Rearing foal

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Carly Rae

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Hi,

I just have a quick question about my little Texas, she is 3 months now.

Sometimes when I am out with her she rears up at me for no reason, I'm not sure if this is her 'playing' because she does it to her mum too. But she has her ears back when she does. Its normally when she is bundled up with energy.

But I dont want her to grow up thinking its ok. She is doing well with her leading though, sometimes she tries to bite my hand or the lead. Not really agressively though.

But anyway, how should I approach her when she does rear at me? Also if I sit down or kneel normally I have to stand because she rears. I push her away in reflex and give a stern "No Texas" but that doesn't really work.

Thanks in advance.
 
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She's testing your authority.....Do NOT let her get away with it!

I will push the foal away, stomp on the ground, and yell, "QUIT", when they try it. When she backs off and is calm, I'll give skritches and love.

Making a horse "back" is a good discipline tool when they've misbehaved.

I've seen people smack their horses in the face and that is a HUGE NO-NO in my book.
 
Hi Carly, I'm not experienced with babies so I will let others answer you question but I wanted to say one thing about the rearing. If she happens to rear while you are leading her, don't try to pull her down, just go with her until she comes down. I know someone who tragically lost a yearling morgan when the colt went "up" and when they tried to pull him down he fought, lost his balance and went over backwards breaking his neck.

Now that I got that off my chest I will let everyone else take over, lol. I just had to relate that experience as a PSA.
 
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I agree with miniv, when on the lead and in your space, this is a big problem. It may not seem huge now, but when full grown, this could become catastrophic. In the pasture by herself, this is okay play, all of mine do this, and when rearing or pawing momma, they get diciplined by her and you should do the same before it gets out of hand. You have already gotten good advice, hitting is counter productive and pulling back is useless and likely to cause more problems. Backing is a great corrective action. Pick a verbal command, such as "no" or "down" and be consistant with it. As miniv suggested, positive praise goes further than just reprimanding to curb the behavior. She is doing what babies do, challenging you, and you need to put her in her place by establishing your authority. Keep your training sessions short and sweet as babies have short attention spans and it is better to end on a positive note rather than to push it leaving the both of you frustrated. The rearing could also be the flee and flight response to poll pressure from the lead. It takes time for them to get comfortable on the lead and patience, if she pulls and wants to rear in response, try giving slack in the lead to relieve the pressure, once she comes down, gently back her to "reset" and try to get her to move forward again being sure not to pull her forward but push or drive her forward by staying at her shoulder as if you were teaching a dog to "heel". I know that there are many different training methods, this is what works for me, so do what works for the both of you and to stay safe.
 
Thank you very much.
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I'll keep that in mind, today I saw her getting ready to rear as she was walking to me, she had her head up and her ears were going back, and I stopped her before she had the chance by stomping my foot like you suggested and said "Uh, Uh" very firmly and she lowered her head and kept walking to me but in a much calmer manner.

Thanks Cayuse for the advice, I haven't pulled her down when she has reared. That is really sad though, poor little guy
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I really dislike people smacking as well, especially the face.
 
And if she does rear when on the line and over balances and flips - sideways or backwards - we've tried to maintain firm contact on the lead rope to keep their neck/heads from smacking the ground. Some babies seem to be "light" in the forequarters and spend a lot of time rearing. The body rope around the girth can also prevent them from rearing, but it makes it hard to do other leading activities sometimes.

You've gotten great advice and it's good to hear that you've already applied some to you advantage and it helped out!! Keep up your learning and good work Carly.
 
alttile off topic but when did u start her on leading and when did u first put her halter on? Great answers to this post I will have to try these suggestions too when start leading our Summer.
 
Thank you Paula
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Hmm, i put a halter on her when she was around a week old. And i started leading her around 3 weeks ago. Im fairly certain that I started her a bit too late but time just got ahead of me
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Thank you Paula
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Hmm, i put a halter on her when she was around a week old. And i started leading her around 3 weeks ago. Im fairly certain that I started her a bit too late but time just got ahead of me
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Never too late. Mine are about two months and haven't been altered, but I have been handling them.
 
Carly -

It's never "too late to start"... LOL.

I have gone up and down with how much foal handling we've accomplished. Honestly - the 2 living 2015 foals were ONLY haltered and led when their hooves were trimmed. But like others, they got touched/scritched/handled daily. They will both come up to us, to a point, but neither is overly friendly. While we've handled them, I usually block them in the feed pen when I need to do stuff with them. Even with the intermittent work, Riddler leads fairly well, ties, has been in the trailer (did use a combination of sending techniques and a butt rope) & went to a lrg/sml animal vaccination clinic to get his Rabies and Coggins done - went with a stallion who hadn't been castrated yet who is/was running with them in pasture - they did fine. He has the basics of sending out/coming in down (pseudo lounging) but far from perfect, LOL.

Blitzen has had far less work actually (what was that you said about time?) - on Friday she went a little crazy when I went to catch her - acted scared, flighty, trying to get away (first time ever for that, actually). I cornered her in the feed pen and stood quietly until she did, too. She eventually turned her head to look at me, at which point I touched her butt - walked right up beside her and slipped the halter on her. She planted all four hooves and extended her neck when I went to lead her off - I simply stepped sideways, pulling her off balance and she then took a step. The farrier was waiting in our shady spot (a bit of a walk out of the feed pen to her), so I flipped the extra lead around her butt and off we led right up to the farrier where Blitzen proceeded to have a complete hissy fit. I ended up "tailing" her (lifting her tail up over her back - helps to immobilize them) with one hand, while holding the side of her halter with her head against my hip (I was basically standing alongside her barrel). Finished the 1st hoof and all of a sudden she was fine! and stood quietly on a loose line for the other 3. Not sure what was going thru her head, LOL. While we did the rest of that pasture group, she stood tied. When the farrier left, our granddaughters watched as Blitzen got her first intro to water/bathing. She actually did very well - I left her tied. She danced around a bit, pulled back once & remembered her tying lessons. She moved back and forth a bit when I first started on her legs on each side - then all of a sudden she just took a deep breath, sighed it out, dropped her head and appeared to go to sleep. It didn't even phase her at all when I changed the setting on the hose and sprinkled water over her head - her first time. Of course, by then, it was over 100* real temp and hubby said that the heat index hit 112* here on Friday... it felt good! Probably won't do it until Thursday - but she will be getting some lead line work and her intro to the trailer - she is going to a vaccination clinic on Saturday and I want to easily be able to load her w/o too much concern...

.

The 3 babies this year - have all had a lot more work. They are coming along well. BUT they are babies, they get a "wild hair" now and then and want to go elsewhere. They will still rear and "play". They have each other to play with AND I don't spend a lot of time out there "playing" with them - so they don't generally rear at a person but more to say "I gotta be somewhere else". Yesterday was their first time out in our big pasture. The babies saw the lawn mower for the first time and learned it wasn't something to run from. When I went out last night to check on anther pony, they stood and watched me walk in and I actually slid my hand along Koal's body as I went past him! It was amazing and I was very pleased. But they haven't had any halter/leading work since the end of June - other than a couple of farrier visits each...

Sometimes, leading and training happens in small bursts and that's not always a bad thing. The main thing is becoming CONSISTENT in how you handle them and figuring out why they do what they do. Sounds like you are on the right track.
 
"Have Foal Will Travel" LOL! In other words, a great time to start training IMO, is when the foal is sticking by mum.

Halter the foal, Halter mum, connect a short lead between their halters, and then another lead to walk mum with.....Take mum for walk

and the foal will travel along!

It's a great way to introduce the foal about pressure and release and being guided.....
 
I just have a quick question about my little Texas, she is 3 months now.

Sometimes when I am out with her she rears up at me for no reason, I'm not sure if this is her 'playing' because she does it to her mum too. But she has her ears back when she does. Its normally when she is bundled up with energy.
I remember watching our foal rearing up and bouncing her hooves off her Mom's back; at the time I idly wondered whether she would try that with me. (She did.) But prior to that, she used to "mouth" at me or mostly at my boots, with ears laid back. I just distracted her; I don't want to have a relationship with our horses that involves smacking them. She did it sporadically (half dozen times) the last being when she was 3-plus years old. I just let her stand there on her hind-feet; the silly girl looked like a kangaroo with her fore-legs tucked up and she just stood there on her hind legs. I was kind of curious how long she would stand there like that. ... pretty funny. I think she may have out-grown that business, but who knows? It is rather startling when they first do it.
 
As SOON as she rears, yell right at her and run towards her. Make yourself look like a crazy person for a second. If you can get a swat in on a non vital area, take it. The shoving away she reads as 'PLAY!' That's how another baby would play with her!

Then, after you have a mini 'freak out' on her, drop it as quickly as it started. You are a dignified disciplinarian and must act as such, until she does it again.

As far as the biting, swat her nose (NOT mma style), but enough to get her attention. Then carry on like it never happened.

The other thing I've had great luck with with mouthy babies is 'reverse paychology' kind of. When she gets pushy and in your space or lippy, play with her face as obnoxiously as you possibly can. Get right in her space. Play with her mouth with both of your hands. Hug her face. Get WAY too into it. If done right, they got SO annoyed so fast. And you keep doing it; even as they pull away. It's not 'scary' but not fun by any stretch and they get the point pretty quick in most cases, if not, refer to my previous paragraph. I think it was John Lyons I learned that tip from - but I could be wrong.

I disagree with NEVER ever swatting a horses nose. You need to do what you need to do to protect yourself. However, A swat on th nose is reserved for only teeth in my book. I've swatted many a nose for biting. And I've never owned a headshy horse. That being said though, I'm really quick. It's not a thought out 'I should get after her for that' it's a knee jerk type reaction: they probably don't really know it's my hand that does it. I don't (usually) yell either. A swat out of anger or too much or too often or at the wrong time causes headshy horses -

I hate it when people yell at horses. They aren't verbal animals! Watch horses in the field - how much time do they spend whinnying at each other? All it does is confuse and stress them out. I've seen horses screwed up from 'chronic yellers' more than physical abuse. I save yelling for a major sin as well.

Kinda funny story: a filly I owned the father of and boarded with was the NASTIEST little foal. she kicked me the first time at 4 hours old kind of nasty. I was kneeling down and petting her one day, and she was actually being friendly. I should have know better, but the little wench grabbed the soft spot under my arm by my armpit in her teeth and bit down HARD - NOT in a a playful way and it HURT; worst bite I've ever had by a big margin. It left a HUGE golf ball sized welt I had to tell all my farmer friends that it came from a baby mini horse.

I didn't even have to think about it and my right hand clocked her right on the side of the head before she even let go and I yelled OWWWW! She spun and took off and pouted about it.

But that was also the last time in our care she EVER bit anybody. Or got mouthy. She wasn't headshy either, she knew 100% what the correction was for.

Maybe this isn't my place, but judging by this and your other posts you are having a lot of issues with your horses being violent with you. That's not ok. That's not safe for you. That's not fun for you. First and foremost you need to protect yourself. No buts about iT. Protect yourself first. Worry about the horse second - but don't beat the thing into the ground! Human safety comes before everything else.
 

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