Advice needed; introducing a horse who's been on individual t/o

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sophiebailey

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Hi all,

Sadly my field mate is having her horse PTS before the winter arrives. I met with a lovely lady today who wants to move her horse to my field, an older gelding of 24 to keep my 22yo gelding company. My only worry is he has been on individual turnout (not through owners choice through yard rules) for most of his life.

How should I handle the intergration process? He will be arriving a few weeks before the other horse is PTS to give him and my horse a chance to get to know each other.

Advice welcomed :-)
 
Divide your field in two with temporary electric fencing and let them meet over the fence. Once they are settled try them in together. My sisters new pony doesn't have the best social skills so when we introduced him we took his back shoes off and stood guard to separate them if needs be. Turns out they got on fine from the word go. New boy is a bit bossy and is a terrible bully with food so we have to separate them to feed them but generally its been pretty uneventful moving him in.
 
agree with keeping them separate for a few days so they can meet over a fence. i'm sure the gelding will be fine and just happy to be in with company :) it will just take a few days/ maybe week to settle while they get to know each other.
 
sophiebailey said:
Hi all,

Sadly my field mate is having her horse PTS before the winter arrives. I met with a lovely lady today who wants to move her horse to my field, an older gelding of 24 to keep my 22yo gelding company. My only worry is he has been on individual turnout (not through owners choice through yard rules) for most of his life.

How should I handle the intergration process? He will be arriving a few weeks before the other horse is PTS to give him and my horse a chance to get to know each other.

Advice welcomed :-)
Click to expand...

Good advice here already :)
If you can, introduce them on neutral space. Although horses aren't territorial by nature, if they have had experience of restricted space they can be edgy. Two horses meeting for the first time in a space that neither of them have occupied before is more likely to work well than a new horse being introduced into a resident horse's field.
 
Agree with Pearlasinger, having lost a horse to a field kick I now take all hinds off for meetings, its a pain but better than the alternative. Also I would use the electric fence and then one day take it down, don't make a song and dance about it just quietly remove it.
 
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