My mare has started kicking her stall.
Lady is an 14 year old TB cross, was out 24/7 until a few weeks ago. A winter storm buried the fence in the far side of the pasture, and she now leaves at night. None of the other horses leave, and it's impossible to fix until spring- so she goes inside at night. She is in a 14x14 box stall, connected to the run in that the other horses use. She's in from dusk(6pm) until around 9AM the next morning. She's given enough hay to last her until well into morning, and in the morning the gate is opened and left open until she goes in at night.
Well she's started kicking walls. All the time, not just for attention. At 3am we can hear her banging around. When you walk in the barn she will back up to the wall and kick it. When she eats she will cow kick the wall. Sometimes she even grasps the wall in the corner with her teeth and kicks out. I thought that the other horses were bugging her over the gate, so I locked them out of the run for the night but she still kicked out.
I started reprimanding her whenever she does it while I'm around. I'll slap her back legs with the dressage crop, and walk away and leave it. Thirty seconds later she's at it again. She has a Lik-it, a salt block, hay and water. She had fun with the Lik-it for awhile but ignores it now. I even made her a hanging toy with apples on a string but she won't touch it. She tried for awhile and left it.
What should I do? I know she should be out 24/7 but all of our attempts to jimmy rig the back fence she's torn right through. She's only in overnight, and that time keeps getting shorter and shorter as the days lengthen. I'd ignore it, but she's starting to kick shards off the wall, and cut herself quite bad along the coronary band. I'm almost ready to use a kick chain, but I don't want to go down that road until I absolutely have to. We still have six weeks plus of winter left and I don't want her to seriously injure herself.
Lady is an 14 year old TB cross, was out 24/7 until a few weeks ago. A winter storm buried the fence in the far side of the pasture, and she now leaves at night. None of the other horses leave, and it's impossible to fix until spring- so she goes inside at night. She is in a 14x14 box stall, connected to the run in that the other horses use. She's in from dusk(6pm) until around 9AM the next morning. She's given enough hay to last her until well into morning, and in the morning the gate is opened and left open until she goes in at night.
Well she's started kicking walls. All the time, not just for attention. At 3am we can hear her banging around. When you walk in the barn she will back up to the wall and kick it. When she eats she will cow kick the wall. Sometimes she even grasps the wall in the corner with her teeth and kicks out. I thought that the other horses were bugging her over the gate, so I locked them out of the run for the night but she still kicked out.
I started reprimanding her whenever she does it while I'm around. I'll slap her back legs with the dressage crop, and walk away and leave it. Thirty seconds later she's at it again. She has a Lik-it, a salt block, hay and water. She had fun with the Lik-it for awhile but ignores it now. I even made her a hanging toy with apples on a string but she won't touch it. She tried for awhile and left it.
What should I do? I know she should be out 24/7 but all of our attempts to jimmy rig the back fence she's torn right through. She's only in overnight, and that time keeps getting shorter and shorter as the days lengthen. I'd ignore it, but she's starting to kick shards off the wall, and cut herself quite bad along the coronary band. I'm almost ready to use a kick chain, but I don't want to go down that road until I absolutely have to. We still have six weeks plus of winter left and I don't want her to seriously injure herself.