Dartmoor Foal advice please

[kafee]

Congratulations, arki, on falling for these lovely little dartmoors, I wish I could have a couple, but I must concentrate on looking after those that I already have.

In your situation I would be very reluctant to turn the colt out with electric fencing without having introduced him to it thoroughly first. One of the NF foals I bought in 2008 ran straight through a three stranded electric fence several times in the first 10 minutes of being turned out in the field, even though he'd already met an electric fence. Three later he is still terrified of the fence despite me having done a lot of training with him over the years. He will walk through a gap in the electric fence, but he will not walk over the tape when it's on the ground, thus he is the only one that doesn't escape if the fence blows down.

Tor is the only colt that I've bought on his own. When I turned him out in the field initially I put the lowest member of the herd with him. This didn't work as he just wanted to dominate Tor all the time.

So I put the head of the herd, Raffles who is 22 and a quiet, calm character, with him, which has worked brilliantly for Tor. Raffles accepted him straightaway with no fuss, even allowing him to share his bucket which he is still allowed to do 18 months later!

Good luck with Dillon.

[taklishim]

Jan 8, 2012 0:05:34 GMT 1 indigo said:

All good advice about putting extra strand up ect. Taklishim has been watching the foals over the hedge and she would have been round there for that little dun if the meat man was on his way lol, so you have saved her from yet another extra pony ha ha!

It had to be Dillon! ;D ;D ;D it does suit him.

I am very grateful to you Arki, I am bursting at the seams with equines but there was no way I could have seen him or the hand reared filly go for lion meat so I feel safe now.

On a few general points I would be worried about your haflinger. From your other posts he sounds very like mine. I am afraid that is a bully. It has always taken him a week to settle down with new horses. Anything small he doesn't befriend but bullies and the time I gave him a youngster to look after he gave me a large vet's bill back for the damage he did to it.
Any other breed and I would go with the dominant horse theory but I am not very confident about some haflingers.
If it was my haflinger I know he would just chase the foal until he caught it or simply go over the top of it. I am sure your haffy is a lot nicer in this respect than mine.
The foal is used to herd discipline but not to being bullied to that extent.
It is submissive in it's current herd. There is a larger yearling who is the dominant horse with it's small group of mates and the dun just carries on quietly on the edge eating it's hay and not causing trouble.

I would be unhappy about the electric tape thing if they were running around. With my foal I made sure it was very well taped, and very live and then taught him in controlled circumstances. It worked very well. If you put him out with an older horse it would teach him about the tape but if he goes out in a group and they all charge off then he won't have chance to learn.

Have you thought about worming?. I fed mine for 4 weeks on the common before I brought him home and he made little improvement on the feed. I brought him home and wormed with panacur guard. It was truly amazing. Just when we thought there could be no more roundworms there were giagantic ones and they got ever larger. It seemed impossible there could be so many worms in his gut. Within 3 weeks he changed from a poor undergrown little thing into a well grown monster.
Just saying this really as it may affect how you manage him initially when you get him home. I would guess he will be pretty weak, hungry and dehydrated after his journey so he may need a couple of days to recover before worming as this will be his first ever worming. Fortunately mine didn't colic with the wormer and such a large worm burden but I was very careful.

[arki]

Thanks for your advice - your haffy sounds very like mine. The only way he will get to know my haffie is to put him next to him - what about putting him out with my very quiet heavyweight cob who wouldn't run around and then put the other 2 the other side of the electric fencing. The other alternative is to leave my haffie on his own with the other 2 plus Dillon the other side then he would have the companionship of the other 2 who are generally good as gold. What do you think?
Re worming he is going to be in stable with one other so I will try and worm him via feed in a bucket before I bring him home. One of the girls in Herts whose stables are being used as a central drop off point said he can stay there for a few days which will give them time to recoup from the journey.

[arki]

Just to add my haffie as long as there is enough space will only chase them to keep them away from the rest of the herd he has never hurt them! This is why when they were in a much smaller field I couldn't risk just putting them in together as the field wasn't big enough for the new horse to get out of the way. the field they are in at the moment is about 3 acres so there is plenty of space for the foal to get out of the way. Just a thought but mine is definitely a bully would be surprised if he did any more than chase but again don't want the little man traumatised any more

[SarahW]

This is what I said on my p.m.:

Hi Arki,

Thank you for contacting me. It's good to hear that another pony has fallen on his feet. Obviously you know your set up better than I do and you also know whether your foal has met electric fencing before. If you are going to keep him separate I would think about sticking one other pony in with him so that he has an incentive to stay on his side and can learn about the electric fence if he needs to. If you can't do that then on balance I think I would just put him in with the others. Two reasons a) if he doesn't know about electric fencing he might go through it in order to get to the others and b) having lived out in a wild herd he will be well aware of minding his manners with other horses. He will suss out those that will be benevolent and those that won't. I'd just have headcollars and a bucket of feed at the ready so that you can rustle your Haflinger out if it all goes wrong. It's all a bit of a gamble unfortunately - I go through this so often with my little lot! Normally my racehorse is happy to nanny foals but this time he has bullied two of them and forfeited his right to look after them.

Hope this helps,

Sarah
x

[indigo]

Sounds like Haffies area nightmare lol, although I know yours was hand reared wasn't he Taklishim? Never a good start bless him, I guess this often makes them bad at horse etiqutte. We use the panacur 5 day for the foals as well, but it is very unlikely that he will take food from a bucket at first. He never will have eaten anything but grass and hay. Some of them learn to like food really quickly and some take ages to get a taste for it.

Dillon is a great name! Just Dillon or do you want a prefix? If you send me your name and address as well, i'll need those for the passport xx

[arki]

Ok so how about I put them all in together - see how they get on - if it goes horrendously wrong I can take my haffie out put him in another field while I construct some electric fencing. I am not worried about the other 2 - my section and my heavyweight cob.
Just don't want the little lad any more traumatised than he has to be!

[taklishim]

I agree, it's all a gamble. Whatever plan you come up with will be wrong and it will be a case of changing things quickly until you work your way through it.

Agree about the feed. No way will Dillon go anywhere near a bucket let alone eat out of it. I worm PG using a feed syringe. That is the quickest way and you can be sure it has gone down. It is not that traumatic but the most important thing is the foal's safety and getting rid of the worms. Plus of course you don't want to contaminate your grazing by putting such a high worm count pony on it.
Our hill ponies who love feed won't eat it with PG in.

Sounds like Haffies area nightmare lol, although I know yours was hand reared wasn't he Taklishim? Never a good start bless him

He adored being hand reared. He had lots of young girls running around him, worrying about his every need. What more could a male chauvenistic young pig of a haflinger want from life ;D ;D


I used to think that was his excuse but in all honesty it is just the way some of them seem to be. He is very loyal to me, very jealous, awkard, difficult, a pain in the bum and he looks for the slightest chink in the armour to take advantage. However, God knows why, I do love him.

Arki, I think Dillon's safety when he goes out is paramount. To me that involves leaving the haffy out of the equation.

I think I would go for putting him with the big cob if he is quiet. I wouldn't put him with 2 others and leave the haffy. I can see that would cause the haffy more problems.

If you are going to keep him separate I would think about sticking one other pony in with him so that he has an incentive to stay on his side and can learn about the electric fence if he needs to.

I think this piece of Sarah's advice is about the best solution in your circumstances. As I have said before, if anyone else is reading this, it may not be the best solution if the haffy was not involved.

I would construct the electric fencing possibly with a gap between the 2 lots of horses so each lot gets to the fence and can look at the other lot but cannot touch to start with. This means that if there are any accidents there is a second row of fencing to fall back on.
I would put 3 strand on the foal's site.
(he has never met electric fence and is running in 2 fields surrounded by stone walls)

I don't know if you feed your horses in the field but if you had them in 2 lots like this you may be able to get Dillon eating from a bucket with just one other horse in with him. It would also be easier when you want to bring him in as he would start by following his companion before he is halter trained.

[arki]

Thank you so much for all your time - I will divide the field in 2 and put Dillon with my big quiet boy who is just learning herd behaviour himself (as someone thought he should stay on his own since a foal) He is a gentle giant and it will probably do him the world of good to have a little one to look after
Fingers crossed Dillon wil stay away from the electric fencing - do you think that white tape will be better than green in these circumstances?I will just have to keep my fingers crossed