Study: Human interaction with foals a 'stessor'

[kentuckyrosesinmay]

Originally Posted by LARHAGE

I personally have found that imprinting of very young foals has made them a lot more bratty and disrespectful in general. I now leave the mare and foal to bond in peace for a few days and start handling the foal at day 3 when they get turned out with the dam, I find them easier to handle with a more respectful opinion of people. I have 2 mares now that were imprinted at birth, they are both pushy, crabby and think they are on an even par with me, the other mares were not imprinted and much kinder to handle.

These are just my observations with my horses/foals. I no longer imprint.

I agree with you. I have found that to be the same way. I think it is detrimental to the foal's overall behavior to handle them too much too early. My trainers don't imprint either. It is really useless to imprint as shown in multiple studies. The foals don't remember it, and I think too much human/foal interaction at an early age tends to make them more pushy and spoiled, so that you have to address these issues later on...which is not fun when they get much bigger! Plus, I love my animals and don't want any necessary stress brought on in their lives. So, I just basically took up a whole lot of space saying the exact same thing you did

Here is an interesting study conducted about imprinting if you haven't seen it. I also think that I read a similar study to the one we're talking about a while ago. It seems useless to do studies on these sorts of things, because the horsemen already know it to be true from experience. I think that everyone who has ever trained a horse from a baby up to saddling and riding would say that human interaction stresses them out sometimes. My horses let me know when they run away from me when I try to catch them...haha.

Of course, I say this and trainers/vets still pin-fire in this country... The Americans are way behind the Euros in some things.

This study reminds me of a similar one conducted by a group of veterinarians about what horses do when something far away from them that they may be afraid of. In the Horse Industry Handbook (yes, 'the book'...sorry, fond memories) says that horses will LOWER THEIR HEAD when viewing something that is farther than 4 feet away from them. I have never seen a horse do that. They always lift their head way up and use their binocular vision when they are looking at something intently that is a bit of a distance away. But, you knew this.

I think this is it...
http://www3.vet.upenn.edu/labs/equin...igurjon(1).htm