Metal water troughs vs plastic ones - injury risk?

[lilaclomax]

Just a quick question asking for anyone's experiences... has anyone experienced damage to their horse from a water trough? One field at our yard has one in that is being replaced by a plastic one but there have been objections as the metal one is bigger!

 

[ladyt25]

I haven't - I have heard people's stories of accidents but we've had horses in our field about 20 odd years and it's the same trough and noone's done themselves any damage to date!

ETA -the only 'damage' done has been to the trough itself as some of our lot enjoy taking off the lid and destroying/playing with the ball c*ck!!! We've now had to bolt the lid on!

 

[Enfys]

It depends entirely on the plastic used.

Thinner plastic will get broken if you have bucket kickers, metal gets dented.

Replacing metal with plastic could just have been a matter of economy, do you know how much metal troughs cost!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Cocorules]

I have not experienced problems with the metal ones. We have 4. I did think about replacing them not so much for injury risk but to have smaller troughs to make cleaning them easier. I have not got round to it but must admit that during a hard winter it can be handy to have the option to break the ice on a big trough and still have water when the water pipes are just too frozen to deliver it.