This riddle has become one of the least solved in the world of stablemen and horse owners since logical responses tend to go against the rules of the riddle. However, today we’ve decided to talk about it and give you some additional information about fitting your horses in stables and all that it entails. Many people still haven’t figured out ‘How do you fit 10 horses into 9 stalls?’ Here’s our answer: [T][E][N][H][O][R][S][E][S].
Literally, we don’t think you can really fit two horses in a stable meant for one. If a horse remains unsheltered after the other nine have been put to habitat, you’ll be forced to find a new space for the left-out guy! If your stalls are spacious enough to hold two horses at a time, we recommend you to go to the last one and remove the end wall, then split it into two. There you go! You’ll acquire extra space for the tenth horse.
Taking such a step might be due to an emergency occasion such as an unseen heavy storm that ends up forcing you to shelter in limited space. Another factor that might end up putting you in such a situation is nightfall before arrival. If you’re traveling as a team and everyone’s on their horseback and nightfall catches you in between; you might have to take a sudden stop since you never know what the darkness holds for you. Hereby, you’ll have to work with the available space to make sure every stallion gets shelter and some good resting time. Therefore, apart from providing an answer to your all-time horse riddle, ‘How do you fit 10 horses into 9 stalls?’, we’ll also take you through the different forms of horse shelters and the recommended approaches to take when building a stall for your horse.
Read: How Do Wild Horses Float Their Teeth?
How Do You Fit 10 Horses into 9 Stalls?
Horse Sheltering
If you’ve owned several horses before, you’ll probably understand that not every horse will require housing or a stable for shelter. Some horses are capable of staying and living outdoors due to thawing thick skin coats that make them adaptable. All you have to do is shelter them from the summer sun, prevailing winds, storms, and flies as well. However, the type of sheltering required for a horse will always differ from one horse breed to another since some horses might have thicker skin and a higher level of endurance than others.
However, very young horses, clipped and elderly ones will need to be sheltered from extreme weather conditions such as hot sunny days, cold and even rainy days. Moreover, any sick or injured horse should be well taken care of especially in terms of shelter to make sure the situation doesn’t escalate and become something worse.
Fence height for your horses
The fence height to be installed for your field will usually be determined by the types and breeds of horses you have around. The BHS (British Horse Society) recommends you install a 4ft high fence for an average horse.
- For Horses 1.1 to 1.4m you’ll build a 3 to 4ft fence (6in,6in)
- For Ponies 1 to 1.3m you’ll install a 3 to 4ft fence (3in, 3in)
- For stallions, you’ll need a 1.4m to 1.8m (6in, 6in)
If you’re fencing for stallions, you might need a double fence and maybe an electric fence running across the paddock rail top to prevent possible aggression between different paddocks. This will also basically help to keep the stallion contained in a certain area.
Electric fences for horses
When installing electric fences for your ponies or horses, you should make sure that they are properly designed and installed before launching them. These installations should not cause any extreme hair to your horse rather than momentary instant discomfort that’s expected to keep them off the fence; not punish them. Therefore, one should make sure that all the electric units are earthed properly. The fencing should also be made visible to your stallions or ponies to avoid unnecessary injuries. Upon installing an electric fence in the field, you should keep an eye on it until the horses get accustomed and aware of its presence. When grazing your herd, horses causing conflicts and chaos should be separated using paddocks to prevent bullying and fights that may bring about injuries.
Horse stables and housing
When building stables or housing for your horses, you should engage professional parties to ensure that the design is perfectly done to accomplish its sheltering purpose. You should consider obtaining comfort and safety for your horse and most importantly easy access for the subjects. If horse stabling is done carelessly and poorly managed, this might lead to rapid disease spreading and injuries as well. Your horse’s water bowls and hay hacks should not have any sharp edges exposed that might end up injuring the horse. The stable floor on the other hand should have good drainage and be evenly leveled.
Stable doors should be wide enough to accommodate the width of your horse fully. When solving our riddle. ‘How do you fit 10 horses into 9 stalls?’, we realized that one crucial thing that can save you during such a situation is the size of your stables. If your stable’s width is more than 1.5m wide, then you’ll have a chance to split the allowance and create space for two average-sized horses. When constructing the stable roofs, there should be a 1-1.5m space allowance above your standing horse’s wither to the roof.
Conclusion
In this text, we’ve realized that horse stabling and housing is quite an involved and time-consuming activity that requires maximum attention and professional intervention; to make sure there’s no room for mistakes. We believe you’ve understood the lesson a horseman should learn from the puzzle ‘How do you fit 10 horses into 9 stalls?’ Since it’s next to impossible, you should understand that the riddle is meant to help you figure out the stabling approaches one should take during certain circumstances to shelter your herd.
