Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that each of my horses has a different water bucket set up. Which I'm sure sounds ridiculous. And it is kind of. But they're not actually that different, and there is a reason for all of it!

We'll start with Eros' buckets. I actually had bought these buckets for Pammon when he came home that Covid summer and I couldn't find my regular buckets in stock anywhere. But now they are Eros' and after I show them to you, I'll explain why I gave them to him.

So normal buckets have that flat back area on the one side so they sit nicely against a wall, but usually the flat part is shorter than the ones you see here. You can kind of see a normal one behind that top bucket for reference. These buckets are also a much heavier duty that my regular ones. Which means when they are full, they're pretty heavy! But worth it. Okay, so now that you know what's different about them, I'll tell you why E has them. As we all know, Eros is almost perfect in nearly every way, but he does have a few quirks. One of them is that he LOVES to throw his buckets. I feed him on the ground in a rubber tub because he would throw his feed tub against the wall all night and keep me awake. But he's just as happy to throw his water buckets. With the wider flat area on these, they don't bounce as much against the wall so less water ends up spilling. Which is nice. And since they're heavier duty, they're holding up well to the abuse. This is his second season with them, and they still look great. You may also notice I have guards on the handles just to protect them from that part of the handle that folds back on itself. 

These guards are great

I've seen horses rip noses and eyelids on those, so these little covers just protect from that. I get them from Schneiders. There are other ways to cover them that might be cheaper (and you'll see one such way shortly) but I like these guys. 

Shiny's set up is my "normal" if you will. Regular buckets with the guards on them:

Occassionally she will damage a bucket by rubbing on it, but for the most part, she's pretty gentle on the things in her stall. These are holding up just fine! 

And then there's Al's buckets:

He has the normal buckets like Shiny because he's also not particularly abusive to them. But do you see what's different? 

His handles are wrapped in vet wrap. Why you ask? Because Al enjoys removing the guards. Every time I put them on. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. So finally I just gave up and used the vet wrap. Which isn't a guarantee. He also removes this sometimes, but it seems to stay on a lot longer than guards. He's such a child. 

So that's today's confession. I apparently cave to every whim of my horses. But you know, happy horse, happy life! So here we are. Do you have to make any adjustments like these for your horses?