How to teach a horse to drink from water drinker?

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katherine1975

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We have moved to stables with water drinkers. Two horses knew what to do straight away. My mum's 24 year old has no idea, how can we teach him to drink from it? They are not the ones thehorses press, just fill automatically. Thank you :-)
 
im sure he will find it when he is thirsty. if you make sure it is fresh, he should realise where it is. we used them at my previous work yard. out of 112 horses all of which had automatic drinkers only one had problems with it and that was only because he liked to pooh in it! if in dobt put in some water buckets. chances are if he hasnt touched the buckets then he is using the drinker. :)
 
We left him without water for a night, he just drank loads when he was turned out. So we now give him a small bucket in his stable, he is still thirsty in the mornings. We put some carrots in the water last night, still no luck :-(
 
katherine1975 said:
We left him without water for a night, he just drank loads when he was turned out. So we now give him a small bucket in his stable, he is still thirsty in the mornings. We put some carrots in the water last night, still no luck :-(
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Please don't leave your boy without water overnight . . . :(

P
 
We only did it for one night, I feel bad. We thought he would use the drinker, so we gave him his bucket back immediately. This is night number 3, he is getting his normal water in buckets. How can we encourage him to use the drinker?
 
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katherine1975 said:
We only did it for one night, I feel bad. We thought he would use the drinker, so we gave him his bucket back immediately. This is night number 3, he is getting his normal water in buckets. How can we encourage him to use the drinker?
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Honestly, it might just take time . . . and he may never take to it. It may be that he doesn't like the noise of it refilling as he drinks . . . have you tried putting a polo or two in the bottom of the waterer? Or you could try turning it off so he can drink without it refilling just so he gets the idea/gets used to it and then turn it back on?

I have no other ideas I'm afraid.

P
 
One of my horses is particularly quirky, the others all got the drinker thing fine, however this guy just refuses to use it. I have given up and turned the drinker off/emptied it and now just put a bucket in instead.

One horse which had problems with the drinker, it worked to turn it off so it didn't make the hissing noise as it refilled, and popped a carrot in it so he could dunk his nose in and realise it was water - turned it back on again when he was comfortable and not had a problem since!
 
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