An ultra simple horse toy made from upcycled water bottles? Sign us up! This easy equine boredom buster takes five minutes to make, works with any food or treats, and gives your horse a mental workout. Horse enrichment doesn’t have to be complicated to be lots of fun for your horse, so here’s how to make this 5 minute, easy DIY horse toy from water bottles step by step.
Easy DIY Horse Toy: Enrichment Doesn’t Have to be Complicated
Horse enrichment activities have tons of benefits for your horse. They’re not just fun and games! Enrichment provides the opportunity for natural behaviors like foraging, using the senses, or practicing fine motor control.
Enrichment for your horse helps them enjoy behaviors that they might not otherwise get to do, especially if they’re stalled.
Sometimes enrichment is complicated or time consuming, because a lot of the best equine enrichment is a do-it-yourself experience. There aren’t as many enrichment items on the market for horses as there are for dogs or cats, so if you value natural behaviors and stimulation you will eventually end up making some toys on your own.
But not all horse toys and boredom busters are complicated. Enrichment needs to work with YOUR busy schedule too, which is why I love writing about simple stuff like this 5 minute bottle puzzle for horses.
5 Minute Bottle Puzzle for Horses: On Budget Too
And another perk: this easy DIY horse toy is totally free because you’ll reuse beverage bottles to make it!
Some enrichment for horses does require some investment. There are some great commercially available horse toys or enrichment supplies out there – like the horse-sized, heavy duty Parallax hay roller – and having a few pricier but effective items in your arsenal is important for your horse’s behavioral health.
So when you can create effective enrichment using items from home, that saves money in your budget for higher-cost items. I love low-cost or free horse enrichment so much that I make sure to tag budget enrichment projects and toys so you can find them easily in the archives.
Behavior Benefits of the Water Bottle Easy DIY Horse Toy
Enrichment isn’t just fun and games – it’s important for your horse!
Puzzle feeders and other items like this easy DIY horse toy are sources of mental stimulation. Enrichment is all about encouraging your horse’s natural behaviors, and relieving boredom through interesting activities.
Compared to a bucket full of prepared grain, this toy setup takes a lot of work! The horse has to knock over the bottles and roll each one around to knock the food out.
But this extends the feeding time significantly, keeping boredom at bay. It also gives your horse the chance to seek and find their own food, which is an important part of good equine welfare.
Plus, you can use almost any food or treat in the 5 minute water bottle toy, from grain to celery chunks. That’s endless opportunity for flavor!
So let’s make this easy DIY horse toy! You’ll be in and out in five minutes. It can’t get any simpler than that.
How to Make an Easy DIY Horse Toy with Water Bottles: Step by Step
Step 1: Find the Right Bottles
I’m not usually a plastic-bottle kind of person (avoiding single-use plastic is a personal goal, so you’re more likely to see projects that use paper on this blog – like this ultra easy milk carton swinging treat toy).
But for this project, you’ll need several sturdy, wide-mouth water bottles. I used seven in this post, but you can work with a few more or less. The more bottles you use, the longer the experience will last.
I’m using these Shine Water containers. Any plastic bottle will do as long as it is food-grade and has a wide mouth/large lid.
Standard water or soda bottles have a narrow mouth, and it won’t release treats at a fair rate. You may be able to get away with using completely dry grain with a standard beverage bottle, but I don’t recommend it – use wide mouth bottles for some challenge but without causing frustration.
Rinse out the bottles and recycle the lids.
Step 2: Prep the Food
This easy DIY horse toy is a food enrichment item. Not all enrichment involves food, but seeking tasty things to eat is a really fun activity for most horses.
You can use any grain, pellet, or treat for this project. If your horse needs their feed soaked, I recommend soaking as lightly as possible so that the feed still has some structure.
One thing I like about slow feed devices like this is that, with a slower rate of eating, my horse can have less-soaked pellets without risk of choke. The toy slows the horse down so that the hay pellets or feed get fully chewed before swallowing.
These hay pellets are soft but still have some shape, so they’ll roll out of the bottles:
The horse in this demo eats a forage-based diet (and LOVES it) so I used his daily forage balancer, hay pellets, and a few basic extras like cucumber and carrots. As long as the feed fits in the bottle and is safe for your horse, go for it!
Step 3: Add the Goodies
When you have a selection of treats or feed ready to go, it’s time to fill the bottles.
Okay, I got a little ambitious with the variety:
But the great this about this easy DIY horse toy is that the bottles offer a lot of options for different flavors. I recommend putting a different type of treat or flavor combination in each bottle, so that your horse never knows exactly what they’ll get as they roll the bottles around.
Add the goodies to the bottles using your hands or a spoon.
Don’t fill the bottles up all the way. A little air space gives the food room to move around and slide toward the opening of the bottle as the horse works on the puzzle.
As soon as you’re done filling up the bottles, your easy DIY horse toy is ready to use.
Using the Easy DIY Horse Toy
This toy is best used in a kiddie pool or other broad, shallow container that keeps the food contained and easy to snarf up. Kiddie pools are amazing multipurpose horse enrichment items, so if you don’t have one I highly recommend a trip to the local discount store! They’re not expensive and let you do lots of cool enrichment projects.
Set the bottles upright in the pool or pan. If your horse is a beginner, turn a few over on their sides and sprinkle some freebie treats around the bottles to give them a hint. If your horse is very new to enrichment, you might want to check out the article on teaching your horse to use puzzles and enrichment items.
Now, enjoy!
Make sure to supervise your horse while they use this item. Stick around to make sure they’re using this easy DIY horse toy the right way and not doing anything silly like trying to eat the water bottles (not likely, but we all know that ONE horse).
Along the same lines, don’t leave the bottles in the paddock unattended. The are pretty harmless, but it’s best not to give your horse the benefit of the doubt – and you don’t want them rolling out of the paddock and becoming litter.
When your horse is finished, give the bottles a quick rinse and save them to reuse with a different combination of treats! Endless variety and options – all on a 0$ budget.
Related Enrichment
This water bottle 5-minute horse enrichment is an upcycle, DIY food puzzle. Try these to cover similar concepts:
The Hanging Plastic Jar Stall Feeder