Tractors

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kinderhorse

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Last nite when the lady who shares my horse with me took him for a hack with another livery , they encountered a tractor half a mile down the lane . As livery is on walking firm a tractor is something that he has seen before , this had a flashing light .
Anyway he looked at it when it got close and at first she thought he was fine with it till he jumped in ditch then out of ditch then cleared ditch and into field , then crawled on his knees while shaking . She came off and he trotted home , she aches a bit and said he was not naughty but panicked and was frightened .
What can we do to help him over come this he has never had a problem when hacking before , and want to nip this in the bud .
Please help if you can ?
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if you have the opportunity the best way to help a horse overcome a problem with an object is to make the horse walk behind, following the object be it a tractor or plastic bag etc. This gives them more confidence as they feel safer as the very scary object is moving away from them yet you are keeping them in contact with the item long enough for them to realise that in fact it really isn't going to eat them after all. My horse is scared stiff of sheep! We have experienced 2 incidences with sheep that now have her quivering at the slightest baaaaa. To help her overcome this I take her into a field full of sheep and I can feel her tense and jumpy and she trembles with fear. As the sheep run away as we approach I make her follow them. It is working great each time we enter the field she is growing with confidence.
 
The very best way to have a horse overcome it's fear of tractors is to feed hay from it. All of my guys can hear the moment I start our tractor up and they know fine well that it brings the goodies!

Sounds like it might be a good idea to de-spook the horse though; then he won't react to anything which seems odd.
 
We bought a pony that was scared of tractors & as we keep ours on a working farm it was something that needed tackling. This is what worked for us, but you may want to make sure no one has a video camera around! We walked the pony past the tractor at a comfortable distance letting him stop & look whenever he wanted. While this was happening I stood & patted the tractor & spoke to it like a dog - "Nice tractor, good tractor" in a jolly voice. Eventually after a couple of days the pony was happy to approach the tractor & we put polos & carrots on the wheel arches. This pony will do anything for food & took the treats. Cautiously at first, but soon without worrying. Trouble is now he always looks for treats from the nice tractors!
 
Thank you but my sharer has now lost her confidence on him to hack him out , and I have it in the back of my mind too .
So I think I will have to sell him as we cannot take the risk of him doing it again .
 
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