by Allen Pogue
Foreword: Statistically 2% of Arabian mares reject their foals. Could be that they are raised in a very artificial environment and never have any herd experience? Nobody knows for sure.-Arabians have the highest percentage of this happening.
When I have an orphaned foal I try to pair him up with a buddy.
Then I'll invent ways for the two youngsters to get used to each other in a very slow and safe way.
I will try to slowly and carefully allow more contact. They will start out on two sides of a divider learning side by side and at some point when I feel it will go well I will open the divider gate and let them be in the same stall space together.
I have a 15x30 double size stall that's perfect for this.
This link (or the button below) has a downloadable pdf of an article I wrote for TrailBlazer Magazine that has a picture of Taba (a seven month old buckskin colt standing in between two three week old Andalusian colts.) Taba had just gone through our Enhanced Foal Training and had been recently weaned. The three week old colts are just copying what they see Taba doing.
With the pictured foal here, FaHeem, I'm working on recreating the results using the guidance of our well educated teacher horse Rafieq.
As far as I know, nobody else has trained foals like this until now. It's definitely a work in progress and exciting work at that!
Foals Learn by Copying the Adult Horses
In the video below, you'll see the two foals n the above referenced article training at liberty with six adult horses.
The photos below show the early stages of FaHeem's training with Rafieq. Throughout the summer I will post updates on his progress!
FaHeem Studies with Rafieq
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Joie Hinman (Wednesday, 08 February 2017 03:56)
Great article, just what I was looking for.