Messy eater!! Help!

[WildLittleWren]

My new rescue is a super messy eater. I cannot for the life of me figure out a system to keep him from tossing his food everywhere and eating it out of the sand (I live in Florida).

I have tried a deep hanging feeder, tied down, he still somehow flips out 3/4 of his grain onto the ground. I’ve tried a huge heavy tub on the ground, he flips it too. His hay bin he flips and then eats the alfalfa off the ground. I’ve put down mats under his hay bin and then he shoves the hay bin several feet, and flips it out on the sand anyways.

I’m not a huge fan of hay bags, and the alfalfa falls out of it anyways, but it’s at least a little bit less of a mess. I’ve tried a corner feeder for his grain, he still takes his nose and flips it all out. Help! I can’t afford to put 1000 rubber mats down in his paddock. I’m in the process of putting mats in his stall but then he dumps it in the shavings anyways. He is not locked in at all, so I’ve debated just putting mats down in the stall with no shavings, but he likes to go in during the day and pee and poop, and you can imagine that mess without any shavings.

Any ideas?

[mmeqcenter]

I recently read a study that showed that horses ingest almost no sand eating hay off the ground in a sandy area, but do ingest some eating grain out of the sand. Of course now I can’t find it for the life of me.

I’d mat the stall, put shavings in half, and put his hay and grain in the bare half. It’s annoying, sure, but if he’s flipping the grain onto the mats then eating it, it’s not really a problem. You could also try a feed bag for the grain.

[paintedpony]

I have one really messy eater. She likes to nose her grain out of the corner feeder and onto the ground. Alternately she fills her mouth, leans out the door, and deposits into the alley. Her issue was easy to solve. Grain is spread on the floor in a 3 foot circle. Head down, nibbles away, no issues.

[Palm_Beach]

Check his teeth, and if they are fine, look away. I have one that drops feed out of his mouth. I just have his feed tub in the corner of his matted stall, and sweep the shavings back about 3-4 feet away from the tub. Most of the dropped feed lands on the clean(ish) mat and then he eats it off the mat. What he doesn’t finish, the dog hoovers up.

[Xanthoria]

Nose bag. Or a concrete trough like the old dairy one convently located at our barn - it’s indestructible!

[secuono]

Feed bag.
problem solved.

Shake the alfalfa out and put that leaf dust into hay bag with the grain. Put the stems left behind into the net.

[rubygirl1968]

I bought a yoga mat for our messy eaters stall… It doesn’t solve it totally but it’s easier to scrub a yoga mat than drag stall mats out.

[firefoot]

If you stop bedding the stall, it is likely he will stop peeing and pooping in it. Put some of his dirty pee shavings out in the paddock somewhere to become his pee spot and then keep the stall bare. He might poop in it but that is easy to clean. Then he can spill the grain wherever and still eat it. I have also seen people get the massive deep rubber tubs and use screw eyes and snaps to attach them to the wall/floor. I’m not sure how much it helped but I’m thinking of trying it soon for one mine…

[skipollo]

My horse is a complete hog with his grain. He puts his head into whatever feedtub I’m using, and he gives it a big swirl with his head and launches grain out of it. He eats his breakfast in a shedrow stall (he lives out 24/7 and comes in 2x/day for grain.) He has a muck bucket (obv. clean and not used for actual mucking) tied in the corner, and that works really well. He can’t flip it, and it’s SO big/deep that he can’t throw his grain all over the place. He can swirl his face around all he wants, but the grain isn’t going anywhere.

I give him dinner in his actual stall in the barn in the evenings, and I have one of these buckets: [ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“data-attachmentid”:10525613}[/ATTACH]

It’s a Fortiflex Round Feeder with the extra ring around the top. I put his grain into a smaller regular feed bucket, and I nest it into the bigger round feeder with the lip. Any grain he tosses from the smaller bucket gets caught by the ring and stays in the bigger bucket. around the outside of the smaller bucket. Once he finishes everything left in the smaller bucket, I pull it out and he eats all the spilled grain that went into the bigger bucket.

Is it kind of cumbersome and annoying, yes, but it works for him so I just suck it up and do it. Muck buckets and the round Fortiflex with the spill ring are both inexpensive too.

[bluepece2]

@mmeqcenter

I’d mat the stall, put shavings in half, and put his hay and grain in the bare half. It’s annoying, sure, but if he’s flipping the grain onto the mats then eating it, it’s not really a problem. You could also try a feed bag for the grain.

This is what we used to do in my previous barn, anyone who dumped their feed just got their feed on their mats and their bedding we kept back from the wall so there was no mixing. Now we have feeders in the boxes that don’t move and the horses never get their food everywhere.

[J-Lu]

I knew a horse that was really messy with his grain. He liked to look around when eating. They put outdoor mats under his feeder and he was able to eat the spilled stuff off the mats and off the sand.

When I lived in the desert, people put hay in large steel water tubs that the horse could easily eat out of but could not easily tip over. Maybe try one of those?

You could also try tying the feeders to the fence so they can’t knock it over,

[wildlifer]

Just don’t put bedding in the stall. My guys’ shed is matted, but I leave the mats bare. Both are messy eaters, but crumbs just go on the mats & they clean them up. Bonus - they are now both pretty much “housebroken” & only poop outside. I spend exactly $0 on bedding & only have to pick up poop if there’s an ice storm or some other nasty weather they really don’t want to go out in. Everybody wins.

[Equisis]

Bed half the stall, and feed him directly off the ground on the mats away from the bedding. No bucket, just dump the feed on the mat. Have you tried soaking his feed? This made a big difference for a very messy eater we had- no idea why, unless the fact that it no longer resembled confetti made it no fun to throw around.

Alternatively, you can use a feed bag. No mess.

[imaginique]

@firefoot

If you stop bedding the stall, it is likely he will stop peeing and pooping in it. Put some of his dirty pee shavings out in the paddock somewhere to become his pee spot and then keep the stall bare. He might poop in it but that is easy to clean. Then he can spill the grain wherever and still eat it. I have also seen people get the massive deep rubber tubs and use screw eyes and snaps to attach them to the wall/floor. I’m not sure how much it helped but I’m thinking of trying it soon for one mine…

That’s a great idea in theory, but I tried it with one of mine a few years ago and it didn’t work. My boy is such a pig! LOL

[RedHorses]

My horse used to take a bite of his grain then stick his nose in the tub at 12 o’clock (think of the tub as a clock face) and then swing it around clockwise, sweeping his grain out somewhere between 7 and 9 o’clock. I found a nice rounded rock a bit bigger than a grapefruit and dropped it in his tub at the 6 o’clock position. The next time he ate, he swept his nose round the tub and bonked himself on the rock hard enough to make him back up and shake his head.

I think he had the rock for about two weeks, and then needed a couple of reminders for a day or two in the following couple of weeks, and didn’t do it again.

Even placing several obstacles for him to work around might help him relax if it doesn’t just frustrate him.

[Postandrails]

I feed in a medium sized container inside a much larger one. It stops him from being able to flip the food out because when he tries he just slides the smaller bucket over. Its like he cant get enough leverage to push the food out. He still slops a bit inside the large container, but when he is finished he just picks up the smaller container and throws it aside to get to the scraps, lol.

[candyappy]

@Bluey

I have one such that completely quit throwing feed around by feeding one flake of alfalfa on somewhat clean mats, letting him take a big bite of the middle and pouring his grain, that has his thyroid supplement powder on it, on top of that flake on that spot he just made in the middle.
That has been working for some years now with little spilled.

Don’t know why that works, but is ok, he is a clean, careful eater now and doesn’t spill any grain from his flake.

OP, just keep trying, there may be some way he will want to eat without making a mess.

I like Bluey’s idea. I wouldn’t want my horse to eat leafy alfalfa out of a nose bag as I think you are encouraging them to breathe in the dust which might contribute to heaves or a respiratory condition.

I like mine to eat off the ground and they prefer to do so anyways. So if that is what he prefers feed him on the front part of his stall on mats and just bed the back part where he likes to go.

[sophie]

@candyappy

I wouldn’t want my horse to eat leafy alfalfa out of a nose bag as I think you are encouraging them to breathe in the dust which might contribute to heaves or a respiratory condition.

I like mine to eat off the ground and they prefer to do so anyways. So if that is what he prefers feed him on the front part of his stall on mats and just bed the back part where he likes to go.

Same here, which is why I don’t like hay nets either.

My mare used to be a messy hay eater (would throw it about in her stall, pee in it, etc) until I started putting her hay in a big wide tub that is hooked on to the wall so she can’t push it round her stall and flip it. Her stall has mats and whatever is dropped off the tub she can eat off the mat.

It’s worked great.

As for the grain, maybe use one of those feed bucket “lips” pictured above?

[WildLittleWren]

Thanks for all the great ideas!!

[TBKite]

For grain with a messy, distracted eater, I’ve had good success with a nosebag, too. Main challenge is remembering to take it off.