If you have your own stables at home, it is important for the foal to grow up with another foal or an older social horse. It is not advisable to let a foal grow up alone, because this can lead to less social behavior at a later age when the horse is placed in a group of horses.
Rearing in a larger group of horses contributes to the development of good social behavior. When viewing the foal, it is important to pay close attention to how the breeder interacts with the foal.
The environment and the experiences of a young horse can shape the animal for good and bad for life. If you have a young horse under your own care early on, you can understand better why a horse develops certain behavior and you can respond to this.
Many breeders teach their foals the "Foal ABC". In a nutshell this is a short basic training for foals, in which they learn to wear a halter, to walk by the hand, to be tied up, to be brushed and, to lift their feet. If your foal does not know this yet, it is advisable to get started with this before the foal goes to rearing.
This reduces the risk of dangerous situations at a later stage, when the young horse has become a lot bigger and more powerful. However, her 2 year old filly was a dream to handle, became friendly very quickly and was the easiest horse I ever backed. The later born foal also grew into a confident, extrovert people oriented youngster so nervous and distrusting mare could have become so due to her previous environment rather than her real make up.
Oops, digression again. Exceptions aside, I prefer a mare with friendly outlook and level headed approach to life. Good conformation and movement are high on my list too due to soundness that usually goes with both. My preference is rough but safe lifestyle for a foal and youngster. Sand, grass, woodchip, gravel, unlevel ground — all this develops proprioception and athleticism both of which are the key to a good riding horse whose muscles, ligaments and tendons are to be ready to carry the rider safely and in a healthy manner.
The best weanlings and youngsters I have worked with came from breeders where mares graze together with offsprings of similar age. There are of course exceptions where hand reared and single kept youngsters grow up without any issues but on the whole, I prefer that the horse learns his equine etiquette from the herd he is in.
He can get reprimanded, accepted, rejected, played with and groomed by and all this shapes character and trainability. There is also the play factor. Playing is learning, training, stimulation and contentment all rolled into one great activity.
Interaction with others of the same or similar age can rarely be matched by addition of other animals like goats or donkeys. So there, I look forward to breeding or buying my own foal one day when I can fulfil those 3 key factors. Do you? My hope would be to produce a well-mannered and pleasant horse that I could enjoy riding, rather than a jumping machine due to who their parents were. Have seen friends dreams being crushed from various issues with the foals, heartbreaking.
All the cute pictures of foals playing made my day. First, I am chuckling at you turning out your stallion with a mare. Oh my! Horses work by dominance in the herd, and I will bet that unless you way overdo the discipline, horse will be Number One in the herd of you two. So consider your first foal a "throw-away" horse, while you spend your time messing it up, maybe not getting you TOO badly hurt. Then you end up selling it cheap, because horse is no fun to deal with. Could save yourself several years, injury, money, by going to take lessons in handling, riding, training, BEFORE purchasing even a well-broke horse.
First time horse owners, even if they have a big horse book library, have to change their thinking so much from book smart to real-life with live horse. Then what do you do? Nice you can have a horse, but don't make it a baby foal of any gender.
Get a quiet adult horse and learn from it. PattySh Loving the herd life. I have ridden and owned horses for years I'm Having trained 6 foals myself 3 unhandled pmus, 1 mini and 2 13H ponies born here it is serious business not to be taken lightly.
Even very experienced handlers get hurt, and seriously. You want to start out with a well broke patient older horse, sized appropriate to you, that has excellent ground manners and a forgiving nature because you are a beginner. One foal had a seriously dangerous kicking habit that took months to fix. I was kicked in the chest once and I was knocked out in the pasture for quite some time , had my feet stepped on many times, even my mini foal took me out at the knees a few times and he had to be cured of biting!
Horses are large sometimes dangerous animals. Foals are very flighty and challenging. They can develop dangerous habits easily with unknowledgable owners.
Horses can be awesome but PLEASE spend alot of time around them before you go out and get a horse you can't handle and really get hurt. Have to agree on this one. Hire a trainer and work with them. Either that or buy lots of medical and life insurance. Members Current visitors New profile posts Search profile posts.
Log in Register. Search titles only. Search Advanced search…. New posts. Search forums. Log in. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Advice on buying a foal and what to look for - please. Thread starter debradley Start date 25 May Joined 17 April Messages Location Worcestershire.
Hi - well as the post suggests I'm after some advice on buying a foal. Would be looking at around a 1 year old. This is not something I've done before so was just wondering if there is anything in particular I should be looking out for when viewing; and also is it usual to have one vetted prior to purchase? Sorry if I sound a numpty, but would really like to get this right as am looking to bring it on for my daughter to go to college on in about 4yrs time and she would also like to event in the future, so want to do all my homework before going ahead.
Thanks folks.
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