My horse has loose teeth so he needs to eat his hay from the floor......?

....however he keeps dragging it round his stable and pooing on it! need a large tub to put his hay in that is sturdy enough not to keep getting dragged round his stable. I have tried hay racks, bags, etc but these are not easy from him to eat from (his front teeth are loose so he can%26#039;t eat from a haynet). I wanted a wall mounted manger/trough but the only ones i can find are either too small as they are for feed/water only, or they are too expensive; the haybar is approx £60 and i don%26#039;t think he would like putting his head in one anyway! Any ideas where i can get something large and strong enough????

My horse has loose teeth so he needs to eat his hay from the floor......?
One of mine did that too, an expensive hobby!!





I fixed the problem by getting a peice of chipboard and sectioning off the corner of the stable with it.


A low peice, only about a foot and a half high with a gap at the bottom so you can clean the corner regulary,





This way most of the hay is kept in the corner, there are no handles for him to get his hooves into (another trick mine learnt)


and no buckets to get squashed or kicked about.


He still eats from the floor and the hay is loose so he does not have to pul it out of a net.
Reply:Tried the vets at all.
Reply:How about visiting your local GARDEN centre, I know it sounds a strange thing to do, BUT they have lots of heavy weight tubs in all different sorts of shapes and sizes, there meant for flowers and the such like, but maybe you could find something there that will help and not be too expensive...alternatively why not drill and screw a plastic tub to the wall at floor level. Also if your not already doing this extra calcium in his food could help with his teeth.
Reply:a horse i used to look after had a similar problem. he used an old ceramic sink which we had bolted to his wall, we used it for his hay as well as his feed. alternatively, just put smaller amounts of hay on the floor so he doesn`t waste it
Reply:use a blender
Reply:A heavy duty plastic potting tub might be the go if you want something to attach to the wall. Another thing I%26#039;ve used (for feeding from the floor) is an old tyre with a round bit of tin bolted onto one side. They%26#039;re surprisingly heavy, and not all that easy for the horse to throw around.





Is feeding him chaff rather than hay a possibility? Are his teeth bad enough that he might be having problems with hay no matter how you%26#039;re offering it, and that%26#039;s why it%26#039;s being strewn about the place? (Plus, given that he%26#039;s dragging it around his stable now, is he likely to pull his hay out of a raised feeder and do the same thing?)
Reply:The problem you are going to have is that even if you put it in a tub, he will still take it out of there and drag it all around the stable. I would love to feed my horse on the ground, but I have the same problem. My friend uses a tub and stands it in a tyre, you know the middle bit. That way the tub stays put and can%26#039;t be moved around the stable. Maybe that is worth a try?
Reply:I would get a large tub from a garden centre or the likes (the ones we use as skip buckets) and fill those with hay.





You can get clips to attach water buckets to the wall so the same clips could be used to secure the tub?? Also I am sure that I have seen something like a metal grill that you can buy from tack shops (or on line shops) that you can put in a tub to stop them pulling too much hay out in one go...





Good luck (my horse also does the same with his hay if it is loose so I have to use nets.)
Reply:get the dentist out to see him and ask them...


ttfn ;o)
Reply:How old is this horse? Is it thin? i%26#039;ve cared for several of my beloved equines thru their last years. When i see any sort of teeth problems (dropping wads of half-chewed food or grain) i not only have the vet out to float the teeth regularly--if the teeth are loose, the animal is in pain and often, having them floatedwill not only smooth sharp edges, but will probly knock out the loose ones. I feed a diet of Nutrina Senior horse pelleted feed for nutrition, and ground beet pulp- not shredded- (soaked with water) for roughage. a feedbag is often helpful, so the horse doesn%26#039;t loose the feed on the floor. Don%26#039;t leave a source of water available to the horse while he is wearing the feed bag- they can actually drown in some bags if they dip their nose into water.


this diet kept my horses shiney and in good flesh for all their days.
Reply:get your horses teeth looked at by a expert, also eating off the floor is a good thing, most horses will spread there food around and theres not much you can do about it. but i would defantly get the horses teeth looked at.



konq-bugs