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  Discussion on How to discipline young foals
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Member:
Qh4me

Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 11:17 am:

Hi everyone,

Hope this is the appropriate spot to post this question.

I have a new colt this past week. He is now 5 days old, and since he was a couple of hours old, he has been very energetic.

I spent a lot of time with him this weekend, desensitizing him and working with him. He is great to work with, and has no issues with me rubbing him all over, playing with his ears, feet, tail, etc. He is very sociable and comes right up to you when you are near by.

I noticed this weekend, that he is very aggressive towards his mom, and has a tendency to kick her while he is sucking, he backs into her and will let out with 3 or 4 kicks just for the heck of it, and bucks and nips constantly.

Personally, I am thinking this behaviour should be nipped in the bud, but is he too young to start disciplining and if not, how do I go about it.

I know foals like to play and tend to kick, but this little guy seems to be a little to active with his back feet. His answer to everything is to let his back feet go. When his mom is eating, he goes over and stands on the hay and paws it all over, and when she tries to eat, he bunts her out of the way and then he will haul off and kick her for no reason.
Yesterday when I was in the stall mucking out, he jumped right at me with his front feet, like a dog jumping up. I put him down and pushed him away and said a Loud NO, but I wonder if I should do more to discourage him.

Her last foal was very in your face too, but never this bold, especially at such a young age.

Am I just over reacting and this is just normal foal play?
Member:
Cmatexas

Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:00 pm:

Shawna,

We bought a mare and 6 week old filly earlier this spring. She is our first "baby". She was not imprinted, and was very rowdy. I swear she has bucking bronc in her blood! Her name is Cayenne :-):-):-). She also kicked, bit, and pushed her mare all the time. Although very curious and friendly with us, when annoyed or threatened or bored, her response was to wheel around and kick. She is a VERY large baby, and this was NOT funny! Her mare very rarely reacted to her antics, but we are not horses, and we have children, so this had to be stopped immediately. Our trainer also said that even at an early age, she must respect us! We used a very thin, long piece of plastic pipe. It was not PVC b/c it was much thinner. Anyway, when she wheeled around to kick or bump into us, we stuck it out for her to connect with. It made a very loud "pong" noise, which startled her. You should have seen her reaction! It was like a spoiled child being told no for the first time ever. I wish we'd had a camera! We never hit her with hit, just stuck it out for her to hit on her own. After just 2 episodes, she stopped kicking at us, and became much more respectful of humans. Our mare finally started "spanking" her about the age of 12 weeks. That really helped in her interactions with us, and now she leads, stands, loads, gives her feet, lets us handle her all over, and backs on voice command and well as with pressure. Although we have never raised a baby before, our trainer tells us it is not unusual for an older mare to be very lenient with her baby early on, and later start to keep her in line. He also told us that we needed to make sure she didn't treat us like she did her mare, or we would have trouble later on when she was too big for us to "man-handle".

Hope this helps,
Michelle
Member:
Christos

Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:43 pm:

Michelle is correct, most mares will tolerate such attitude for the first month or so.
But this does not mean that such behaviour is safe for the mare or anybody else, so you do not have to tolerate it at all.
The natural, easy way would be for mare and foal to be out in pasture full time and work things out for themselves, preferably with other mares and foals, but since most of us do not have that luxury, we have to learn how to handle foals and foals have to learn how to handle people.
Member:
Qh4me

Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 1:25 pm:

Thanks Michelle and Christos.

I love the idea of the tube, i will give that a try. My colt sounds exactly like your filly Michelle! My mare is extremely gentle. She is the boss of the heard, but when it comes to the baby, forget any discipline - they walk all over her. Funny how that happens. Her last foal, she never had to discipline him as he was a real joy to be around. This one is making up for the him!

I was concerned as I have never seen a baby with this much attitude at such a young age. He has been like this since day 1.

Christos,

I have 2 geldings and the mare and foal, the geldings are in a separate pasture. The mare is very protective of the baby, so I keep them separated, so unfortunately, I don't have the opportunity to keep them with other mares and foals.

Thank you both for your replies.

Shawna
Member:
Oscarvv

Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 7:39 am:

It sound pretty normal to me. What he does to his mom is between them, unless it gets dangerous. Just nip it in the bud any rambuctious behavior towards you. Is he getting plenty of turn-out? My colts calm down once they have a baby buddy to play with like that and they are taught the boundaries with humans. This guy has no idea it's not ok to kick/bite/jump on you like his mother, but he needs to learn that from you asap.

-B
Member:
Qh4me

Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 10:08 am:

Hi Barbara,

Unfortunately I don't have other babies and moms to turn him out with, so I guess I will leave that up to mom to handle, when she finally gets sick of being kicked so much. He is not yet a week old and has been stalled quite a bit since being born as it has been raining really hard since he was born. Last night the rain let up and I was able to let him out and he got a lot of energy out of him. The weather isn't looking up for the next few days either, but I will let him out as much as possible, as you say, the turnout will do him good.

I know I have to nip these things in the bud, but I must admit, I am a little soft in the beginning.
Member:
Imogen

Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 1:16 pm:

I will second the turnout recommendation. Last year I had to keep my filly in for a week after the birth due to lax pasterns. By day 6 she was galloping around mum in the stable bouncing off the walls and injuring herself. A day or two out in the field (in at night) and all was sorted.

A bit of rain won't hurt if it isn't too cold... just keep an eye out for shivering etc. On the other hand I must admit I did leave them out on a day I could not get back during the second week and then felt awful when I got the filly in and she lay in the straw and just shivered for about 2 hours before thawing out... doesn't seem to have done her any harm though!

Imogen
Member:
Mrose

Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 6:13 pm:

Another "vote" in agreement with the above. The plastic pipe idea sounds good. I use a similar deal with my stallions; in their case, a plastic baseball bat like the ones that come with a nerf ball. The loud "whack" sound works wonders.

I too have had a couple of the overly rambunctious type foals. I had one mare that would just look the other way and her colts (not fillies!) could do anything they wanted. Turn out did a lot of good as it burned off a lot of that pent up energy. I felt mean, sometimes, disciplining them as I knew they just wanted to ply, but they had to learn I wasn't another horse and had to be treated differently.

Good luck! btw - he sounds like one you might want to geld early!
Member:
Oscarvv

Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 6:57 pm:

Shawna, you'll be fine with him. :-)

Just get him out as soon as you can. If it's not too cold even 15 minutes outside will help. Turn out will help the most. I wouldn't spend a lot of time forcing the issue of behaving until he gets out. But make sure the time you spend with him let's him know where the boundaries are. Be sure not to turn your back on him. Really it sounds like he is just wound up from being cooped up.

My baby was labled a 'monster' after a week in the stall at the vet clinic. He's totally fine now that he's going out again. And IMO didn't do anything out of the ordinary given the circumstances.

Please, send the rain to FL, we need it!

-Barbara
Member:
Qh4me

Posted on Friday, May 19, 2006 - 4:57 pm:

Hi all,

Thanks for all your recomendations, and yes, the turnout has done him wonders. He is still very active, but I am enjoying it. I used the plastic pipe and that has worked. The noise scared him, but he was back over close to me within 30 seconds, so it certainly didn't scare him that bad.

It is still raining! Last night we got 2" - that brings it up to about 5 in the last week. Everything is just sopping wet, and it is still calling for heavy rain all weekend. We have managed to let him out for at least an hour a day between showers so things are looking up.

Barbara, I will try and send this rain down your way!

Thanks again to all.
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