How do you deal with wall kickers?

[Casey76]

We got a new horse on the yard about 4-5 weeks ago. She is a very large horse, about 17hh+ When she arrived she was very thin, all ribs easily visible and no muscle on her HQ.

She is incredibly anxious around food and very jealous of any attention other horses get. We (the yard in general!) have seen her owners about 2times in the 5 weeks she has been here.

In general she is a very sweet horse, but due to her food anxiety and jealousy she grinds her teeth, lunges at other horses and o.m.g she kicks the living heck out of her stable - both front and hind legs. She doesn't have shoes on, (thank goodness), but when she double barrels the walls it sounds like she is going to put a leg through. The kicking starts as soon as the YO drives up the path on a morning and lasts until the haylage and food have been given, then settles again. On an evening it is worse as there is more activity. She starts lunging, teeth grinding and kicking about 30 mins before dinner time, with a crescendo as the feed cart comes past. Once she has finished her dinner, she will continue to lunge and kick if any of the other horses are still eating.

Two things are really concerning 1) the dividing wall between her stable and her neighbour isn't fixed. It was built so that it can be folded back to allow easy access for a tractor. I'm sot sure how much pounding it can withstand before the fixings give! 2) at some point something is going to give, either the 3/4in T&G the stable is made out of, or her bones.

Feeding time on a busy yard is always chaotic, but she is really destroying the ambiance. This morning was the worst I've ever heard her. It's not constant, but it is incredibly violent (and loud).

 

[Dusty M Yeti]

I hung a rubber mat on the wall of my kickers box - not a hard floor mat but a spongier, thicker, lighter weight mat. He would always kick the same wall, same spot with same back foot though so was easy to know where to hang it. It stopped the terrible sound and concussion through his leg.

ETA - he had previously caused a breeze block dividing wall to become unstable, so much so that it had to be taken down and rebuilt with more strengthening in!! He was so much happier in a smaller yard than a big busy yard too and his behaviour stopped once I was able to keep him at home with just 3 others.

 

[FfionWinnie]

I would give her adlib hay at all times and never give her a bucket feed again. Every single time she is fed after this behaviour it's reinforcing the fact she gets fed when she behaves like this. The only cure in my opinion is to stop letting her get hungry and desperate then ignore the behaviour so she gets no attention for it. Of course that is unlikely to be possible for this horse in this situation.

 

[Annagain]

We did two things with M, who is a serious wall kicker. Moved him to the end stable so he feels like he has more personal space as that was the big problem for him and covered his walls (thankfully breeze block) in rubber matting to protect both his feet and the wall.

That's mostly solved it. He now has the tap outside his stable and if anyone ties a horse outside to wash legs he'll kick the walls then. Luckily, he and Arch are usually first out and last in so it's only A who gets tied up outside regularly while he's in there and he can tolerate him with just some face pulling as long as A doesn't stick his head over the door so I just feed A while I was his legs so he doesn't bother Monty.

It sounds like the mare's probably is more food orientated though. I think If I was your YO, I'd take her out of her stable as soon as I arrived, tie her up somewhere safe and feed her there so she doesn't associate the stable with food. In the evenings, could she be left out until her feed is ready or the yard is quieter so the build up of anticipation isn't there?

 

[Sandstone1]

Try giving her a treat ball with nuts in. This may keep her occupied and distract her from kicking.

 

[Cortez]

I sell them.....or endeavour not to buy them in the first place

 

[Pinkvboots]

Where I worked we had a terrible wall kicker luckily his stable was huge so we used to put bales of straw along the side he would mainly kick, and the other walls had foam around them with rubber mats over the top, but he would kick so bad his back shoes were constantly hanging off and it was a real problem to manage he did get a little better over time but never stopped completely, the first stable he was in he managed to kick the wall down into the stable next door and I don't know how the pony in there didn't get crushed the whole stable was full of rubble.

 

[SusieT]

turn her out so she has nothing to kick against and isn't so stressed.

 

[laura_nash]

Try giving her a treat ball with nuts in. This may keep her occupied and distract her from kicking.

I had to stop giving my food-orientated cob treat balls as he kicked the sh**t out of them. Rather than roll them around with his nose he felt the best way to get food out of them was to kick them repeatedly against the wall hard enough that they bounced back to where he was standing - drove everyone mad and I was worried about his legs. So this one may backfire!

 

[Cecile]

Only ever had to deal with one wall kicker, that was food orientated too on arrival, once she realised food was regular, she was never going without and had plenty of hay it did settle down a bit
I also asked someone for a free roll of rubber conveyor belt and had it fixed it to the wall

Doesn't sound as if she is in the right stable to give her a chance to settle easily, if she arrived thin she is probably really anxious if or when her next meal will arrive, I assume she has ad lib forage

Apart from that Cortez post really made me laugh!

 

[Asha]

Only ever had to deal with one wall kicker, that was food orientated too on arrival, once she realised food was regular, she was never going without and had plenty of hay it did settle down a bit
I also asked someone for a free roll of rubber conveyor belt and had it fixed it to the wall

Doesn't sound as if she is in the right stable to give her a chance to settle easily, if she arrived thin she is probably really anxious if or when her next meal will arrive, I assume she has ad lib forage

Apart from that Cortez post really made me laugh!

I agree with this.

My new ID mare was terrible for kicking the door/wall at first when she saw food. It took a good couple of months for her to settle, I made sure she had loads of haylage, so she was never hungry.

One of my others would kick the wall if the horse on the other side of him so much as glanced his way. They just didn't get on, so moved him, and it stopped immediately.

The barn is now back to being peaceful.

the poor mare sounds very unsettled

 

[milliepops]

I had to stop giving my food-orientated cob treat balls as he kicked the sh**t out of them. Rather than roll them around with his nose he felt the best way to get food out of them was to kick them repeatedly against the wall hard enough that they bounced back to where he was standing - drove everyone mad and I was worried about his legs. So this one may backfire!

ah yes, my sec D has form for killing treat balls too. She has that typical cob 'stand-on-3-legs-in-frustration' thing and then POW!

I think the suggestion of rubber matting on the walls is a good one, it will dull the noise and dissipate the force making it less likely she'll put a foot through the iffy wall. & obv all the rest about ad lib forage... what scope is there for making these kind of changes at your place Casey, I remember from some of your other posts that some of the management is a bit idiosyncratic.