Teaching Foals to Lead

[ecklandshorses]

We have spent a few wonderful days here teaching LK & Patches to accept a halter and lead rope. The two foals are super skewbalds born in April/May this year. They have been lightly handled in the field and as both dams are in foal again we decided it was time to wean them. They came in last Friday in tow with there mums who where wormed, had feet trimmed and where then turned back out. Friday night was eventful with the foals whinnying all night and the neighbors getting quite upset. All our horse (37 in total) where excited and knew something was happening. We allowed the foals the weekend to settle with only a small amount of turnout in the sand arena. Monday was the big day to start halter training. LK was Easy to get the foal slip on, she is sociable and friendly and accepted everything without a fuss. Patches on the other hand was a lot more boisterous and there was some light scuffling and a huge amount of persuasion involved in getting a slip on him. LK led easily, with me at the helm and Edel backing me up from behind she soon learned that by walking forward ad giving to the pressure on her poll applied by the slip the pressure was released?? Clever girl.
But Patches was not so easy. He reared, plunged, bucked and generally fought us the whole way. Dealing with a foal in this situation is dangerous to both handler and foal and every precaution must be taken to ensure the safety of both. It is vital that the foal learns without doing himself an injury and that no undue stress is suffered. Anyway, after a lot of give and take he did accept that he must concentrate and within a matter of 10 mins was leading peacefully if still a little resentfully. The remainder of the week was spent leading for about 20mins per day, having feet seen to by farrier, grooming and handling gently. The foals will return to the field tomorrow and hopefully will view us humans in a kinder light and will have gained from this the first step in their education. I will attempt to add some pics of the foals to this post but am fighting with my photobucket account and cant seem to get the hang of it.

... here's LK and her Mum Callie taken about 1 week after she was born.