Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #3

 Trough divers.  Horses that so love to splash and play in water that they will put their front legs into their water trough and paw, splashing water up all over themselves (and the ground).

This doesn't sound too terrible, does it?  I mean, especially in summer, it can be refreshing to splash water onto themself.

Except. . .

• by putting their feet into the trough, they are dirtying the water in it
• the risk of serious injury exists anytime they stick their legs into somewhere legs weren't intended to go
• splashing the water all over makes the trough need to be refilled sooner
• if the water level in the trough is low enough, they can tip the trough over and then there's no water to drink 
• the chance of cracking the trough, causing a (nearly impossible to fix) leak is greatly increased

The Poetess loves to trough dive.  I'm not sure if this habit is something she's had for a while, or was discovered when she came to Michigan and had a water trough rather than an automatic waterer/horse drinker in her turnout.  

Last year, I yelled at her anytime I caught her with her legs in the trough.  Heck, even hearing the distinctive sound of water splashing in the pasture while I was in the barn cleaning stalls would cause me to shout "Poetess!!  Quit! Get out of the trough!".  And she would, until I wasn't around/she didn't think I was around and then she'd start up again.  A couple of times I came home from running errands late on a hot afternoon to find the trough tipped on it's side, totally empty.  Not good.

Over the winter, I did a little research.  There's no way I was going to install automatic waterers in my pastures, so I needed to find a safe, economical, effective way to keep Poetess from playing in the water trough when the weather warmed up again.  If you google the subject, there's tons of different suggestions.

What I chose to try, and so far is a rousing success, is actually a very simple thing.  I put my water trough up on blocks.  We have lots of unused cinder blocks around this little place here, so DH grabbed four off the stack of blocks, and we made a platform to set the water trough on in the pasture Poetess and the LBM were currently turned out in.  Easy peasy.  And free.

But would it work?  Was a simple raising of the tank by the height of a cinder block on it's side (8") enough to keep Poetess from being able to put her feet in the trough?  And, more importantly, would the horses be willing to drink out of a raised trough?

Yes.

Yes.  

And, yes!

It works!  She tried a few times, found it uncomfortable to get her feet up above the rim of the trough, and has kept her feet out of the trough.  She has no qualms about drinking out of the trough at that height.  And, the one I most worried about being turned off by the increased height, the several hands shorter LBM, also has no issues with drinking from the raised trough.

Faces only, no feet!