6 Tips to Help Your Horse’s Boredom

When horses get bored, they sometimes get destructive, as many chewed stall walls and broken fence rails can attest. A bored horse is a horse looking for something to pass the time, and unfortunately, their ideas often cause damage. Buckets, troughs, stalls, fencing—horses can break them all!

You can try to stop the damage by installing chew guards or similar preventive measures, but a better fix is to figure out how to keep your horse from becoming bored in the first place. Time outside is probably the best equine boredom buster possible.

 Horses naturally prefer to graze most of the day, and when they’re grazing, they’re probably not engaging in destructive pastimes. Grazing is excellent for your horse’s mental health, and it’s often the best for their physical well-being, too.

The problem, of course, is that this isn’t always practical or possible. Many horse owners—and even boarding facilities—don’t have the acreage to ensure that every horse on the property can be outdoors all day. Or perhaps it’s winter and your horse doesn’t have anything to graze on. Or perhaps he needs to be kept in a stall while healing from a health issue, or maybe you stall him at certain times to avoid weather or wildlife.