Hi all! I work at a Horse Rescue and I'd like to know what is the preferred , best practice for taking out and bringing in the horses each day . I personally like to lead them individually with the standard lead and gate procedures . I like the polite and used to a routine with les chance for injury or completion for stalls!
Some people feel letting them run from stalls through the ring to the pasture is fine . Please give me your judgements if this . We have 20 horses and have let them out in groups up to 4-5 .
Some people feel letting them run from stalls through the ring to the pasture is fine . Please give me your judgements if this . We have 20 horses and have let them out in groups up to 4-5 .
Welcome to the Uni and the forum!
Working at a rescue is one of the most gratifying thing one can do for horses. These horses often come from abuse or neglect situations and deserve to have their trust regained by humans.
Now coming to your question of how to let them go from and to their stalls, I'd suggest you consider their trust and safety first. They can run and play when at pasture, but most injuries happen when horses run free around the stable.
Earning their trust and respect is a good thing to work on when leading to and from the pasture. There's always an anticipation, the joy of coming to the pasture or finding feed in the stall, so this is a great moment to work on leading with respect and calm.
Watch your own breath when leading, deep diaphragmal breathing will help calm the excitement in the horse, and yourself too....
I'm looking forward to what others have to say about this on the forum!
Keep the good work going!
Miriam
I am reminded that one of the issues that is strongly wired into the horse is the aspect of safety in the environment. This co-insides with the SEEKING ASPECT of their operating system. This is a round about way of saying that every time that we enter into their space, we should take a moment of pause to make sure that the horse is accepting of us and looks to our leadership [they are POLITE]. I see these moments as learning by both humans and horses. At this moment, a decision has to made. Is the horse ready and willing for my leadership, or do we need more time to settle and form a decision? The pause after the entry into the stall will play a huge part for all concerned. After that, we need to be aware of the different steps involved that will build toward leading a willing horse safely out of the stall and into a new environment. All of these steps will hopefully lead to a RESPECTFUL time of relationship while in route to the next place where the horse will be released. I have found that when releasing a horse to the freedom of more space can be helped by asking the horse to pause while standing and un-haltered, safely by the side of his human leader. This can be helped a good deal by the presentation of a treat as he is faced with the decision at that moment whether to seek freedom or the treat. If the horse is still under the leadership of the human, his choice is obvious. This exercise can be very valuable to the horse when he is re-homed. Know that there will many steps regarding the leadership of the horse that you will able to find in the lessons presented by Monty and his apprentices that I did not mention.
I hope this helps you. You are doing a very fine service to everyone in the horse industry. Please feel free to ask more questions if needed.
Bud
Hope you come back into the forum to let us know how you got on.
I work with horses as a herd, most of them rescues. I have found once they understand the routine the working altogether even getting them into stalls can work well, but everyone must be able to follow the routine. It is when things change with many handlers that it can go wrong.
When we just had 5 horses we trained them to come in from the field at liberty and into their own stalls, the order had to be the same each time except our Shetland who generally where in and out where he wanted until we put him in his stall. Now we have 9 in the herd and I feed them all together at liberty in hierarchy order, the pattern has to be the same each time and any changes does cause mini scuffles between them as they sort themselves out. The biggest concern is as Bud says leadership be it being on a lead rope/head collar or at liberty the horse must understand that the human is being a leader to them and follow the human's leadership. If they cannot do that, then that puts the person at risk.
Videos are always good, you will see in this one the herd following me down the hill as we go towards the grazing, they have to stay behind me and noone overtakes me. We do this for exercise too when I take them around the track system. At this point I am their leader and they accept that until into the grazing and they find their spot to eat. https://youtu.be/zZ4swJngnCo The one at the end that is last to come in is our blind in one eye chap.
Mel x