Traveling with your horse can be stressful for both of you, especially if your horse gets twitchy in the trailer. Frequent kicking and pawing at the walls causes serious injuries to your best friend, that’s why we designed the SafeKick Wall System. Designed to flex when your horse kicks the walls of the trailer, the SafeKick Wall System is different from other wall systems in horse trailers. We know what horses need because we’re horse owners ourselves!
Many horse trailers have thin rubber walls with thick, hard backing plates to secure them. With less than 1/4 inch of rubber, it doesn’t take long for a horse to paw or kick away the rubber, exposing sharp fasteners that can injure him. A SafeKick wall is made of a thick slab of durable material composed of 95 percent plastic and 5 percent rubber -- the plastic gives it a lot of strength and the rubber allows it to flex just enough to protect your horse.
Understanding Why Horses Kick
Stall kicking and trailer kicking are sometimes related behaviors. Often, horses that kick in their stalls Fihave learned that behavior in response to boredom -- some horses realize that if they kick, they’ll get rewarded with food or attention in response to the action. If your horse kicks in the stall and kicks when loaded in a horse trailer, you may be able to correct the behavior with careful training, but a SafeKick Wall System can help protect your horse while they unlearn the habit.
Horses who kick out of fear are another problem entirely. Sometimes horses kick the walls of horse trailers because they’re afraid of being confined or of the trip that’s coming -- they may have experienced trauma while enclosed or been involved in a trailer accident. Fear kicks usually don’t start right away. The horse will try to back away or resist entering the trailer first. This is a much trickier problem -- you’ll probably need the help of an animal behaviorist, who should be able to tone down the kicking or pawing. These horses will hurt themselves in a trailer eventually unless you take care to design your custom horse trailers with their anxiety in mind.
You know your horse better than anybody, though -- just because the most common causes of kicking are fear and habit, that doesn’t mean your horse might not be kicking out of joy. A horse that happily loads, has a great time when he’s on the trail or at a show and gives every sign that he’s enjoying every minute might be kicking or pawing out of impatience or excitement. Those are the horses we all want, but they still need protection for their feet.
Before you settle on your next horse trailer, take a look at our offerings. All our trailers come with SafeKick Wall Systems standard because we care about your horse. Call us today at 1-888-244-2029 or check out our website to design your custom trailer for less than you might expect.
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