Well done Bree for the sensible and gentle ways you use to train your babies. Must admit that my methods are a little different - mostly because I dont bother until they are weaned - but like you I use gentle pressure and release, plus the idea of turning rather than immediately forward, and NEVER any pulling, grappling or allowing things to get stressed!
Cassie, why do you have a headcollar on Finn? Any headcollar left on ANY animal while it is outside, or away from your immediate attention, is an accident waiting to happen. If you really want him to wear a headcollar for more than half an hour or so, then you are better putting it on at night in the stable, where, hopefully, there is nothing for him to hook himself up on. Just wondering why you would want him to wear it all day?
Megan I would be very careful about using a dry lot for Ricky. I'm a great believer in the fact that horses, particularly youngsters should have their natural food available at all times if possible. Hay will not help him loose his tummy - grass, correct food and exercise will. The difficulty you have will be with the exercise. Where you have two or more colts of his age together, they will race around, play and fight and keep themselves fit. When you just have one, they never doing the amount of 'playing' that they will do with others of their own age. So you have got to somehow 'replace' those companions!!
Once he's a year you could do a little gentle round penning, but for now, if you have safe walks in your area, you are better to lead him out yourself for long walks together with spells of running with him so he is trotting - not on hard road surfaces. Also would your dog play on the other side of the fence with him a couple of times a day (as happened before)? Ricky is just one of the many youngsters who tends to have a bit of a tummy and in my opinion, keeping him on a dry lot wont help. You will still have to feed him good amounts of hay (and exercise him) - youngsters particularly need plenty of roughage as, if they are restricted, they will most probably get stomach ulcers through their stomach acid having long 'gaps' with nothing to work on. Any restrictions in diet can cause problems in later years.
Ricky is a lovely looking little colt, plus he moves really well, so just give him plenty of sensible exercise, get him washed, groomed and trimmed and go and have fun at some shows. Maybe, once he gets to 10 months old, you could look into replacing his food with a good quality balancer like Gro and Win, plus his grass and hay - you might just find this will sort out his slight overweight appearance!
Sorry Bree, I seem to have taken over your thread - an waffled on a bit too much too! LOL!!
She was a monster to show prep, hated the clippers on her legs and was getting really sulky about her short training sessions. I was sure we were going to do SO badly!
:wub
lol
