if there is more injury involved if a horse gets hung up in that as opposed to the solid mangers??[/QUOTE]
I think not, as least the way mine are configured- I believe the weight would simply cause the soft mangers to give way. I hope to never have a horse in the trailer that would test the theory!
I went the other way, not w/stock trailer, but my first two 2h bp’s had no tack room so yeah, the truck (crew cab but same principle) was the tack room. Finally decided since I tend to own my trailers for 18-20 years a pop, that this ‘last’ one would have bells and whistles- tack room I so richly deserve, complete with pull down cot, camper ventilation, and other little goodies.
I know a horse that climbed its front legs into a hard manger and literally took one entire heel bulb off. Cleanly sliced the whole thing off and clearly hit a very big vein/artery as blood shot in a stream across the barn. Not sure what happened to that horse as I think we moved my horse shortly after (not at all related to said incident)
Holy Smoke. That is scary, to hear so many incidents of horses climbing on mangers:eek:. My horses are fairly calm in the trailer and being Morgans, space probably isn’t an issue, though no telling what kind of horses I might haul in the future… Umm that is kind of unfortunate. I am eyeing some nice used trailers (4 star, Elite, Platinum, Merhow, Jambo) that has everything I want but all of them have mangers…
Love to hear everybody’s experiences - both positives and negatives. Keep them coming, please.
I found the same thing as you OP everyone has old steel manger trailers, I asked COTHERS. Almost to a (wo)man everyone said Just Say No :lol:. Glad I did I got a open all alum trailer can take everything out of it & haul furniture/bikes/whatever, I have my tack in the front so its not too bad though I would have trouble with 2 horses, its light airy costs the earth to pull anyway & will last forever. Wait until you find what you want.
[QUOTE=Gloria;7252571]
I am eyeing some nice used trailers (4 star, Elite, Platinum, Merhow, Jambo) that has everything I want but all of them have mangers…[/QUOTE]
This is exactly the problem I’m running into. Every 2H straight load that I see has mangers, is too short, or both. One of my barn friends has mangers in her trailer, but she has a 15.2hh Missouri Fox Trotter who fits perfectly fine in there. There is no way my 17.2hh Trak will fit into something with mangers. He needs all the room he can get.
My dream trailer is an EquiBreeze. Big and airy, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to buy something sight unseen.
I would never own a trailer with mangers, for all the obvious reasons-- climbers, no extra room for forward leg movement for balance, etc. I also want to be able to walk a horse through if necessary, and’or stand in front of him if I need to, for whatever reason.
One of the worst setups I ever saw was a straight-load step-up with a full (floor-to-ceiling) center divider. A friend had just gotten a horse, and the seller delivered said horse in the above-mentioned trailer. The horse just Would. Not. Unload. He couldn’t really turn his head to see what was behind him, therefore he was having none of the step-down-into-outer-space backing out idea, and due to the mangers, there really wasn’t any way to get in front of him to offer any encouragement to move. It took literally 45 minutes to UNLOAD that horse!!
As for the trailers with the mangers and center-front walk-through, that’s all well and good, but it reduces the horse’s head space by at least a third. I’m not too keen on that either.
[QUOTE=cnvh;7253663]
I would never own a trailer with mangers, for all the obvious reasons-- climbers, no extra room for forward leg movement for balance, etc. I also want to be able to walk a horse through if necessary, and’or stand in front of him if I need to, for whatever reason.
One of the worst setups I ever saw was a straight-load step-up with a full (floor-to-ceiling) center divider. A friend had just gotten a horse, and the seller delivered said horse in the above-mentioned trailer. The horse just Would. Not. Unload. He couldn’t really turn his head to see what was behind him, therefore he was having none of the step-down-into-outer-space backing out idea, and due to the mangers, there really wasn’t any way to get in front of him to offer any encouragement to move. It took literally 45 minutes to UNLOAD that horse!!
As for the trailers with the mangers and center-front walk-through, that’s all well and good, but it reduces the horse’s head space by at least a third. I’m not too keen on that either.[/QUOTE]
I had one of these for years, a CM Saratoga, no longer made. The grate on the side of the manger was on pins and completely and easily removable. It was just a little small for the bigger Irish horses. If I ever went back to Connemaras I would happily have another. I replaced it with http://www.eclipsealuminumtrailers.com/en/straight-loads/st-sr
I wouldn’t own one for many of the reasons above. They were common a while back, and the metal ones would rust out with the salt in the grains that people would absolutely feel the need to feed. Fibreglass ones would crack,
get in the way of loading, etc. There are inevitable hazards with putting a 1200 pound animal in a metal crate, without adding to them.
The reason the horses end up in the manger is balance and a too small trailer. When you slow down, horses sit back a bit with their front legs out in front of them. The will have their front feet in front of the breast bar and sit or almost sit on the butt bar. They cannot do that with a manger and if they don’t have enough room to really sit back–especially if you stop quickly–they end up in the manger.
Never would I think of putting a horse in one of those!!
[QUOTE=LookmaNohands;7254396]
The reason the horses end up in the manger is balance and a too small trailer. When you slow down, horses sit back a bit with their front legs out in front of them. The will have their front feet in front of the breast bar and sit or almost sit on the butt bar. They cannot do that with a manger and if they don’t have enough room to really sit back–especially if you stop quickly–they end up in the manger.
Never would I think of putting a horse in one of those!![/QUOTE]
Or they get freaked out by something. The horse I wrote about above got spooked by a quad ripping by the trailer and struggled getting a leg into the manger and taking off the back of it’s hoof (entire heel bulb)
