Solution for horse kicking stable door pls

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Len

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1 September 2003
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Hi guys,
My mare is stabled from around 6pm to 7am - shes kept in old style stone stables and there are 2 other horses she gets along with for company.
She started kicking her door through the night a few weeks ago and we were unsure why - we started weighing her as we had dropped her amount of feed and hay a little as shes a good doer - we noticed she had dropped a nice amount of weight and thought she may just be hungry. Wanting to maintain this new weight we changed to small holed hay nets and topped up the amount shes having. I think they are lasting her alot longer now. The kicking stopped.

However, last week it began again - she does kick if shes waiting for her feed and always has done - this kicking though is through the night again.

Her stable is nr the YO house - she is kicking for a short time from 1am then every couple of hrs. I have no idea why shes started to do this - nothing has changed on the yard and she doesnt seem stressed in herself.

We thought about putting up an antiweave grill and inserting the mid section at night so she cant stand with her head over the door but shes not 100% in the stable and I want to avoid blocking the door if possible.

The doors are old fashioned wooden ones - we have rubber matting and could fix some to the bottom part of the door and hope the lack of noise will stop her from doing it but I am not sure how safe it is - do I need to use screws so it isnt easily pulled off? I dont want her standing on something if it comes away.

Any other ideas?
 
you could glue the matting to the door!
We glued a thin piece on to the side wall as our TB mare cow kicked the wall when she was in season.
More to protect the wall than her though!!!!!
 
Try putting buckets of water just inside the door. she will kick them and get splashed. It has stoppes a few of ours in the past.
 
I have a mare who kicks the door, its very annoying! Although thankfully she only does it when I get to the yard. I have put carpet on the inside of her door and stuffed it with hay or straw so it bulges, then stapled the carpet all the way round, this muffles the sound quite a lot.

I also put a sponge on either side of the kick bolt as I have found the noise of the bolt is the worst bit!

This has worked for her, she rarely kicks, all we have to deal with now is her scraping the floor (I feel some rubber mats coming on!)

Also I know there is a contraption on the market that you hag on the outside of the door and every time they kick the door it squirts water in the air. I have heard it is very effective. But I've never tried it myself!
 
Measure up the inside of the stable door and purchase some coconut matting from an industrial carpeting company. The coconut matting needs to be stuck on to a sheet of ply of identical size which is then fixed to the interior of the stable door and metal angle secured all around it to stop the horse from pulling the coconut matting from the ply board. The noise will be deadened and the horse will not damage it's legs as much.
 
I saw the best solution to this the other day on a post from PF showing the doors in her barn.

The doors were wooden but were more like just two or three plank depths across, so secure and not flimsy, but nothing for a horse to actually kick at, and too low for it to sneak under as they can a simple chain. If they did try to shimmy under you could always fasten some matting to fill up the gap so that it looks solid but isn't.

Pros and cons of course, as with everything, and perhaps not suitable for an outside stable because of the weather aspect.

Aha, found the photo.

P4.jpg
 
I recommend the quit kicks too worked on our old yard for a well practised door kicker, he never did it again once they fitted this!
 
Just a thought, although it sounds unlikely given that she doesn't do it all the time, are there rats in her stable or the building?
 
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