Anyone know any way to teach a young horse not to stick
his head through every gate, fence, small opening, etc? Merlin, my not
quite 2 year old, learned when he was considerably smaller to stick his head
through the gates to reach the grass on the other side. Now, he sticks
his head through everything to see what's interesting on the other side. Twice
I have gone out to feed in the morning and found him stuck with his head
through the gate, and he's gotten so big that he can't get it out. He's
not panicking as far as I can tell, he just waits for me to come rescue him. However,
I'd rather he not do this. Yesterday, he got into the barn and stuck his
head through an opening on the stall door, and somehow pulled the stall door
off the stall. I found him wandering quite happily around the barn with a
stall door hanging on his neck, cluncking his legs every time he took a step.
My
pastures are three board fence, the gates are normal horse gates with the heavy
duty mesh on the bottom and a maybe 2 foot hopeing between the mesh and the top
rail. The stall doors are four bar pipe stall doors. He's also famous for
hanging his head through the fence to eat grass....and is rubbing his mane off
as a result. Sigh...
Anyway,
short of putting field fence and hot wire on the 26 acres worth of fence, is
there a way to stop him from doing this? He doesn't seem to mind
getting stuck or having gates hanging from his neck, but I do....and one of
these days the twit is going to hurt himself. There is a reason his barn
name is Pest....
