Six Weeks Box Rest!! Bored??

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pintostar

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Just a quick question...does anyone have any good ideas for a horse coping with 6 weeks box rest?? He is allowed 2 x 5 minute walks a day. He has a hanging lickit, a feeder football full of pony nuts and I hide swede, carrots and brocoli in his hay manger. He's on shavings so hopefully he wont start eating his bedding but I'm worried he will start smashing the hell out of his stable for 6 weeks....!! Any suggestions to keep him entertained would be greatly appreciated. Box rest starts on Wednesday!! Thanks
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I have a mare who has been on box rest since august - i started trying to keep her entertained but i think she just got annoyed with my efforts and within a couple of weeks she seemed resigned to a new routine of being stabled - it is a busy yard she is on though and she can see plenty of other stabled horses. i have heard a mirror can be useful (but prob expensive)in some cases. I had a TB youngster who also spent long periods of time on box rest who also settled remarkably quickly but just appreciated a bit of company so if i was talking to other people up on the yard i would stand inside his box and get everyone to come over to chat over his door! Years ago i can remember when my friends horse fractured a pedal bone her mum packing a picnic and a good book everyday and sitting in her stable for hours on end - that really is dedication !
 
Thanks for your reply. I keep him on livery at a riding school although he is not a school horse!! It is very busy so hopefuly he will have lots to look at (and laugh at!!) Maybe I'll put a sign on his stable door to say 'Come and have a chat with me, or lunch if you want to'!! Think he'd like that as he is such a people lover..!! Thanks for that, hadn't thought of the human contact, was trying to keep him busy with horsey stuff xx
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one word of caution re mirrors is that they can cause horses to think that their stables are actually larger than they really are, was having a chat with a friend about them the other day, hers injured himself pretty badly by lying right up against it, rolling into it, and ripping his leg open on the bottom edge of it. Not nice, but then maybe he was just a bit dumb!

I agree with the human contact thing if they like people, mine was on box rest while I was doing my a-levels, I ended up doing about 95% of my revision while sitting in his stable!
 
WOW!! Thats called dedication.... i hope you passed all your exams!! Think I'll give the mirrors a miss, don't need any more vet bills.... Thanks xx
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Mine had three and a bit months of box rest last year - I didn't give her anything extra, she gets her SnakABall every day/night with plain fibre nuts in it, and her radio.

She doesn't play with toys, just lines them all up out of the way. I did try moving her hay, as she eats off the floor, but she just spent all day moving it back.

Some days she had Classic FM, other days she had Radio1 or Radio4.

I've always given mine radios when they stay in during the day and I have two very chilled girlies.
 
Mine is currently at 6 1/2 months of box rest (I'm hoping we can start stretching her legs very soon!)...she has her snack-a-ball when i leave in the mornings, and she has one of those salt on a rope things, and the likit ball. She gets through the likits in about a 48 hour period...salt lasts quite a while but she does like to stand there happily licking away at it
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.Have also tried the apple bobbing idea but she got bored after about 10 minutes and ignored it!

My other one is stabled next door and they have a window between their stables so when he is in from 5pm - to 6am she has someone to talk to!

Ditto the human company, she loves it. I cant leave a radio on sadly as YO would probably go mad, but if I could I would. We don't do walks as everytime she goes out she tends to bronc! She has also recently taken to trying to canter round her box, so now she gets some ACP every morning to try and stop that - as there is light at the end of the tunnel and I dont want her taking us back 3 months! Overall though she is very chilled and settled into box rest really well, I guess each one is different.
 
I will match you all on the box rest. I'm very surprised at how well my horse has taken to it. He hates it normally when the others go out and he is still in but he is very chilled at the moment and has excepted everthing very very well. He still has a bandaged leg so he must know why he isn't going out to play!
I think you are doing pretty much everything you can do at the moment apart from bedding down in the stable with them.
Radios are a good idea if you are allowed one.
 
Def ad-lib hay and i stuffed readi grass into it which he loved and spent ages trying to pick it out. He got a bit agigtated when i visited him so i left him alone. make sure he always has plenty of clean water.
 
Similar to you my horse was a private livery at a riding school.When mine was on Box Rest the major things I did were:
Had him moved to a stable on the busiest part of the yard so he always had something to look at(not always possuble but I got lucky)
Made a poster to stick on his stable door asking people to make a fuss of him
Split his hay into small holed haynets and double netted them. This meant his hay ration lasted longer as it took a while to chomp through.

Hope this helps
 
You could give him massages to keep him relaxed, if you don't have time there are massage systems that can do it for you
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they will also prevent stiffness and filled legs
 
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