Help!!!! Door Banger!!

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Could anyone please help me before I loose my marbles!! One of my horses keeps banging the door, if all the attention is not on him, so whether I`m doing some fencing or seeing to another horse he keeps doing it. Shouting and getting cross with him does nothing, although he appears to look bothered, he just starts again. I have just brought him in after living out, he is rising 4 and turn out is now limited. If its not attention based its food based because he thinks he should be having some/ all the food - even though none of the others are better off than him. Having hay does not seem to stop him. :mad:
 
Stick some rubber matting or carpet on the door to muffle the sound. He'll soon realise he won't get any attention (which shouting and getting cross is even if it's the wrong sort) and hopefully will stop. Or if he is as clever as mine is start kicking the wall instead :rolleyes:
 
Rubber matting or carpet on door
Door hooked open & a chain across the gap (sorts a number of them out)
Water bucket
Water pistol
Equine gadget that squirts water when door is approached (cannot think of name but does work)
Door grill with infill (not always the best but can stop a new banger in their tracks)
Electric tape on inside of door so horse cannot get too close to door
Constant food supply
Companion in next box
Companion loose in yard
Hobbles

All of the above 'can' work, it depends on how committed your banger is, and how intrusive you are with dealing with it......

Good luck :)
 
My mare used to bang the door when I first bought her. I had to ask the livery and YM to completely ignore her when she banged and it didn't take her long to stop. As others have said, she is getting a reaction from you when you shout at her which is what she is after.
 
I have a door banger who only bangs when your about, so we put a chain across the doorway and she got pertty sick of waggling the legs and pawing as didn't have the same effect ;) she will also kick the water buckets or her feed bucket to make noise, and in the field paws the stone trough as pawing the muck make no noise, she can be a noisy pain lol!!
 
My pony was a door banger when he arrived a year ago. We cured him by doing the following: he would often kick the door when we were fetching his hay or feed, so when he did it we would immediately put the hay or feed down and walk away. It didn't take him long to work out that banging was not a good idea.
 
My filly was a potential door banger in the making but now I prepar her food out of sight, tie up and feed her outside stable or put feed in first and then put her in so she's not 'begging/banging' for food. Also I don't join in with my yards first come first feed all the horses otherwise it sets a lot of them off, I just deal with mine. Just my 2 cents if it's familiar with anyone's situation hope it might help.
 
Pad the door to reduce the noise and reduce impact on his leg. Ignore him completely when he bangs as it is attention seeking behaviour. Also when you are on the yard you could put a chain across and leave the door closed but not done up - when he kicks it the door just moves away. He'll get bored. My mare can bang a little when we are doing feeds and the look on her face the first time this happened was priceless and she doesn't really do it now.
 
Option 1 - Find a prickly rough door mat designed for scrubbing dirty boots on and fix to the back fo the door it prickles them when they knee it and usually deters the more sensitive horse but not the tough ones

Option 2 - This was found by accident i had a very chunky breach bar fitted to my stable door using gate slip rails and an old cut off oak beam that slipped in and out the aim was to stop my wild rescue tanking out the door everytime i opened it but this also caused her to stand further back from the door and thus she couldnt knee it but could still stick her head out and see firends (she was also a foor kicker and had the mats attached to door first)

Option 3 - this came from my parelli instructor as my resuce filyl had multiple stable issues but everytime she missed behaved fetch her out and lunge her for 10min then put her back in was a bit time consuming but eventually she learnt that bad behaviour mena thard work and it really wasn't worth the effort lol

Option 4 - My Yard owners chosen weapon that does work but isnt my cup of tea when the horses kicks the first time she arms herself with a feed scoop of water and go stands against the wall of stable in striking distance but not close enough for horse to think shes there for her and when kicks again chucks the water at her.

hopefully one fo these will work for you :-)
 
My y/o's bangs constantly when I'm seeing to mine, I booted the door back the other day, he was so shocked he hasn't done it again :P

It's a horrible habit, I also don't abide by set feed times, I feed mine and everyone else has to wait for their own owners, they soon learn it leads to nothing unless they really are twonks.
 
I've posted this reply before......
We had a bargy new four year old horse who door kicked the door the whole time, day and night. I made up a square frame of electric rope by screwing the round loop type insulators to the inside of the door frame, the top one high enough to be above rug level to zap him if he pushed too close to the door and the lower ones at knee level, used electric gate handles for access into the box. This kept the electric frame a good distance away and although he could still see out over the door it stopped my horse from leaning on the top of the door, and from kicking the lower half and turned him into a politely mannered boy! The electric rope then went from the inside out over the door through a length of hose (To stop it shorting) to the electric box planted in the ground outside. I also fettled up a portable version on a metal frame I had made that I could hang on the door at stay away shows otherwise there would have been a pile of kindling where there was once a portable stable! Worked a treat! Want a drawing? pm me!
 
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When i worked on a yard there was a pony that used to kick so i put her feed in after everyone elses (i would do it as a routine walk around the yard from gate to tea room) then shut the top door then she couldn't kick and once she had eaten i would take her and her field buddy out at the same time but she would have to wait behind the door till her field buddy had finished!

a bit of carpet muffles them! she soon learnt and didnt do it as much (left the top door open after a while but as soon as she did it i'd walk over and close it! (with permission from the owner))

Hope you can stop him/her before it gets unbearable!
 
I bought a Quitkick for a pony on box rest. he wasn't normally a door banger but started doing it to vent his frustation of having to stay in. Unfortunately he chose to kick the door with the foot which was causing his box rest, meaning it of course stopped it healing!

I tried everything before the Quitkick, but it didn't stop so went ahead and spent the £200. I have to say it worked within a day. He was more scared of the little whirring noise it makes when its activated, rather than the squirting water :D So if the banging is causing serious problems then I would recommend it, they do work.
 
Thanks everyone for all your ideas. I took the suggestion of squirting him with a water pistol, although I didn`t have one so used a water spray bottle but adjusted it so it sprayed like a water pistol and it worked the first day just about!!!! I had to do it a few times but he didnt like it on his nose!! :)

I will keep everyones suggestions in my memory box though.

Thanks again
 
Had one of these, would kick kick kick all night long, broke the door several times, kept the whole family awake. I resorted to putting a rope across the door instead but don't like leaving the doors open at night so had to shut it. It was worse if I wasn't there at the exact time to feed every single morning and night it would kick non stop until I appeared. I swear the old bug*er could tell the time !

The worse bit is it wasn't my horse and livery refused to replace my stable door that had been shattered and repaired (at my cost..) by my father several times. Thank god it went, and that was only a minor issue compared to the rest !
 
Isn't it funny how everybody is able to come up with all kinds of creative ways of punishing the thing they don't like, but it never occurs to anybody to reward the behaviour they want?

Laws of behaviour:

1. Punishment doesn't work unless you can do it every single time the animal does the behaviour. So if they kick and you only manage to spray once every three or four times, you're actually strengthening the kicking behaviour.
2. Even if you manage to spray every single time, punishment causes associated emotions. If I don't like the way my flat mate gargles when using the bathroom, so every time she does, I set the basin up to squirt her in the eye every time she gargles, how do you reckon she'll feel every time she goes into the bathroom? A bit apprehensive, perhaps?

3. Any behaviour that's rewarded happens more often. If, every time you catch the horse standing quietly for a few seconds, you go over and make a fuss of them (or if it's food related, you wait with the horse's dinner until they stop kicking before delivering food), they will, over time, stand without kicking for longer and longer periods.
4. The beauty of the above approach is that, unlike punishment, you don't have to reward every single time for it to work :)

Simplez ;)
 
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