My new horse

OK I just went mad and have arranged to buy my mates foal. a Welsh Section D filly. I will probably have her when she is a yearling but until then I have access to her to play with her. Anybody got any suggestions of good things I can do? Unfortunately there is nowhere where my friend lives where I can take mare and foal out, we have to stay in the field. She already leads and picks up her feet. She is 2 months old now. She's had a blanket all over her and ropes and stuff dropped from her back onto the floor. Practically broken in, really.

How exciting!! Congratulations!

Is she too young to introduce to scary things like plastic bags, balloons, swinging a rope over her head, the sound of clippers (if she ever needs to be clipped) and such? What about walking between or over poles? Walking through "tight" spaces (tight in a horse's mind, like between you and a fence). I don't know how young a person can start these things. I do know of a breeder who starts her foals with Parelli-type stuff right from the get-go and they end up with great ground manners.

Would love to see a pic of your new addition! At 2 months she must be darling!

I would load a pic here if I knew how (help Wendy!)

I suppose I could load her into the trailer - her mom loads well. And walking over stuff is a good idea I hadn't thought of, thanks

Loading onto a trailer is a GREAT idea!! Fanny isn't a fan of loading. She doesn't take forever to do it, but she does get sweaty and stressed by the end of the trip.

What about washing her feet/legs? Fanny hasn't been bathed - I hope to work on being able to rinse her off this summer - but she is perfectly fine with me getting a bucket of water and washing off her legs and feet (I did that a couple of times when she was muddy and the farrier was coming).

Another thing is maybe getting the foal used to spray bottles, like bug spray or antiseptic sprays. You never know when you might need to spray her. Same would apply for anything that would mimic anything that a vet might have to do - fingers in the mouth (don't know how safe that is with a foal), etc.. I'm just trying to think of things that an emergency might call for, too.

Ooh, happy new horse How exciting!

My general rule with Z when he was tiny was that he did everything that his mum did except get ridden. So if his mum was groomed, had her legs washed, got fly spray etc etc then so did he. It was great, he became so confident and self important: "Us big grown up horses are having our legs washed" The nice thing was, that he became really interested in anything that we were doing and asked for attention so it was a doddle to do things with him. Just do anything you can think of, lots of touching and messing around, they love playing and intereracting.

My caveat would be, if she is shy with you to start with then spend time just being around her until she gets curious about you and starts to want some interaction. I think if the touching etc is against their wishes while they still fear you then it can set up a bad feeling. There are various differing opinions on this of course what with the people who like 'imprinting' from birth but I personally don't like to get straight in there without permission! Keep it fun and short and never drill them by repeating boring things.

Also, I don't know if the mare is ridden but if she is then try riding and leading her from the saddle. It's absolutely great for them and you can start as soon as the mare is ready to ride. It teaches them to lead up easily as they are following Mum anyway and learn to connect the halter pressure with moving on.

Have to stop or I'll start reminiscing about Z's babyhood and go on for ever Lots of luck!

Ooooh, lovely! Lucky you!

A note of caution - it is possible to overhandle foals, especially when they are very young. I understand that being handled a couple of times a week for 10mins or so initially is a good idea, esp. as their attention spans are very short.

Best of luck

this is good keep it coming guys. Yes we did imprint her, I'm a big fan of it. So she will pick up her feet and lead and you can handle her all over. Dammit, Cyndi, we forgot the sprayer though!
she is difficult to catch - because her mother is ( bad experiences at a previous home) and my friend doesn't really know how to fix it although i have helped her with that recently and things are better. Lightning is perfect once you have a rope looped around her neck, then it's easy to put the foal slip on ( the woman who sold it to Julia said, oh, once it's on you just leave it on all the time aargh) so i think she just doesn't understand what we want. Last time i was there i followed her around for about 40 minutes before she stood for me to put the rope on. She isn't scared of the rope itself.

My horse was very like this (and still has her off days). Not sure how relevant this is for a foal, but with my horse its imperative NOT to make eye contact and responds very well to a modified version of advance and retreat. She also is fine once you have the rope over her neck, but is now at the point of offering her nose if the headcollar is held up

Let us know how you get on

Congrats on your new family member! What do you plan to do with her once shes big enough to be worked/ridden/driven?

she is difficult to catch - because her mother is ( bad experiences at
a previous home) and my friend doesn't really know how to fix it
although i have helped her with that recently and things are better.

Since I have been doing equine behaviour in university one of my assignments was to teach something to a horse using classical conditioning. I started out teaching Indigo how to "shake a hoof" and got real good with that. Then my friend called me and she couldn't get her naughty pony to come in from the field. She was worried he was going to get laminitis. She said he was always hard to catch. So I re-arranged my assignment and taught the pony to come to the gait when we jingled the chain. Here is how we did it. We first caught the pony. We stood him near the gait with a bucket with treats in it. My friend jingled the chain, I gave him treats, jingled the chain, gave him treats. We started moving him further and further away still jingling the chain and giving him treats. So after about 5 minutes of feeding and jingling we left him be. We came back a few minutes later, jingled the chain and he came galloping for his treats all the way across the paddock he was used to being chased. Eventually you can take away the unconditioned stimulus (treats) and pony will come with the jingle of a chain.

I would suggest clippers, bags, pressure around the barrel, rope under the tail, sprayer, trailer loading. Say did you ever read dr.millers book on imprinting? It's a good read although I am not a big fan of interrupting the critical phase of mare foal bonding. Imprinting can be done when they are a few days old too.

I'm a massive fan of imprinting and I bought Dr Millers book before Kitty was born 16 years ago! I imprinted Kitty before she first stood up and we imprinted Lightning before we went to work on the first day - we were really late in but everyone had guessed why!
I plan to buy a Saddlechariot when she is 2 then ride her as a 4 year old. She may end up being my last horse if she lives 30 years. I chose the name particularly carefully, I believe a horse lives up to it's name

I would love to hear how the Saddlechariot works out!!! One of those is on my major wish list!!

My Uncle had a horse named Lightning. I'm sure yours will be a better horse than his was! She had one horrible mean streak in her, but as a kid I had absolutely no fear of her and I never had a problem with her.

Lightning's mother was being ridden in the clinic this last weekend so I got to play with her. It turns out my friend hasn't touched her since I was last there and she isn't really halter broke any more!
We had fun - I got a long rope and was throwing it over her and she was scuttling out from under it then coming back to pick it up and chew it. After a while I got it around her chest and then we did leading, and backing up, and I got behind her and drove her and turned her on her haunches then I put it around her legs and led her by each front leg and by each hind. It is so easy with a horse that has no preconceptions it's amazing.
Then I gave her a big tight belly hug - she's nearly ready to ride!!!
I'm going to try to put on some pics so you can see how gorgeous she is

That sounds wonderful!!! How nice that you got to do so much with her!!

Can hardly wait to see those pics!!

Oh we had fun today. I got a headcollar on Lightning ( I said to my friend, you haven't been doing this have you? she said, how do you know, I said I have had to let the headcollar out 5 holes and in another week it will be too small!)
We did leading and turning - interesting how an untouched horse knows all about turn on the haunches but finds turn on the forehand difficult to understand.
then we went out in the big field and walked around; then - I was so chuffed - we trotted then cantered together then I just STOPPED and so did she - spun around and went the other way all on a completely loose rein. I said, this is how she will be when I ride her, my friend said rather you than me!
How can I wait 3 years!

You sound like a kid looking at all the presents under the Christmas tree, wanting to open them NOW instead of waiting till Christmas!!!

What you did together with her sounds perfect!!

I sure hope the next three years go by quickly for you. You are getting me all excited about you riding her!!

Today we learned 'stuff Mother can't do'
Again, interesting that she played hard to get as her mother did but I could see she was really unsure why she was running away. Very interesting as soon as I touched a hand on her back she stopped dead and was caught. I spent half an hour wrapping her in rope and she thought this was great fun - Rose (mother) didn't , she is not 'rope broke' and was huffing and snorting nearby while I made up a mock driving harness and 'drove' Lightning around the pen. then I led her by the neck, by the front legs, by the back legs and by the ears (until the rope fell off)
I picked up all her feet - one was easy but 3 were not. Yes, again my friend has been 'regularly picking up her feet' - always the same one!
She is almost weaned no trouble at al - my friend has started to ride Rose for 20 minutes around the block and Lightning doesn't care.

Your progress is so encouraging to me

Lightning has been weaned this week. Her mother is turned out with my horses and she won't be caught - Lightning is all over everybody back at home. We are taking her to a foal show this week with an old pony for travelling companion. Any tips???

The Show...wow what a day I can't believe how good she was
First she loaded herself into the trailer next to old Image - we have been practicing a bit - she stood quiet all the way to the show and stood in the trailer while we went to enter. we got her out and she stood to be groomed, have her tail combed out and her legs washed - never done the last two before. She stood quietly in the collecting ring with all the usual half broken foal chaos going on around her. she went in the ring and walked and trotted with me. the judge said she was the quietest foal he'd ever seen and gave her First.
then she loaded back in the trailer like an angel and went home and out into the field like she did this every day.
I can't get over it - she's never even been out of the field before! And only 5 months old.

BRAVO!!!!! Well done, to both of you!!

It sounds like she really trusts you as her leader!

YAY FOR YOU!!!!

Superb work FlorayG! Congratulations!

oh now I feel embarrassed - I didn't make her like that, we just didn't do anything to make her NOT like that.
Aren't all horses born trusting? Makes you think what people must do to them doesn't it

That reminds me of what Hempfling says! He takes horses right out of the wild and trains them, and he says they respond so much better than domesticated horses because they haven't had any bad experiences with humans (not exactly those words, but similar).

Don't feel embarrassed! Yes, Lightning is trusting, but hats off to you for giving her a reason to keep trusting!!! As you said...you didn't do anything to make her NOT like that .

I couldn't agree more FlorayG, but as Cyndi says the point is you didn't do anything to not make her like that. Take your credit where its due! Its easier said than done for a lot of us!

Which 'wild' horses does Hempfling use Cyndi, do you know? I say 'wild', because there aren't any horses that are completely unmanaged by humans any more. And a lot of feral ponies are worse to train than domestic horses, as what little contact they have had with people has been bad, ie. branding, seperating mothers and foals, veterinary treatment etc etc. My friend's New Forest who came straight from the Forest is terribly afraid of humans. She still doesn't trust my friend after 2 years, though she gets a bit better all the time. Her foal (born at my friend's place) however, is immensely trusting and my friend can do anything with her.