Hello everyone :)
I have - not a problem but a question for those of you who've hand reared a foal (for whatever reason).
I just got a 4 or 5-y-o horse, another Swiss Freiberger. His papers state the DOB as 2013 but according to my vet, his teeth say 2012. I know that this is not an exact science and in the long run, it doesn't really matter since it's a leisure horse. It's just a little strange...
I don't know anything about his past, only that he grew up on a horse farm in Switzerland and arrived here in Belgium about a year ago. For the past six months, he was a riding school horse three times a week (with children). He's veeery sweet and veeery calm, does what he's told and doesn't display any form of disrespect nor agressiveness (doesn't push, bite or strike out). But he does display all the symptoms of a hand reared horse: he prefers the company of humans; weird behavior as if he's not 100% a horse; he grabs at everything with his mouth; he's very small for a Freiberger; and he needs to be motivated all the time. He doesn't approach his field mates with curiosity or even approach them at all since he stays in front of the gate day in day out. If he is in the presence of another horse, he'll sniff around their rear end and then present his own (??). Or he'll act as if the other horse was an object such as play-biting them on the nose as he would with a brush or broomhandle, or walking underneath their head as if they were an overhanging branch. He doesn't really know how to behave with other horses and the dominant ones just plain scare him. It's very strange to watch a horse not behaving like one :)
What I'm looking for is advice on how to deal with this kind of horse. He's very willing at work despite spooking easily and then he calms down right away. Thing is, what he needs to learn is not how to cooperate with humans, it's to be a horse :) I can't teach him that, only the other horses can but he doesn't seem to want to be with them (yet, anyway). Is there a way to deal with this. Is there a way to get him interested in other horses? Is there anything you guys can tell me about this kind of situation?I like him a lot and there's no objective reason for me to get rid of him.
I have - not a problem but a question for those of you who've hand reared a foal (for whatever reason).
I just got a 4 or 5-y-o horse, another Swiss Freiberger. His papers state the DOB as 2013 but according to my vet, his teeth say 2012. I know that this is not an exact science and in the long run, it doesn't really matter since it's a leisure horse. It's just a little strange...
I don't know anything about his past, only that he grew up on a horse farm in Switzerland and arrived here in Belgium about a year ago. For the past six months, he was a riding school horse three times a week (with children). He's veeery sweet and veeery calm, does what he's told and doesn't display any form of disrespect nor agressiveness (doesn't push, bite or strike out). But he does display all the symptoms of a hand reared horse: he prefers the company of humans; weird behavior as if he's not 100% a horse; he grabs at everything with his mouth; he's very small for a Freiberger; and he needs to be motivated all the time. He doesn't approach his field mates with curiosity or even approach them at all since he stays in front of the gate day in day out. If he is in the presence of another horse, he'll sniff around their rear end and then present his own (??). Or he'll act as if the other horse was an object such as play-biting them on the nose as he would with a brush or broomhandle, or walking underneath their head as if they were an overhanging branch. He doesn't really know how to behave with other horses and the dominant ones just plain scare him. It's very strange to watch a horse not behaving like one :)
What I'm looking for is advice on how to deal with this kind of horse. He's very willing at work despite spooking easily and then he calms down right away. Thing is, what he needs to learn is not how to cooperate with humans, it's to be a horse :) I can't teach him that, only the other horses can but he doesn't seem to want to be with them (yet, anyway). Is there a way to deal with this. Is there a way to get him interested in other horses? Is there anything you guys can tell me about this kind of situation?I like him a lot and there's no objective reason for me to get rid of him.
He sounds wonderful.
Couple of questions
Part of the herding environment will involve the Join-Up process for every new horse that enters the herd. If your youngster does not listen to the bosses of the herd, then they will be more dominant towards him until he listens to them. He will be chased and he will run, but what you will see if you watch closely is the 4 signs of Join-Up that Monty teaches. You might notice it most when your lad starts to work in circles around the other horses, especially the most dominant one. There will be a locking of the ears, head dropping as if grazing, but only hovering over the ground and he will work in arcing circles, sometimes full circles other times half a circle keeping the boss in sight. Once the boss sees the 4 signs of Join-Up they will start to accept him into the herd more.
If you could detail a bit more, then we can offer suggestions to help him become more of a horse.
:D
Mel
x
He's in pasture with my other 3 Freibergers and 2 mares that don't belong to me. The dominant ones are Linus and Jesse (both mine, both geldings). This young horse is called Niouky (names makes explaining easier and he's a gelding too).
Niouky knows pasture life so we put him in with the others when he arrived. The first horse he met in the field was Jesse. He surprised me by sort of just welcoming Niouky by sniffing him and then going on with his business (he can be really brusque with other horses but he's strangely overbearing with Niouky). Then Linus came over. Niouky had zero reaction to him so Linus started stamping his foot and whinnying. Still no reaction from Niouky who just started grazing. Linus kept doing this for, I don't know, 5-10mns? It was funny to start with and then just got plain weird as I've never seen a horse behave like this. Then Niouky started trotting around as if to check out his new surroundings and obviously, the others chased him and some got really physical with him - zero reaction, though, Niouky never moved out of the way nor defended himself. Never once did he move away from the herd, circling, approaching, etc, like I've seen other new arrivals do. No, he turns tails and runs off all the way down to the gate.
I've tried several times to bring him back among the others. He stays where he is, ignores the others and starts grazing until Linus notices his presence. He then trots over and, bam, Niouky turns tails and runs off. And stays away - of his own free will, he doesn't approach the others at all.
Yes, I've observed him unnoticed several times and the owners of the stables checks on all the fields 2-3 times a day. They tell me the same thing: in front of the gate all day, no interaction with the other horses. Sometimes, he'll move up a little ways to graze but but he never goes all the way up to where the others are even when he can see them.
I get the youngster behavior but age wise, he's not a foal, he just behaves like one, as if he never really grew into being a horse.
Like I said, he's only been here for a week so I do want to let time take its course. But the place he was at before, the lady told me the same thing: he doesn't interact with the other horses in the field, he always stays way off by himself and he's real clingy with humans. So it's not just the stress of having moved, it is his "natural" behavior.
My routine with him is tending to the amazing amount of bite wounds on him and also those he gets by himself (2 days after his arrival, he cut open his cheek all the way down to the bone - needed stitches, poor thing...). But I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't sort of ignore him for a while in the hope that he'll want to move closer to his field mates? By "ignore", I don't mean treat him as if he's invisible, of course - I go there every day and check on all the horses, not just my own. I mean, not giving him so much human attention and not take him out for a while.
I'm at a loss at the moment. He eats and seems happy enough - he really is the sweetest horse ever - but I can't help thinking that he needs a true horse life because behaving against what Nature intended can only be bad for him in the long run. I'm worried that he'll get depressed from lack of human attention - at the riding school, he got as much as he wanted but not anymore. Another strange thing: after the cheek wound incident, he stayed in a stall overnight. The following morning, he just stood there, not eating, not moving, seeming shut down. When I started caring for him, he switched back on. This dependency on humans is not very reassuring, I must admit, but he's survived in fields until now so there's no reason to think that he's completely forgotten how to be a horse.
At first, we thought that Linus was the true culprit by always chasing Niouky away. So last Saturday, I took both out of the field, tied them up next to one another, tended to both at the same time and then took them into the indoor arena. First, I let them run free. They trotted around for a few minutes, Linus never chased Niouky away. Then I took both on a short rope, walking around and same thing, nothing happened. I thought that Linus would behave as the dominant one the same way he's done with all the others but no, nothing...
So I took them back to the field, walking between the two and it was the easiest thing in the world. When I realeased them, Linus started walking up to the others but Niouky didn't follow, he stayed at the gate.