Suggestions for horse enrichment/entertainment

Zalanthe

Zalanthe

Citizen of Zooville
I want to try and give the horses in my care and my own some more means to occupy and entertain themselves. I already have some tough rubber balls and a bit of variety in plants and bushes around their field. So what I'm looking for is mostly some good puzzles, of the problem solving variety. I've had some ideas of my own, but I'd love a few new ideas thrown my way. ♥️
 
I've had some luck tying Jolly Ball type toys from overhead beams and letting them hang low enough to be batted about wth noses. Just have to make sure they're high enough that that they can't get entangled. I use a bit of rope that will break if stressed too much which helps with safety, but inevitably it wears out and comes down; leaving you have to hunt for wheverver it got hauled in the pasture...easy when the grass is short, but likely to end up in a bale when it gets too long.

Most balls we've tried out with them either get stomped flat or chomped up in fairly short order, curious to hear if anyone has found something durable.
 
egoldstein said:
I've had some luck tying Jolly Ball type toys from overhead beams and letting them hang low enough to be batted about wth noses. Just have to make sure they're high enough that that they can't get entangled. I use a bit of rope that will break if stressed too much which helps with safety, but inevitably it wears out and comes down; leaving you have to hunt for wheverver it got hauled in the pasture...easy when the grass is short, but likely to end up in a bale when it gets too long.

Most balls we've tried out with them either get stomped flat or chomped up in fairly short order, curious to hear if anyone has found something durable.
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I do already have some balls for them at the moment. Not sure what variety, since I got them from the thrift store, and they're pretty old. The kind of entertainment my horse needs is more of the "thinking" variety, for lack of a better term. He's a bit of an ass a lot of the time and likes to untie shoelaces. Had a lot of success with giving him boxes and plastic bags with treats for him inside if he can find his way in, but I'd like something I can leave out without littering with plastic and other garbage.

pes said:
You can look at what various zoos do for their animals of similar species or size.
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Can't think of anything that fits really. At least for an animal without articulated dexterity. Though I concede, I haven't exactly gone past the first page on google with that.
 
@Zalanthe
You could try teaching them to paint
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How to choose a paintbrush for your horse

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You could get them a projector and play tv for them on the side of their barn at night.

and there are about a thousand different things you can do with the snoot press button, such as let them turn on and off their stable lights or call you on your cell phone:

Big Dome Push Button - Yellow: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Big Dome Push Button - Yellow: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.com

stainless steel mirrors are good too as they don't shatter if your horse kicks them or rubs on them:
www.mcmaster.com

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.
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So far as physical puzzle toys, you want things that can recombine into lots of new puzzles, because horses will either A) solve the puzzle and then repeatedly complete it without much further entertainment, or B) get frustrated by it and stop playing with it.
Traffic cones are okay as you can combine them together in novel ways:
www.youtube.com

Horse solves puzzle | Problem solving and cognitive enrichment

Subscribe to our channel for more videos on horse training, behaviour and welfare.✔ Become a patron - Support us: https://www.patreon.com/fairhorsemanship✔ W...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

I'd recommend heading over to "The Library" which is my section of the data and research blog on the forum and taking a look at some of the various horse studies involving equine cognition and maybe consider gamifying the size discrimination task or the shape matching task.

If you happen to be very well off you can buy one of the special resistive touch screen TVs (Don't use the normal capacitive ones as they get horse slober on them and stop working.) and program all sorts of games into that.
thehorse.com

iPads for Horses? Touch-Screen Technology in Equine Research – The Horse

Touch-screen computers could remove the risk of human influence in research on equine decision-making and actions.
thehorse.com thehorse.com


Just remember to be patient with your horse and make sure they are having fun with whatever it is they are doing. It's like being a DM for D&D, you don't want to give your horse a challenge they can't solve, and if they are having trouble make it easier for them until they get started on solving basic things and then work up to bigger challenges. Also keep in mind that horses have a cycle of about 45 minutes of eating followed by 45 minutes of resting / standing guard / playing, so don't make them play games when they are hungry.
 
@LeftFilly You're an absolute treasure. This stuff is just the kind of info I was looking for. Good thing I do have some DM experience under my belt already. I did think about trying something that'd be as much of a puzzle as a socialising experience too, with a puzzle where solving it let's someone else get to the treat. Mostly because I'm curious where they'd care to help each other out getting a snack. Some puzzles and play they can easily engage in together seems like it'd be a lot of fun to me. (Granted, I'm not a horse.)

And don't worry, I don't force them around, so the initiative is usually theirs, and usually they don't need much convincing.
 
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