# Stall potty manners?



## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Ya'll may laugh, but is there any way to train a horse to be a corner pooper?

I was desperately hoping that our new mare would be a corner pooper, but alas, she is not. She is worse! She is a poop stirrer. LOL

I put fresh shavings in that stall just a few days ago and just had to put pretty much all new shavings. Except this time I tried the "fine" shavings, hoping to make them last a bit longer.

Oi, it is too hot for stripping stalls!


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## jill.costello (Aug 18, 2004)

I have successfully taught mares to "back it up to the corner" by tossing all of thier soiled bedding and poops into the corner I want her to use. Go in to clean the stall, but instead of cleaning into your wheelbarrow, just pile up her own mess in the corner you want her to use. Put down beautiful fresh bedding everywhere else, but leave that corner nasty. After about 4 days, she should start to get the idea, and you can remove 3/4 of it, but do leave a bit in that corner every time, and NEVER let the rest of the stall be nasty, even if you have to pick it out 3x per day until she REALLY gets the idea!


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## Irish Pixie (May 14, 2002)

I've never had any luck in trying to train them to a corner. The worst is a stall walker that scatters it everywhere. One of my mares is a corner user the other isn't... 

The fine shavings sift much better than the coarse and it makes it easier to to save bedding.


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## hiddensprings (Aug 6, 2009)

I have a mare that is a prefect little stall keeper. So easy to keep her stall clean. Everything in one little corner. My geldings are terrible...just poop, pee, whatever, stir it all up and walk through it. Typical men....leaving the seat up. lol


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## bergere (May 11, 2002)

Maggie always goes in one spot. 
Dyfra will go in two areas in the pasture. So you can train them.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Will try the corner trick. 

I got the "flakes" first and realized my mistake. The second batch is "fine" and is cleaning a little better, if I get to it in time. If I don't, she walks through it and crushes it into smaller pieces and it's there until the stall is stripped.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I don't know about stalls... but years ago we had a TB mare that would back up to the manure pile next to the barn and poop there. 

My dad composted it and had wonderful gardens.


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## where I want to (Oct 28, 2008)

Also, beside the leaving of a small amount of poop in the corner, just give her time to settle down. Nervous horses poop all lllllllll over the place. But when they are used to the situation, they very well might settle on where. It depends on how they are raised. It might take a year for her to really relax.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

A lot of their manners they learn from their dam so that part is hard to undo. Horses who are higher energy or more intelligent will also tend to make more of a mess because they get bored and start wandering around looking for something to do. Think about being locked in a room with no furniture, no tv, no computer, no phone... You get a window, if there's anything out there to watch, and some low cal snacks. Some people make their horses spend majority of their life this way which I don't agree with. 

Whenever we have to stall a horse for longer than overnight to avoid a storm we make toys. A milk jug filled with feed and tied to the stall keeps them entertained for hours. 2 of our worst stall walkers that churned the manure and shavings until it was uniform immediately started pooping along the edges and leaving it when given milk jugs. One got very good at tipping the jug upside down to get the little bit of grain. The other would just grab the handle and run it up and down the bars making a horrible racket but being highly entertained. You can also throw in balls, small tires... even our rubber feeders we use (our stalls have nothing attached or metal sticking out) will often get played with. We purposely throw the ones too beat up for stall use out as toys in the pasture. I had a gelding who stopped cribbing when brought to our barn because whenever stalled he'd just spend hours stomping his feeder in to various shapes with his hind legs. They also sell things like likits (rather high in sugar but ok in moderation) and other things to entertain horses and stop behaviors like stall walking which mixes all the manure in and causes them to leave more manure from working themselves up.


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## Irish Pixie (May 14, 2002)

There's been 100s of horses throught my barns and the barns that I've managed over the years and only a handful or so of horses that actually played with stall toys. Most of the those were young horses, yearlings and under, and that was in paddocks with balls and such. I had an older Arab gelding that would carry around one of those handled balls and every so often he'd bring it in the stall from the paddock but he's the only horse I've ever owned that played with toys.

The best way I've found to keep a horse quiet in the stall is a knee deep pile of hay. :grin:


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## Minelson (Oct 16, 2007)

My 2 horses play with the jolly balls, frisbee, feed pans in their paddock. I can't find a feed pan that will hold up to their playing with it.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

She has her favorite form of entertainment, hay. LOL I tried to keep her constantly stocked with hay, which means more poop obviously(better poop than the lack there of!). The rack is in the corner and she doesn't move until it's gone, or if the better of two goods show up, grain/beetpulp. So, poop and pee get put in the middle and then when she does move it gets mixed.

She's a very quiet, laid back horse. I don't think she's called once for her foal, she nickered to the geldings once when they get really excited(been awhile since we've had a 'new person'). 

I haven't seen her move much in the stall. She has where she eats, where she stands to doze and where she lays to sleep(which is in the corner, ever see a horse that curls up in the corner? I guess better in the corner than in the middle and then cast herself rolling).


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