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Making a wood barn no chew

I am looking at a property with a 3 stall wood barn. Where my gelding is at currently is 90% concrete. He was moved temporarily to another barn on the property that is more wood and he started chewing the wood. Without totally redoing the barn on this potential property. Is there anything I can do to prevent him from chewing the wood such as nailing vinyl siding to the slats?

Did he chew on the edges? Or the flat part?

Edges - use metal Ls

Flat parts - short, fat headed nails. Drive them all the way in, and put one every square inch or so.

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You might also find that his life changing my reduce his desire to beaver away on the barn.

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I use metal strapping…I can’t find a photo of exactly what we use but its a very thin metal strapping that you screw on. Works amazing. Similar to this but smaller holes

https://www.lowes.ca/product/215675?cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=11263039837&cq_con=115866621492&cq_term=&cq_med=&cq_plac=&cq_net=u&cq_pos=&cq_plt=gp&&cm_mmc=paid_search--google--aw_smart_shopping_generic_hardware-_-71700000073600165&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjvbl5tri-QIVGuXICh26BQ_aEAQYAyABEgKWjvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

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Is the wood oak or pine? Pine is like candy. Good luck. If it’s oak or treated pine, they tend not to chew as much. Metal straps do help.

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your link is to punched angle, I think are describing Drywall Bead which is similar but a lighter gauge

YES thank you!

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your welcome

Could you send me a picture please?

These might be heavier duty: https://www.homedepot.com/b/Hardware-Metal-Stock-Angles/N-5yc1vZ2fkos9r

My mare had aluminum dry wall corners on her paddock fence. She kicked up a nice sharp edge and then rubbed her butt and sliced it open a couple inches long and quite deep. Healed up fine, but I took all the aluminum off as that was crazy dangerous.

Horses keep proving that nothing is safe for them when they want to be creative in demolishing themselves.

Wood, that they break by sitting on it or kicking it can also do some pretty serious damage to them, so really, you (general) just have to figure out what will work best for your horse in your situation.

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Absolutely use metal strips. It completely stops any chewing. Doesn’t help with kick marks, but the boards stay intact with the metal toppers.

It have the metal strips on my barn and no injuries in the 20 years they’ve been up. But I do find the horses tend to rip their tails and mane’s against the nails and a few strands of hair gets ripped out. This seems to happen no matter how frequently I tap at the nails. Having said that, the hair damage is not apparent on any of the horses - it’s just a pet peeve to see pieces of main or tail hanging off the nails.

Where I did have a problem was on a piece running vertically at the stall door. My barn is free range and over time the horses seemed to kick that vertical piece loose at the bottom. I came out out morning and it was sticking out, waiting to slice a leg. I removed at the vertical strips that day.

We bought corner guards for our new barn but with the horses free to come and go… either out to dry lot or most often out to turnouts there hasn’t ever been one chew mark.

We never put it up. :grinning:

We used these on some wood boards that needed protection:

https://countrymanufacturing.com/horse-chew-guards.htm

Much heavier duty, and safer (IMO), than drywall bead. Not cheap, but neither is lumber.

I wasn’t thinking drywall bead, that’s too thin. I was thinking angle steel like what @Jarpur posted. You can find it used if you have good connections in your area, which would make it cheaper.

vinyl siding removal is considered a delicacy by some of my critters

Rather than the drywall corners mentioned in other posts, you’d want to call a local metal building supply or a local metal mart (not home depot or lowes or similar) and ask for a “rolled metal 2 inch by 2inch angle trim for outside with a hem” (or a “rolled metal six inch by six inch angle trim for outside with a hem” – the “with a hem” means the outer edges of the angle have been folded back on themselves to make a smooth non sharp edge that would nail up to the sides of posts and the “inch” part refers to how wide the sides of the “L” are… You could also add “r panels” over the outside of the wood barn (such that the r panels have wood behind them so if someone kicks the wood will prevent somehow punching a hole in the metal sheet)

…BUT metal trim won’t help a dedicated chewer or dedicated cribber

after I came home from work to find a 1ft by 2ft hole chewed in the MIDDLE of a hardie board 4x8 sheet of barn siding (yeah, the pressed concrete resistant to fires stuff and hole was chewed from the outside of the building on a flat smooth sheet), I ended up with zig zags of electric fence “nail on” insulators epoxied to the building and zig zags of 17 ga galvanized hot wire to prevent the chewing

same horse was known to chew on trucks, trailers and leave beautiful (to her) swirls of teeth marks on r panel siding on barns and water tanks

less aggressive chewers can be deterred by using a paint roller to apply copious amounts of liquid handwashing dish detergent to inner stall surfaces, but you’ll have to reapply occasionally and watch like a hawk that they’re not starting to chew

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