My old horse leans on his buckets...and well, poops

[ParadoxFarm]

Help! I have a 30-year-old horse who is a bit neuro, so he likes to lean in his stall. Unfortunately, he backs up to the corner with the buckets often and, well, he poops in his feed bucket or his water bucket. I’m trying to think of a way to alleviate this. Maybe build a “frame” around it that he leans on? But I wouldn’t want anything to break and him fall over. I try to remove his feed bucket after he eats, but sometimes I forget. But the water, I obviously can’t remove that.

Any ideas?

[clanter]

we have changed several horses to these water buckets that are on the floor in a corner

feed is put in a rubber tub also on the floor

[endlessclimb]

Here’s my old thread on the exact problem, maybe it has a solution for you.

Stopping a horse from pooping in water bucket

Update to this thread: The raised bucket seems to work for the pooping, for the most part. About once a month, she manages to poop in it again. She broke the milk crate the bucket was sitting in (she is a lug-headed clutz that breaks her quick release halter at least once every two weeks, so it’s par for the course), so I replaced it with a metal ring-type hanger, which allowed me to raise the bucket a little higher yet. Still though, she has managed to poop in it once. She still has a seco…

[SusanO]

My mare used to do it mostly in the summer. A lot. UGH!!! It was gnats and mosquitoes biting her on the dock of the tail and on the fleshy parts of her butt. She would scratch the itchy spots and poop while she was there. I put in a fly system and left her fan on in the summer. She stopped doing it and I haven’t had any poop in her bucket for years. Knock on wood!

[NancyM]

For bucket poopers, place the buckets outside the stall, able to be reached as the horse reaches over the stall door, or over a stall chain (stall guard). Makes the bucket easily accessible for the humans filling them, easy to access for the horse to eat and drink, but not for pooping in.

[4horses]

Nancy that is brilliant. I had been having that issue with one of my mares. Now she has decided all manure and urine goes right by the stall door, so unless she changes her spot, hopefully she’s not messing up the water buckets anymore!

Not sure whether to be annoyed with the mess in front of the stall door or happy that it’s easy to clean being so close to the wheel barrow. Lol. Perhaps I need to rearrange the stall setup and see what happens then but I am sort of afraid to try it.

But I will definitely keep this is mind, if she starts messing up the water buckets again. Right now I have moved all water buckets to the back corner so hopefully no more messes.

[jvanrens]

If he seems to appreciate having something to lean on, maybe a good sturdy 2x6 across the corner of his stall might give him a more appropriate spot to poop than in his bucket?