When your horse soils their hay, no one is happy. Urinating on hay wastes your time, money, and makes a mess. So what can you do about this unpleasant stall habit? Let’s turn to equine behavior to learn why horses pee on hay, and get some simple and humane solutions to stop your horse from peeing on hay.
The Reasons Horses Pee on Hay
A surprising number of equestrians struggle with this behavior. So what gives? What makes your horse want to pee on their hay?
This article covers the biological and behavioral reasons that horses develop a habit of urinating on their forage. If you haven’t read it, start there – knowing why is crucial for changing the behavior. In short, your horse is NOT:
- Showing they hate their hay
- Trying to spite you
- Scent marking
Instead, this peeing on hay is a learned behavior that may come from horses trying to eliminate more comfortably. Some horses seem averse to being splashed with urine, which is very understandable! Without an adequate place to go, they may choose their forage as a place to urinate.
Keeping in mind that your horse isn’t ruining their hay to be a jerk, and that there’s a good reason for their behavior, here are some actionable strategies for redirecting this icky habit. You’ll see, going through each of these tips, that retraining a hay-peeing horse is more about providing a pee-positive environment.
Don’t Forget the Vet
Urinary issues can indicate a health issue. Infections, kidney trouble, or metabolic conditions can all impact how much your horse drinks and urinates. This article on polyuria from Equus Magazine covers the ins and outs of excessive urination.
If peeing on hay is a sudden change for your horse, or is accompanied by any other behavioral or physical symptoms, contact your vet. If a physical problem is at the root of the behavior, these strategies won’t work and can let illness go unchecked.
When your horse’s behavior and urine output is normal and you have determined that they’re peeing on hay out of habit, you can take action to change the behavior.
Ways to Stop Your Horse from Peeing on Hay
All these tips work together to help your horse eliminate in a way that works for both of you. Just like with any behavior, it takes time and care to set your horse up for success.
1. Give Your Horse Great Stuff to Pee On Instead
Remember, most peeing on hay comes from not having a better place to take a leak. If your horse urinates on hay regularly, it’s time to evaluate their bedding situation.
To retrain a hay-peeing horse, you must provide them an absorbent, splash-catching place to urinate. Don’t expect your horse to learn to accept urine splash. Instead, provide a great place to go – especially in the stall. This is a must-have for teaching your horse that it’s okay to pee on the stall floor rather than seeking out the hay pile.
Deep, fluffy stall bedding absorbs liquid as the horse urinates. How deep? If you have standard stalls with concrete or rubber flooring, less than 4 inches of bedding isn’t likely to prevent splashing. A normal urination can be several liters in volume – that’s a lot of liquid!
A deep bedding system, with plenty of fluffy material, catches the liquid. It also provides a barrier of dry shavings atop the soiled ones at the bottom, giving your horse a more comfortable place to sleep. Wood shavings are ideal, but any soft and absorbent material will work.
2. Keep It Dry
Wet bedding does a bad job of preventing pee from splashing back onto your horse. It’s like trying to soak up a spill with a towel that’s already wet.
Teaching your horse not to pee on their hay means helping them learn that it’s comfortable to urinate in the center of the stall. You’ll need to be on top of stall cleaning during this process.
If you keep horses at home, check the stall more frequently and pick out wet sections of bedding. The deep bedding system makes this easy – just rake aside the dry, fluffy layer of bedding and remove any wet material beneath. Don’t let moisture accumulate.
3. Size It Up
Stall space can play a role in whether your horse urinates in a clean, easy-to-manage area.
Many horses prefer not to lie down in a urine-soaked stall. The moisture may be uncomfortable, and the scent of ammonia can be overwhelming to the sensitive equine nose. Restricted space may push the horse toward peeing into a corner full of hay instead, triggering the development of the habit. It’s up to us to set horses up for success by giving more options.
So whenever possible, stall your horse in the largest space available. This is a good idea for all horses, but especially important if you’re retraining a habit like peeing on hay.
If you’re designing a new stable, plan generously sized stalls that give your horse ample space in which to eliminate, sleep, and eat. This won’t just improve your horse’s welfare and habits – it makes stall care easier! If you are selecting a boarding barn, choose one that has more spacious stalls.
And whenever possible, keep your horse outside! Paddocks will almost always have more choice of places to urinate, and the extra space makes it easier for you to provide forage out of reach of pee.
4. Pay Attention to Paddocks
With that said, don’t take peeing outside for granted. To retrain a horse who prefers to urinate on hay, you’ll need to be mindful of their turnout situation, too.
Hard, dry ground doesn’t absorb urine and can splash even more than a poorly bedded stall. This perpetuates the bad habit as your horse “practices” peeing on hay. Make sure that your paddock contains at least one – preferably several – good spots to pee.
Horses can learn to eliminate on specific surfaces or locations. Adding a few areas with fluffy bedding such as wood shavings provides comfortable places to pee. You can speed the process by adding a scoop of urine-soaked bedding from your horse or a herdmate to each urination station.
5. Prevent the Horse from Peeing on Hay
If you want to stop your horse from peeing on hay, why is “move the hay” the fifth suggestion in the article instead of the first?
Because urinating on hay is less about the hay and more about where else your horse can choose to go. It’s not ideal to prevent a behavior without providing a better, more positive option.
Moving your hay location is the next step after improving your stall and paddock bedding in order to give your horse more comfortable areas to pee. This is because giving your horse better pee places might solve the problem on its own, no change to your hay setup needed.
But if your horse is convinced that hay is the appropriate surface for peeing, more changes may be needed.
Moving the hay off the ground and into a feeder is the best preventative. Offering hay on the ground tends to create lots of wasted hay, anyway. Instead, save hay and money by using slow-feed hay nets, Porta-Grazers, or DIY hay holders. These products are available for all types of hay and various horse requirements.
In the stall, moving your hay into a net, manger, or other off-ground device is the best way to redirect urination. These devices also extend the amount of time your horse spends on hay, which is enriching and more natural for your horse. They’re worth the investment!
6. Give it Time
Habits are tough to break. If your horse pees on hay, it’s likely because they’re convinced that doing so is the best option.
Giving them better places to do their business, and making it hard or impossible to pee on their hay, will help – but building a new habit takes time.
If your horse finds loose hay and makes a mistake, don’t punish (they won’t understand why, anyway). Instead, stay on course. A few months of consistently providing urination locations and off-the-ground forage and your horse will be well on track.
Stop Your Horse From Peeing On Hay: Side Benefits
These positive changes to your horse’s environment will help create lasting behavior change. Remember, if your horse continues to struggle with elimination behavior or shows any other symptoms, bring in your vet for an exam.
The best part of using these tips to stop your horse from peeing on hay is that they’ll improve your horse’s lifestyle overall. Comfortable places to rest, clean housing, and ample turnout are great ways to elevate your horse’s quality of life.
Before you go, don’t forget to browse the enrichment galleries for ways to create more fun and excitement for your horse!
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