How to entertain my pony on box rest?

Freya is back!: How to entertain my pony on box rest?
My pony has laminitis (please do not critisise me – she is old and never had laminitis before and we have been very careful. It was possibly cushings disease so hopefully not due to bad management). Any suggestions? For obvious reasons she can’t go out or have any high-calorie treats.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Pony Girl
hii, my m8s pony was like that.
so she put a soft ball in there, he enjoyed nudging and kicking it bout. or a ball with holes in, then put little grains of pony nuts in, just makesure you spend time with her 🙂
hope she gets better soon 🙂 xx

Answer by edge6661
Any feed she does get, even if it’s just a balancer, can be put it a feed ball for her to play with, though not all horses like this, some just find them frustrating.

I imagine she is on restricted hay. Bulk it out with oat straw and/or increase the amount of hay but soak it for 12 hours to remove most of the nutrients.

Make sure she has company she likes in the next stable and try and make sure that at less one horse is in with her all the time. (not easy to do if they are owned by other people). If her special horse friend lives out or isn’t stable next to her, bring the other horse for visits.

Some horses like stable mirrors, some find them upsetting. If you want to try one put it away from were she normally feeds so she doesn’t feel threatened.

Spend as much time with and near her as possible. If she is in pain she may not want you all over her but you can still be close by.

You can encourage cats and friendly dogs to spend time with your horse, feed them close to her stable and use a stall chain and leave the door open to make it easy for them to go in (if your sure the horse won’t mind.) One of the ponies at my yard has made friends with a chicken!

Play some music close to her. Horses seem to like calm classical music. Keep the volume fairly low and don’t play it non-stop. I’ve known people to play the radio to their horse all night for company but i think peace a quiet is important too (and you have no control over the type of music on the radio).

If you are allowed to take her out for walks put a muzzle on her. That way you don’t have to be fighting her (and possible pulling her off balance on her sore feet) whenever she trys to grab a mouthful of grass.

I hope it isn’t cushings and she makes a full recovery