Can you train a horse to be clean/neat

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Sonya

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Probably a stupid question, but I'd thought I'd ask. I have 2 geldings, 2 yrs old. One is very clean in his stall - poops in one corner..pees in one spot and will not step in it. The other one is a total pig - poops everywhere, steps all in it, smooshing it to pieces, I almost have to strip the stall daily because he is so messy...he has even pooped in his water bucket
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Is there a way to train him to go in one spot???
 
Cant answer your question, but I have a mare and her foal, in the foaling stall paddock, they can come and go as they please. Rosy can be standing out side at the gate, follow me in, go in the stall and assume the position, and pee!! A few times I have seen both her and her foal, Eddy, assuming the position at the same time!! Tho it is pretty much in the same spot each time, but really!!

Jim Guerin

Yelm, WA
 
Stallions are easier to train than others as they will mark one spot over and over.

Try cleaning the geldings stall, but leave some poop in bedding in just one area and see what happens. Don't bed the entire stall. Even horses that are NOT stall savy will tend to pee and poop in the bedding first.

MA
 
This is just my own theory, but I've come by it through years of mares & foals. It seems to me that mom teaches baby stall keeping. Just like human moms pass on their housekeeping to their offspring.

If a mare is messy, her baby tends to adopt those same habits. If she's neat & goes in one spot etc., baby does too. I've seen babies at only 2 weeks or so, go to the back of the stall to do it, since that's where mom goes.

I've also seen babies just stand where they are & do it, because that's what mom does.

In essence, I think its learned behavior & they've already learned before you get them on their own. Of course, then there's the real neat stallions that go in one spot only. Love that! Just my observations................
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I will be watching to see if anyone has a "method" to teach them!! Every horse we have is totally different in their habits and we have one pony mare that is very neat and somehow manages to poop on the back wall of the stall. About half of it sticks to the wall and the other half falls into a very neat pile. She also pees in just one corner. The rest of her stall she keeps spotless. Our other pony mare is a total pig and her stall pretty much needs to be totally stripped each day. It always looks like her stall is never cleaned and is always really wet and messy. She also always manages to splash most of her water all over even though her bucket is tied down.
 
I have had 'some' luck with this over the years.

I had a boarder barn for 13 years and occassionally would get the horse

from hades that would require, as you say, almost a total strip everyday.

What I've done, once I realized it wasn't just the shock of being in a new place,

is to take some of the shavings from around the dominant horse in the pasture/barn pee spot and spred it in the offending horses stall anyplace I

didn't want him/her to use for pottying.

It worked for me with several different horses - not sure why but the first time

I tried it when I was just so frustrated with this one mare I was about to scream. She pooped and peed everywhere, on the walls, in the water buckets then mixed and stirred..........It worked so I put it in my bag of tricks to pull out when necessary.

Fortunately all our guys now are extremely tidy, bless their hearts.
 
All horses are territorial, they spend a fair bit of their time spreading their muck in certain areas around their territory. Mares, obviously, are less territorial than Stallions- but just watch a mare herd when you turn out a newcomer!! So- what do we do?? We clean their stall out every day and make them nice and clean and fluffy-well, YOU do!! I clean out every day, take out all the poop, and then put back a thin layer of damp bedding, belonging to the horse that lives in that stall (I only have two in at the moment) Then I put in the corner a poop from the other mare. Now these stalls are only 6 X 8 and I use straw. So long as they go out at the right time, ie around ten, the stalls are clean and the poop is all in one corner. Nor do they come in and immediately pee as horses will always do in order to "mark" a new area.
 
Shoooooot we havent been able to train men to be neat in thousands of years, and you want to train a horse to be neat?
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Think its like someone said, their dams trained them. Have a mare that is a DIVA, when stalls were remade she got a run, because she would hold it all night. She will not mess in a trailer and gosh forbid she splashes LOL She will throw a temper tantrum and 'ask' me to wash her off. Another mare is a pig. Absolute, disgusting pig.
 
Why is it that my horses wait till they come IN the stalls to pee and poop?

It's like they hold it all day and the minute I bring them in, someone turned on the faucettes!!!!!!

I"ve got one that poops in her water bucket nearly every single day too and if she misses that, she poops in her feed bucket! AUGGGGGGG@#$%^&*(
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It's hard being me.
 
I am the caregiver for two burros and a big horse. They are fed in corrals everyday and pee in the same spot . We put down the kitty litter stuff to try and get rid of the smell. Didnt help much. But.... yesterday we spread lime all over that spot and the first thing the burros did was smell it. They havent pee'd in that spot since. Actually they havent pee'd in the corral at all.
 
Marty the reason they pee straight away is because the stall is clean. If you left a bit of damp underneath, as I do, they would not need to mark there territory so they would not do it. Same with the poop, altho mares are more difficult to train than stallions. And it's handy if you want a urine sample- put down a spotless bed, bring horse in, horses pees!!
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