Tips for keeping my stabled yearling occupied?

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Lydiamae

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So my new yearling mare is being delivered Saturday morning so I have the weekend with her entirely. Until she is more handle-able and used to me and I can catch her, I'm not turning her out, but that could be weeks, how long is a piece of string after all? Her current owner says she is coming on well, so hopefully it won't be too long! Does anyone have any ideas and tips on how to keep her occupied and break her boredom in these upcoming weeks? I will be spending as much time as possible with her but I do work too so I can't be there 24/7! Thanks I'm advance x
 
i dont see a massive issue in a few days.... like 3/4 until you can handle her as such and she gets to know you...but not weeks for a yearling... they need to be out or at least in a barn with their own age/herd.
 
Agree with others - my yearling spent his winter out (unrugged) with some very posh TB's (also unrugged). Don't stable please - if you must, put in a barn with others of same age. Turning away is the best though!
 
turn her out with others and let her be a yearling. Keeping her in a stable will make her harder to handle. If you have a routine where each day you catch her and give her a groom/handle her, she will learn to trust you. Keeping her locked up will make her more weary of you
 
turn her out in an established herd that are well handled and ideally some of them come and go, to be worked or fed so she gets to see people and horses together, ideally some well handled youngsters too her curiosity will get the better of her and you can win her trust without resorting to shutting her in a stable for weeks on end
 
She's had a bad start to life and I've taken her on. I'm not the most experienced but by far not the worst either! She is a buckskin cob cross and is 15 months at the moment
 
In this case keeping her in for a few days to get her used to being handled and halter broken is the right thing. Once you can catch her/handle her, you can then treat her like a normal yearling.
 
So I think if she arrives Saturday morning, I will keep her in but spend a full weekend with her giving her attention, taking the halter on and off and grooming her and turn her out either Sunday night or Saturday morning, let her settle and begin work in the week?
 
It really depends on your facilities. Do you have a small turn out patch that is well and safely fenced.

How wild is she. Have a look at my thread titled 'My Next Equine Project' there are bits and pieces of information that may help you. The horse detailed there was feral and petrified not just nervous.
 
I have a flood lit ménage and 8 x 3acre paddocks which have the ability to be enlarged and confined as needed with electric fencing and sufficient stables. The yard has 23 horses from different backgrounds from happy hacking cobs to national level competition horses.

She is not nervous of you up until about 3 feet away when she just reverses and steps away back to her three feet safety area, touching and collaring are no go areas
 
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I wouldn't keep her locked in for more than a few days. Foals/yearlings that I've bought settled much quicker once they had a buddies. Once they are settled they are so much easier to handle and get the headcollar on. If you can't catch her, she'll soon want to come in once you bring in her buddies

I had one that was very nervous, I couldn't get headcollar on him, he was leaping around the stable. I gave up and herded him out to the field with a quiet horse. Later I herded him back in, i did this for a few days and he quickly realised I was ok and allowed me to put headcollar on. I think the turnout helped to reduce the adrenaline
 
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I could not get within 30 feet of Ted when I first had him.

Just park yourself in a deck chair in the stable and wait for her to come to you. Let her touch you, smell you do not move until she has done this. Don't look her in the eye. Might take an hour or all morning. When she is comfortable with you in her space, get your hand or a stick with a padded hand on her wither and gradually touch and release the pressure working your way up her neck. You should get your headcollar on easily, don't try putting it up her face, do it from beneath her neck.

I would not let her go into a 3 acre field but maybe half the school and practice touching and walking away in there until she is relaxed. A small friendly pony as a companion would help her settle too.
 
I agree with what others have already said.

If she's been used to being outside her whole life, then a change of home and just being cooped up in a stable for several days might bring out some unwanted behaviour. But then again, I guess some handle it fine, and she has to become used to stabling at some point.

I guess I'd just try to make sure she has some company in the next stable when she is in, to try and keep the stress as low as possible.

Do you have another horse you could ride while you encourage her to move with you around the school? That can work very well getting a new horse used to contact with humans, and voice commands for walk on and halt. It can also be less intimidating for a well mannered horse with rider to walk up close to the new horse and touch gently all over with a lunge whip than for just a person to be doing it.

Again, not sure what experience you have, but if I'm haltering a pony for the first time and they are nervous, I would start with a 12ft leadrope and rub them with that and gradually work it further up their neck til I can start to maneouvre them a bit with it like a necklace. Haltering becomes fairly easy after that.

But if you can just spend a good few hours with her on the first day encouraging her to take an interest in you, and rewarding that by stepping away each time, then you'll soon achieve joinup and she'll start to trust you aren't going to force anything on her. A few hours of sitting in the stable with her, like someone's already suggested, is great. The more time you can spend with her that first day, so much the better. I've been known to sleep in an adjacent loose box to a new pony just so that they get to know in that first night that I'm no threat to them...... but I've not done that with a pony who arrived in November!!!

Good luck. Hope you have lots of fun with her.


Sarah
 
Against what most people have said, I WOULD stable her for a week or so until she's reliable to catch.

We've had quite a few un handled youngsters and they've all been stabled or in a very small paddock by themselves. You want them to be lonely and bored so they have incentive to interact with you.

She'll not be in long enough to worry about getting really bored. Try and see her two or three times a day and allow her time outside to run about (construct a shute into the school or a small paddock) to stretch her legs.

Getting a headcollar on her is essential. Try and get it on her whilst she's still on the transport. Make sure there's a good foot of rope hanging from it too so you can get ahold of something.

You don't nees her fully handled to put her out but she needs be ok to let you move towards her slowly and get ahold of the hanging rope. Forget about lifting feet and brushing her etc.

Once she's reliable to catch in the stable then let her out into a small paddock by herself for a little longer, so you can also catch her outside in a bigger space. Then put her in with a very friendly older horse for a bit. Once she's easy to catch at all times she can go out with the rest of the horses. Then start working on picking up feet etc.

Poor Roo ended up staying all on his lonesome of 6weeks because he had ringworm. He was very lonely but it turned him into the most people orientated friendly horse you can get.
 
I would recommend ordering Sarah Weston's book "No Fear No Force" - if you order it now then it should come by the weekend and it doesn't take long to read the first chapters which is what you want.
 
Kallibear said:
You want them to be lonely and bored so they have incentive to interact with you.
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Really? you are about to turn a yearlings world upside down, take the world from under its feet and you WANT it lonely and bored, horses are heard animals and during times of stress NEED the reassurance of others, if she has never been stabled before then a calm horse to help her relax and accept the changes will be great, the same with being handled-if you fuss and feed the other horse she will come over to investigate when her curiosity gets the better of her.

the ideal set up is a secure turn out area, something with a good draining surface of about 1/4 acre so you supply the hay and she will notice you coming and going and it becomes a positive thing failing that a small field and do the same, please don't isolate her
 
twiggy2 said:
Really? you are about to turn a yearlings world upside down, take the world from under its feet and you WANT it lonely and bored, horses are heard animals and during times of stress NEED the reassurance of others, if she has never been stabled before then a calm horse to help her relax and accept the changes will be great, the same with being handled-if you fuss and feed the other horse she will come over to investigate when her curiosity gets the better of her.

the ideal set up is a secure turn out area, something with a good draining surface of about 1/4 acre so you supply the hay and she will notice you coming and going and it becomes a positive thing failing that a small field and do the same, please don't isolate her
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Not if it is truly feral it won't. A 1/4 of an acre might as well be 40 acres because if the youngster is petrified you won't catch it in either.
 
OP I would keep in as well - if she is truly untouched and feral then a couple of days might not make enough of an impact.

I've dealt with abused and ferals and my first step is always to get them in. I put them into the biggest loosebox that I can - enough room for them to have enough space not to panic and enough room for me to stay out of the way of teeth and feet! I then park myself in the corner by the door (for a quick escape if needed) and load my pockets with chopped up carrot. As soon as they take a step nearer to me I chuck a piece of carrot until eventually I will get sniffed - the first time I make no response at all but will then give a tiny amount of food (even just chopped carrots) in a bucket to re-inforce good things. I gradually work up to a headcollar or slip halter and walk with them a good few times before I attempt taking them out of the stable with me in tow. When it does get to the stage where they are ready to go out it is always with just one other horse that will come to call.

Some come around quicker than others - the longest I've kept one in (with other calm horses in the stables and daily herding to and from a paddock for excercise) is 2 weeks - if I had turned that one out after a day I'd have never caught him again because he was so totally switched off - he didn't care about people or other horses but that is a whole other story!
 
Faracat said:
In this case keeping her in for a few days to get her used to being handled and halter broken is the right thing. Once you can catch her/handle her, you can then treat her like a normal yearling.
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This, totally.
I'm all for keeping horses out but you need to be able to handle them first. When I've taken on unhandled youngsters in the past (the last one being 2yo) they come in for a week or 2 with a headcollar with a foot of rope hanging off it on them. It's fairly standard practice.

OP, you need to keep a fieldsafe/leather headcollar on her with a foot or 2 of baler twine tied to it on her all the time. When you go in she may well put her head in the corner to keep away from you. You need to put a hand on her bum (standing to the side) and gradually move along her body until you can get the baler twine. Talking to her all the time. Once you catch them they usually calm right down. Then, once you've caught her, feed her (from a bucket) and touch her all over. Pick feet up (fronts first until she's ok) and groom her. Then let her go and go back and repeat in a few hours.

If you do this for a week, or a fortnight tops, most unhandled horses will be fine. You can then lead her out into a small paddock, but keep catching her daily, give her a small feed and a pat and let her go.

She will take her lead from you so you must be quiet, but confident and firm. Don't tiptoe around her too much or she'll just get more nervous.

Good luck - she sounds lovely.
 
I agree with Patterdale and Faracat.

I would just add a concern about your turnout facilities. Do make sure she's in a field with permanent fencing - and no more than perhaps a couple of acres. No electric fencing. And she'll need a buddy.
 
dollyanna said:
I would recommend ordering Sarah Weston's book "No Fear No Force" - if you order it now then it should come by the weekend and it doesn't take long to read the first chapters which is what you want.
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dollyanna said:
I would recommend ordering Sarah Weston's book "No Fear No Force" - if you order it now then it should come by the weekend and it doesn't take long to read the first chapters which is what you want.
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I agree with this, very useful book and I still got a lot of help from it even though my foals were not feral/unhandled but had a lot of the basic handling already done by the stud by the time they came home to me. There have been some other very good suggestions on this thread from experienced breeders/people, including the suggestions that AdorableAlice made.

All the very best of luck with her I hope it goes well :-)
 
Thankyou all so much! My main priority is obviously improving her quality of life and making the best horse/pony I can out of her! (Not sure how big she is going to make, at a guess I'd say 14.3hh)

The advice given has all been really helpful and I really respect the people that understand what position I am in. A huge horsey obsessed young lady who only wants the best for the animals but needs a little advice in the areas I have not yet worked in (untouched horses).

I am going to definitely buy Sarah Weston's book when I get home and use everyone's advice collated and just do the very best I can!

Thanks again xx
 
Good luck. :)

I hope that you can post a photo of her and maybe update us on her progress in the future when she is a normal, well handled and happy yearling.
 
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