Livery Yard – help, next door horse weaving!

S

supagran

Well-Known Member
Joined
16 October 2008
Messages
623
Location
Warwickshire
Visit site
Hi
We bought a new horse about 8 weeks ago, and have put her at livery. Lovely yard, big stables, all year turn out and our other mare has been there nearly 5 years and is really settled. However, the stables have vertical bars between the stables and the gelding next to our mare stands at the back of his stable and weaves and then attacks her through the bars. In fact he tries to attack us when we are mucking out. (He is fine when his owner is there giving him attention). All was well until about a week ago and she has now started KICKING the c*** out of the wooden boards below the bars. We think that she isn’t getting any peace when in her stable and that she is trying to tell him to go away.

Yesterday she kicked out and caught the bars, so you can imagine that we are now really worried that she is going to kick out with such force her back hoof will go through the bars and the outcome of that is frightening - she’s at least 17hh so is quite big!

YO won’t let us put boarding up between the stables and her suggestion is that we drape a rug over the back portion of the bars, we are not allowed to block off the whole wall.

The short term solution is that we are turning her out when the gelding is in, but this won’t work in the long term. It may be that we will have to sell the mare much sooner than we planned, she was bought as a summer/winter project and has already done two BE90s with us.

Has anyone any ideas of what might help us in this situation, please?

Thanks.
 
Is there a reason why you can't cover the whole length of the bars? - seems it will be the solution and it will prevent injury. I'd get a large Hessian type sacking and cover it, it won't be permanent, so the YO need not worry!
I will also assume this would help settle the gelding too, so talk to his owners and see what you can come up with together.
 
Insist the bars are covered or move the horse somewhere else. A friend's horse kicked out at a set of dividing bars, caught her leg and tore her check ligament. She never came quite sound afterwards. Not a risk worth taking to keep a horse in a situation like that, imho.
 
I would imagine that the horse will pull a rug down anyway - ask the yard owner to put one of their own rugs up!

Did they give a reason as to why you can't put something across the whole thing. I can understand that they wouldn't want boards putting up, but you ought to be able to put some taupaulin or something across to block the view. It would be better for the welfare of both horses..

If they still won't do anything, I would look for another yard - why sell the horse?
 
If your other mare is settled there, why not swap their stables.....she may be less likely to react to the gelding. However....it's my view that once one starts weaving....the habit trickles out and others do too...so I would be insisting on a different stable.....or would the YO be happy to loose 2 liveries??
 
YO has said a definite no to boarding the bars – likes the openness of the stables, which imo is great when neighbours get on with each other. YO said might think about Hessian between the stables but not the full width of the stable, but we need to see how we get on with a rug (YO’s not ours!) for now.
 
I really don't understand why your YO won't let you board it off, how weird. We have interaction grills in between each stable (about 4ft wide), but 2 have been blocked off as the horse is a swine to its neighbours. The livery just put ply wood up with cable ties........so no damage to my stables.
 
We had 2 going at each at the grille between their stables-we swopped one of those with another(less moody!) horse on the yard and all fine now. I agree-could you not try your other mare in there first? Some just take a dislike to others:-/ Other than that,plywood & cable ties sound effective,cheap&easy!
 
Your yard owner is being most unfair.
I'm afraid I would move yards as sooner or later it will start to affect the mare's behaviour. Imagine if you were next to the classroom bully who pulled faces and threatened to beat you up dozens of times a day, that's basically what's happening.
I would speak again with the YO, explain you really aren't happy and will have to look elsewhere unless the horse is moved or you are.
 
I would speak to your YO again. Why cant you put some temporary boarding up? It doesn't have to me permament? You say you are not planning on keeping the horse long term anyway. Or ask that the horses are moved to different stables.

Sounds to me like your YO cares more about what her yard looks like than thw welfare of the horses.
 
To be honest, your yard owner sounds like a prize prat... I wouldnt risk my horse in there. I wouldn't care about the weaving... I don't believe horses learn it from each other, but id be mad about the potential danger. Id be causing a storm by now if I were you. Suggest yo swaps stables with you, or failing that puts up a suitable barrier for the entire width of the stable. She's worried about the aesthetics of the stable, you're worried about the well being of your horse. I'd also not be hanging around if YO said no, to much upset for the horse if YO won't pull finger out and do her job to make the yard a safe environment for all the horses, move.
 
Had a similar thing happen at the yard I'm at. The horse next door to mine was really aggressive and would kick out at the dividing wall whenever you mucked out in the stable next door. My dad used to shout at him and then the one day threatened him by waggling the shavings scoop at him over the door. Someone grassed on him to the livery owner and I was told he couldn't come up again to the yard! Fortunately they changed their mind but then i was told we'd have to cover the grill up in between the stables. I didn't feel that was fair on my horse and he and the other horse got on well together at the time, the other horse only reacted when we mucked out. And my horse was on the end of the block so it wasn't really fair to him to not have an area to see through.
 
We've now been able to fasten a couple of rugs between the bars, and our horse has stopped kicking the wooden wall - thank goodness. A compromise, but worth it. Will now get the horse advertised for sale.
 
Just thought I would give you an update - now got two rugs fastened up between the stables, the owner of the livery who is now "closed" in isn't too happy, but our mare has completely stopped kicking the walls and is much happier and settled in her stable. Interestingly, she doesn't kick the walls between hers and the other stable at all, so she obviously just doesn't like the way the gelding was trying to attack her through the bars!
 
Well I wouldn't be very happy about that, can't they move the offending horse rather than you messing about ? seems like you resolved the problem now anyway, have to say I'd rather block it off than have a damaged stable, how does the yard owner think that would look, with a ruddy great hole in it, not to mention the damage to your horse of course. My friend's horse used to be next to mine on a previous yard, I just hung something up, can't remember what now, rug I expect, my horse is a woos and she was a bossy mare
 
Obviously the aggressive behaviour is a concern and i hope you have it sorted but i just wanted to say that it has been scientifically proven that horses don't start weaving just because they see another horse doing it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top