11/04/2024
Let's see those Babies!
Leave your favorite picture of your future super horse in the comments, and we will have a discussion!
Sometimes to get just the right prospect you have to bite the bullet and raise them or purchase a weanling. Now there is what seems like an eternity to wait for them to be ready to start. What can you do with them in the meantime?
We believe that what you do with them this fall will make a great impact on their basic understandings when we go to start them. It's never too early to start shaping that mind, being a good learner and having patience!
Although weanlings have a very short attention span, can get frustrated and turn reactive easily, they are also very curious. The most important thing to remember is we don't want to sneak around them to get things done. It's important to set yourself up for success in the area you are choosing to work with them. There is a balance between making them feel isolated and scared but also limiting the distractions of other horses being in the pen. If you're choosing to run them in your roundpen or a dry lot to catch them, keep other horses in sight or tie a quiet horse near the fence as a homing beckon to give yourself an advantage. Approach and retreat, scratch and rub them, it is best to make sure they are making the choice to stay and let you catch them rather than sneaking the rope around them and holding on.
Begin teaching them to give to pressure, accept any and all efforts they give in the beginning before you get too picky perfecting a behavior. Any attempts to move their feet in the beginning to respond to pressure on the halter, remotely in the correct direction are good. Make double sure you are repeating all the behaviors with both "lefty" and "righty" to get consistency on both sides. We spend a little extra time even on the right at this stage since many things we do are initiated on the left. It can be very helpful to ask them to move to either side rather than straight forward when you begin halter breaking or if they are sticky and resistant at any stage.
Once they are consistently giving to pressure on the halter, we begin with teaching them to yield their hindquarters, then forequarters and desensitization with the halter rope.
When your baby is tolerating you walking up to them, and consistently giving to pressure on the halter it is a great time to work on tying. In a safe spot with safe equipment, we tie our weanlings up and let them stand keeping an eye on them to hopefully prevent injuries. There are a few great things that come out of this. They get tired fairly quickly, so although they might pitch a fit, it likely will not take too long for them to begin to settle down. Once they have worked through pulling and fussing too much and we are not worried about them getting tangled up with the bucket, we take this opportunity to also provide them a distraction and reward by giving them their grain.
Once they are to this point, it can become a great daily routine they may even look forward to, catch them, tie them up and let them eat, then do a little work on their yielding and desensitization before kicking them loose again.
Don't be discouraged if the process is slow! Taking your time will make this horse a great riding partner down the road.
