What to do with a horse that dunks!

[HannahHDEventing]

I have a horse who dunks each mouthful of hay into his water bucket as he is eating. He then dribbles his way back to his haynet, takes another bite and repeats the dunking process. At the moment he is on dry hay as it's been too frozen on the yard to wet it. When he has soaked hay he does reduce the level of dunking, but he will still get through nearly a whole corner bucket of water a night through his dunking.
I just don't know what to do. His water is always smelly and brown in the morning and his bed is wet from the dribbling.
Any suggestions, or does anyone else have a horse who does something similar?

 

[algy666]

Mine does this, soaks pretty much the front third of his bed with drool and water. Seems to be a boredom thing with him, as I've found keeping him occupied (ie. plenty of exercise) helps a bit, and that if I put less water in his bucket he actually uses less of it. But he's a bit strange so that propbably only works for him lol.

It's SO irritating!

 

[Enfys]

I have never had a dunker, but I'd give him a specific 'dunking' bucket near his hay, he won't trash the rest of his bed then hopefully. Then it is entirely up to him which bucket he drinks from, problem solved.

(maybe

)

 

[irish_only]

I had a mare who preferred to dunk, so I made sure she had water next to her hay, and she was very happy. If they want to dunk, who are we to say no?

 

[HannahHDEventing]

I think I'll give that a try, he has to have his water off the ground as he is a monkey for pulling it over (you can guess what charachter he has!) so I think I'll get a tie ring and put it next to his hay bar and hang a bucket from it, which he can then dunk to his hearts content! He's quite tall so I can hang it high and out of leg tangling range!
I wonder why they do it though?!

 

[Shortcut]

mine does this with hay, but like irish_only said I put his water next to his hay so his bed doesn't get too wet.

 

[CracklinRosie]

Mine does this too, even with a nose push automatic drinker! That does cut down on soaked beds.

 

[Achinghips]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I'll give that a try, he has to have his water off the ground as he is a monkey for pulling it over (you can guess what charachter he has!) so I think I'll get a tie ring and put it next to his hay bar and hang a bucket from it, which he can then dunk to his hearts content! He's quite tall so I can hang it high and out of leg tangling range!
I wonder why they do it though?!

[/ QUOTE ]

He sounds like he keeps his mum VERY busy - lol!!

 

[algy666]

Dylan's water bucket is right beside his net ... makes no difference

 

[KatB]

Mine does this too

Her water is right next to her hay, so she doesn't move anywhere to dunk it

I think she did it when we had waterers at the old yard, and her bed was always a mess... this may explain it as her hay was the opposite side of the stable!

 

[HannahHDEventing]

[ QUOTE ]


He sounds like he keeps his mum VERY busy - lol!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, he sure does........I could write a book with all the stories I have on him.

 

[maginn]

I had a dunker, and managed to cure her - by accident. I bought her a haybar and she stopped dunking immediately (previously she had been fed from a net). I really have no idea why this made a difference, but I was delighted as she used to make a right mess. Interestingly I presume in her case it was a learned behaviour as her Mum was a dunker as well, as was her sister, but her brother apparently didn't dunk !

 

[HannahHDEventing]

Alf has his hay in a hay bar, but he also has hay in a haynet hanging over it if he is in lots as he's a greedy monkey, and I need to slow him down a bit. Two haynets tend to do the trick!!!
So, anyway, last night I screwed a tie ring next to the haybar and hung up a bucket of water. We watched him take a mouthful of hay and then dunk it into the water next to him, rather than his corner bucket on the other side of the stable. So, this morning, he had a nice clean corner bucket and a dirty dunking bucket plus a fairly clean dry stable.
I reckon I'll try it again tonight and I'll keep you posted.

 

[maybedaisy]

If you wet the hay for them they usually don't dunk it. I have a mare that will dunk if its not damp enough whether its in a hay bar or hay net. I think it makes it easier to chew if its wet.

 

[hayleyc]

2 of mine dunk hay and its soaked, I put the hay on the floor next to the water bucket, I tried one bucket for drinking and one for dunking but they still used both to dunk.

 

[Nari]

[ QUOTE ]
I have never had a dunker, but I'd give him a specific 'dunking' bucket near his hay, he won't trash the rest of his bed then hopefully. Then it is entirely up to him which bucket he drinks from, problem solved.

(maybe

)

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what I do for my lad. He never dunks in his non-dunking bucket but will drink his dunking water - yuk!

 

[LeFox]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a horse who dunks each mouthful of hay into his water bucket as he is eating. He then dribbles his way back to his haynet, takes another bite and repeats the dunking process. At the moment he is on dry hay as it's been too frozen on the yard to wet it. When he has soaked hay he does reduce the level of dunking, but he will still get through nearly a whole corner bucket of water a night through his dunking.
I just don't know what to do. His water is always smelly and brown in the morning and his bed is wet from the dribbling.
Any suggestions, or does anyone else have a horse who does something similar?

[/ QUOTE ]


My friends horse is a dunker but does it with her hard feed too! She takes a mouthful of feed, sort of spits it in the water bucket and then slurps it back into her mouth - very strange.

 

[Mike007]

Have horses always dunked hay. I Know this sounds stupid ,but I had never seen it till about 5 years ago.Now everywhere I look,horses are dunking hay. Is it just me or is it somthing about the quality of hay now?

 

[RobinHood]

A young warmblood that I do at work always dunks his hay and it makes such a mess because he pushes all the water off of his automatic drinker. Every morning the front of the stable is covered in water and the front half of the bed is soaked. The hay is soaked for at least 30mins and is usually still dripping when it's hing up so I don't know why he wants it wetter! Interesting he doesn't dunk his haylage.