Stock trailer with no divider or butt bar - how to load/unload?

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=Highflyer;8459676]
Have you tried it? It might not be as big of a deal as you think, especially if there’s hay in the front. You could also lead him on with a very long rope and keep hold of it while you walk around and shut the back.[/QUOTE]

No, not yet, and you might be right. Conjure often surprises me by being much better and calmer than I give him credit for. I’m an attorney, which means I get paid to dream up the absolute worst thing that could happen in any given situation and plan accordingly. Makes me a little bit of a pessimist sometimes.

Anyway, Conjure grew up out west and only moved to the east coast as a 4 yr old, so his reaction to an open stock may be “Finally! The human figured out what a trailer is supposed to be like!”

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=Christa P;8459671]
Use a butt rope or covered chain. Easy to make whatever length you need with a snap on each end.[/QUOTE]

I see how that could work. Thanks!

[goodhors]

Is there a reason you can’t get the broken bolt fixed, so you can put the divider back in the trailer? Local Welding shops are amazing in creativity and ability to fix odd things.

Seems like you could avoid all the problems by just getting the broken part fixed, use the trailer as horse expects to have thing done. You and horse won’t have to do any ‘work arounds’ in compensating for the missing trailer divider.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=goodhors;8459954]
Is there a reason you can’t get the broken bolt fixed, so you can put the divider back in the trailer? Local Welding shops are amazing in creativity and ability to fix odd things.

Seems like you could avoid all the problems by just getting the broken part fixed, use the trailer as horse expects to have thing done. You and horse won’t have to do any ‘work arounds’ in compensating for the missing trailer divider.[/QUOTE]

No, no reason, but I think Conjure might be happier having the entire trailer compartment instead of his divided half. I’d like to try it and see, anyway.

[cowboymom]

Maybe I’m picturing a different set-up but we just walk on the trailer with ours and tie them to the slats of the side of the trailer and there they sit.

Ours is a 20 foot open trailer, lots of room but even when we have eight horses in there they’re all tied in their place.

[Timex]

I’ve got 2 open stock trailers, 16’ and 24’. if i’m hauling multiple horses, they get tied, obviously, but just one? they get to be loose in the box, and all of them, even the youngsters, figure out quite quickly how to balance themselves.

[beau159]

When I haul horses in a stock trailer, I leave them untied. They usually prefer to travel backwards anyway, so most of the time they will turn around. With one horse, it’s pretty easy when you unload. Since they’ll be facing the back door, just crack it open so you can get the lead rope attached, and then swing the door open.

Never had an issue. I’d say take your guy for a short test drive and leave him loose and see how he does.

When I haul with a trailer with dividers, I do like to tie (normally). As a safety precaution, they are tied AFTER the back door is closed, and untied BEFORE the back door is open. I’ve seen some nasty wrecks where a tied horse got a back leg off the back of the trailer and panicked. Not good. That’s why I don’t do it.

I personally have a 3-horse slant trailer with a rear tack. Red usually goes in the last stall. This whole year, I didn’t tie him. It allowed him to keep his head low while traveling and helped with his breathing; otherwise he gets raspy. He’s a great hauler, so I don’t have any problems with him.

[SuzieQNutter]

[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;8459658]
That’s what I’m trying to visualize. Say I’m loading him into the driver’s side of the trailer. Once he’s in, he can’t turn to his right because there’s a divider there. But if it weren’t there, what would stop him from turning around to his right and coming out frontways?

I have to teach him not to do it, obviously :), but I’m trying to figure out the mechanics of how to teach him to stand there. I looked in Bill Dorrance’s book last night, and there’s a picture of a mule doing exactly what I want Conjure to do - stand in an open stock trailer. Bill says you train it one step at a time - one foot in, stay, then back out. Two feet in, stay, then back out. Four feet in, stay, then back out. Then learn to come out frontways. But there’s not much more detail than that - no “human stands at x, directs horse to y” etc. Bill seems to have been kind of right-brained like that*, and sadly, I am not. I want directions!!!

Seriously, though, I think I’m going to just have to take this in tiny little chunks and figure out what works for Conjure as we go along. But if anyone has any tips on teaching this I’d sure love to read them!

*meaning no disrespect whatsoever to Bill Dorrance, who was an absolute Jedi Master. :yes:[/QUOTE]

You start with leading. Actually you start with standing still. So when you say halt they stand still and don’t move while you tack, untack, groom, hose or go into the house to answer the phone.

So leading is second. You are at their shoulder. Teach to walk when you click. Halt when you say halt and go back when you say back and thumb on chest. Always 2 signals for back. Also with waving your finger from side to side and say back or a gentle tug on the tail and say back.

Click and say halt when 2 hooves are on ramp. Praise. Back off. Praise. 4 hooves on ramp. Halt. Praise. Back off. Praise. 2 hooves on float. Halt. Praise. Back off. Praise. 4 feet in float. Halt. Praise. Back off. Praise.

In the end you can back 2 steps. Go forward 4 steps whatever.

Also in the end. They self load with a click and unload when you say back and give a gentle tug on their tail.

[whichchick]

We have smallish critters (topping out at around 14.3 hh) so we load horses in, turn them sideways (so ribcage of first horse is alongside front wall of trailer – horses are kind of perpendicular to the direction of travel and fit nicely, without butt rubbing or being all scrunched up because they are kind of little guys) and we tie them on the slat supports on one side of the stock trailer. All heads get tied to the same side of the trailer. Five or six smallish horses fit nicely. We take into account personalities/tempers when loading the trailer – the blind-in-one-eye mare gets to be at the front, with her blind eye up against the trailer wall, the boss mare goes in between the second-in-command nasties, underdogs go next to polite horses that won’t beat them up, poor or inexperienced travelers go in the middle (have more room for feet to spread and balance than the first and last horses get) and the expert-loader small pony goes on last because you can load her front feet and ask her to step her hq over onto the trailer and she does, shoving the other butts out of the way if necessary. Because she’s smaller (about 13 hh) she fits in that last bit, like a rear tack room, and lets the other horses ride slant. We also put a fair amount of effort into “driving nice” from A to B and I think that really helps make for good haulers.

Our horses all know each other and have a well-established herd structure. I’m not sure this would work as well with horses that didn’t know each other.

If you have larger horses (that know each other), you can probably fit three or four on an average stock trailer, just tie the first one at the front and the others at the vertical supports or horizontal rails as you go back. We tie ours with about 12" of rope, which is enough to move a little but not so much that they’ll get into trouble. They will self-arrange in travel to be standing kind of diagonally (like they’re on a slant but without the body dividers).

When you arrive, open back door. Walk into trailer on the “heads tied” side, untie backmost horse, turn horse and lead out. Or, y’know, back horse out if that’s your deal. On our stock trailer (8’ wide), the horses can easily turn and walk out frontwards (politely, without being sudden or leaping) but I do train everybody to back out of a trailer on request – it doesn’t cost anything to teach the skill and they might need it some day. I put it to the test this summer with my young horse, who backed out of my instructor’s slant (with rear tack room) better than her horse, did me proud.

If just hauling one horse (it happens) they go at the front, tied to the front left corner (we always tie heads to the left when facing the front of the trailer) and they work it out themselves. Typically they ride kinda diagonally in the open space.

[one1horse]

I have a two horse bumper pull step-up open stock that has a chest bar, but no divider/butt bar. My horse self loads. When loading him solo onto the driver’s side, I stand on his right (the trailer door is on my right and horse is on my left), keep one hand on the door, send horse up, and immediately shut the door.

Sometimes that means horsey ends up walking onto the passenger side of the center post at the chest bar, but when I go up to tie his head, he has plenty of room to back up and move his head onto the correct side. When he travels alone, he typically stands diagonally with his head on the drivers side and his butt on the passenger side in the back corner.

When I unload, I untie his head, & toss lead rope over his neck. Open back door just wide enough for me to get in, and put my hand on his bum so he knows where I am, then open the door wide so he can back off. This prevents him from turning around and coming off head first, and then I can grab his lead rope as he hops down. Whole thing is pretty easy-peasy, never had any issues with not having a butt bar.

[goodhors]

[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;8459996]
No, no reason, but I think Conjure might be happier having the entire trailer compartment instead of his divided half. I’d like to try it and see, anyway.[/QUOTE]

OK. Having a bigger space is an idea worth trying to make horse more comfortable. When we did this for a horse, I had a full width butt bar made at the local welding shop. It was a big pipe, 3", with a piece of wood rammed down inside to make it pretty stiff, then had the tubes on ends that fit into locking brackets on the walls with the locking pins. This single bar worked very well protecting the back doors of trailer from horse leaning on them, no stress to hinges or locking mechanism welds.

The wood was a piece of 2" x 4" cut down to fit inside the pipe tightly. The shop guys just hammered it in, welded the tubes on the ends for locking it on the brackets. Purpose of the wood was to stiffen the pipe, should horse slam into it coming backwards unexpectedly or who might lean back heavily sitting on her rump during travel. Wood inside prevented any part of the larger pipe “giving way” in starting a bend with horse weight on pipe. You can pad over the pipe if you like if you have a rump sitter that will lean on butt bar a lot.

We never let horses travel with nothing behind their rumps, have seen trailers with doors that came off from being leaned on, horses who unloaded without waiting once back door was opened. No butt bar or even a rope across behind, is really unsafe for horse and YOU, whom they might run over on their way out!

[x]

With my stock trailer, which is a regular stock trailer with no center bars or breast bars or similar, I walk the horse on, tie it, and walk out the back. The horse usually swings so he is standing cross-wise in the trailer; they like to ride this way, and as a result is in no danger of backing off the trailer. When I unload, I walk in, untie the horse which, as it is standing sideways, the head is very accessable, and then walk them off, not back them off.

[candyappy]

[QUOTE=cowboymom;8460040]
Maybe I’m picturing a different set-up but we just walk on the trailer with ours and tie them to the slats of the side of the trailer and there they sit.

Ours is a 20 foot open trailer, lots of room but even when we have eight horses in there they’re all tied in their place.[/QUOTE]

I am in agreement here. I have a 16 foot stock trailer, which has a divider for the front/back half only. I usually put our 2 horses up front. I have no mangers or chest/ butt bars. Never seen that in a true stock trailer.

I lead them on one at a time and tie to the side tie rings. They naturally turn to ride at a slant or facing the back of the trailer. When unloading I just untie the one closest and walk off head first. They can back off if I ask, but why?

I gather from your dilemma that you have a 2 horse length trailer and once you get the horse on he has no space at the back? Try loading him up and letting him ride at a slant.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

Thanks, y’all. You’ve all given me lots of good ideas. I’m going to find someone to fix the broken divider bolt, but I’m also going to ask that person about doing a full-width butt bar. That way, I can haul two horses if I need to but most of the time I can leave the divider in the barn and let Conjure have the width of the trailer.