 |
FOALS, TRAINING, IMPRINTING, THE FIRST YEAR |
|
|
FOALS, TRAINING, IMPRINTING, THE FIRST YEAR |
|
~smiles~...hi...i have quite a bit of experience raising foals and
working with youngsters...the most important thing is patience...and
then repetition, repetition, repetition...do the same thing over and
over and over again...do it until the horse seems downright bored
with what you are doing...then he is ready to move forward to the
next
lesson... a common mistake that i see is people who think that just because a colt "tolerates" something, he's ready to move on...if he is just at the level where he is tolerating something there is a very real chance that you could scare the bejeezus out of him by trying to move forward...if that happens, you will lose anywhere from hours to weeks of work in building trust... it's human nature to want to progress as quickly as possible...and also human nature to want to see progress daily...that's not very realistic, in my experience...sometimes you will seem stuck on one thing for a week or more...that one leg that he just will *not* allow you to pick up more than once a day...you have to get past that before you can move on...just saying "he tolerates it once, we'll see how he does on *this*" will only cause trouble in the future... repetition is the only way to ensure that he *gets* the lesson...as i said before, do it until he seems bored with it... an example for you...when i imprint a newborn foal, and for each day of the first month+ of his life, i repeat each touch a bare minimum of 75 times...more if he seems to need it...the goal is to teach them that you aren't going to hurt them...that can be more difficult with those who aren't handled early...that's where the patience comes in...~smiles~... ...as i stated, i've had a LOT of experience handling babies (currently there are 12 in my charge)... -- Posted on: pmufoalquest@egroups.com by glenda Richard Shrake has a video on resistance free training for the weanling that is pretty good. Some of the imprint books also talk about early "training". For ours, we start with touching--all parts of the body including reproductive (since later stallions and geldings will need sheath cleanings and mares will need their bags washed, etc.). Richard Shrake talks about in one of his tapes, I don't remember if its the weanling one, about certain pressure points on the horse that, when rubbed, release calming endorphines including the backs of the ears, the dip above the eyes, the long side of the cheek, the point of the shoulder, and the rear end near the tail. Initially those are all areas that the babies are sensitive about, but they quickly learn to like it. Then grooming with a soft brush. Next is halter (since we prefer that they have learned to stand still before we try to pick up their feet! but we still will touch their legs and tap their hooves with a pick) and leading and tying. Then we start to pick up their feet and just hold them for a few seconds. Then we hold and tap, then we start to pick out their feet (even though at this age they don't usually have much to pick unless they've been in the mud. Finally we start to sack them out. We will just take them for leading walks through neighborhoods, around kids, around cars, wave plastic grocery sacks by them, flapping white sheets, and throw towels over their bodies and heads, pull their tails--I have five kids and I want my horses to be bomb-proof! By the time they are yearlings, we are putting bareback pads on and teaching about girth tightening, even though they won't be saddled for another year or two. We have found that the more you expose them to, the less they find to be nervous about later. But its not just one time exposure--you have to do everything over and over. And don't forget both sides. Horses brains are not connected in the middle (no corpus collosum) so you have to teach each side as if its a separate horse! And they will respond differently on each side due to their individual preference. Naturally how quickly all this proceeds depends on the personality and nature of the baby. Some are just laid back and don't mind any of it right from the start, some are hyper and never do really calm down, but they learn what is expected of them and they have good manners even when they get excitable. -- Posted on: pmufoalquest@egroups.com by val |
|
|
|
|
