Horses

[flick]

I was a little alarmed this morning to see that GB had coughed up some gunk onto the concrete outside his stable. But then I remembered that I'd been sorting photos recently and had seen a photo of the same thing (that I vaguely remembered taking in case it got worse and I needed to show the vet), so I found it and checked the date stamp: 25 September 2013. I'll not worry too much just yet, then.

Baby has done a number on his feed bucket, *again*. It's only about a month old, and it's supposedly a super-heavy-duty, utterly indestructible one:


(GB, in contrast, has had the same thin plastic tub trugs for several years now.) We obviously need a new solution, but I'm wary of giving him something made of rigid plastic / metal / wood in case he does manage to damage it and then has a sharp edge lying around in his stable.

Comments

Tilting Trough!

[frith]

I just can't believe how hard it was to find even one measly image of a tilting wall-mounted feed trough, even after hitting on key words like 'tilt' and 'trough'. We've been using them for decades and they are especially handy for animals that are heavy head-butters, like bison, musk ox and gemsbok. Simple wall-mounted steel troughs that don't tilt back flush with the wall frequently end up bent, squashed and torn.

Here is the one place that I found examples of troughs that either tilt or turn to become flush with the stall wall when not in use. http://roewer-rueb.com/node/21 Sorry about the posh design, our troughs have the same shape but not the wood inlay. 9_9. Our oldest ones were heavy iron, our newer ones are stainless steel and do nicely for the P-horses. They are all built in-house, and after an hour of frustrating internet searching, I can see why. There are drainage holes on the bottom of the tilting troughs and (new thing) two peg holes at the top of the sides of the tilting trough so a spring-loaded peg can lock the trough open or closed (flush to the stall wall). Either model also lets you feed your animals without the risk of entering the stall with them or having to shift them out of the stall.

An empty rubber trough is a toy. May I suggest a Jolly Ball? ^_^

Re: Tilting Trough!

[flick]

Thanks for the tip, but it seems a little elaborate for us: he's big and stupid, but he's no bison! Out of interest, though, how do you keep them clean if they're fixed in place?

(Plus, we have English stables, not American ones: no handy wooden walls to cut a hole into.)

I'm starting to think that it might be easier to just tip his dinner on the floor....

Re: Tilting Trough!

[inamac]

I've seen feed buckets designed to fit into the centre of a used tyre - might that be useful?

Re: Tilting Trough!

[flick]

My current plan, having looked around and seen a few people saying "Oh, my horses trash the super-tough tire buckets much faster than the thin plastic ones" is to hunt around for some very flexible plastic ones. In retrospect, they did last longer than the tire ones, but that may just mean he's getting worse.

If that fails then, yes, I think we'll go for a bucket in a tire.