Dan, the mustang trapper, brought another nine horses in this evening. It was one band and they let the stud go because he is black and beautiful. They will return one of the mares also because she has very distinctive markings. They PZP the distinctive mares (birth control for 2 years). If they used PZP on the plain bays they could never study what happens to them.
So we are up to 18 new mustangs on top of our resident 7. This is when I start hating life because we don't have pens to keep them as individuals. Have you ever tried training a herd? The behavior of the herd sinks to the level of the most fearful horse. You have to isolate them for them to act like an individual. I had isolated the ones that arrived yesterday but there is absolutely not the pens to isolate many more. I also put my domestic horses in some of the pens with the most bothered horses.. It seems to keep the horses from feeling too sorry for the way their freedom was ripped from them. I do think they suffer from emotional shock.
Hand feeding is problematic in this arrangement.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
My recent posts on the Connection Club No.8
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"Have you ever tried training a herd? The behavior of the herd sinks to the level of the most fearful horse."
ReplyDeleteI find often if I have one horse that trusts me pretty well, I can use this horse to help me win the trust of others who are fearful of humans.
Of course, this is placing a fearful/unhandled horse with a handful of calm, friendly ones.
I can imagine that mixing mustangs who are just starting training with wild ones might not be to the trainer's advantage.
Mary H.