Foal Series...part 1

This is an article series I wrote originally for tHink magazine Australia, and which was subsequently also released to be published in Brumby Magazine and also IHA magazine (USA) I recently had a request on facebook for the content of this series, so I decided to upload it here on my own website for anyone to enjoy, and hopefully gain some helpful hints for raising confident, respectful 'citizens' in the form of the horses in our lives. Part 2 will be uploaded here in a week or so, but I will leave all 3 articles in the archives for future availability to all.  
Cheers Chris Corbidge 'Wongaburra' Mooralla 2021

 
A love of raising foals and training young horses to live and thrive confidently in the human world inspired me to write these articles.  With the arrival of our newest filly ‘Luna’ in December 2018,  I had the perfect opportunity to record in writing and photographs some of the insights I’ve discovered from my own experience of raising young horses, from my horsemanship teachers and also from the horses I’ve raised and trained in my lifetime so far. 


It’s a real thrill seeing a foal on the ground, they are super cute, and super distracting!  You might not get a lot of housework done in those first few days…I don’t! I do recommend spending time in with your foal every day, especially in the first week or so, it’s totally worth it if you go about it with the right attitude and good action plan.  
With every foal I have raised, I start with the end in mind. I have a picture in my mind of what I want the adult version of the foal to be. Confident, knowledgeable, competent and athletic.  This helps me steer away from being anthropomorphic and it also keeps me on track to include important information with the young horse that it is going to need down the track in order to live successfully in the human world in general, and with the particular activities I might have planned for it (or a future owner)


Here’s my ‘priority list’ and some of the things I’ve discovered during my foal experiences.

1. My ’foal training program’ begins before the foal is born. Build a GREAT relationship with the mare!  The mare’s opinion of you is going to strongly influence the foal, especially in the ‘imprinting’ stage immediately after birth. 
2. Take care of the ‘little things’.  Handle your mare regularly, gain her trust and permission to touch her everywhere including her udder and around her vulva as this will help in the unlikely event that she needs veterinary attention, make sure her feet are trimmed regularly and make sure she gets the nutrition she needs (this means balanced mineral/vitamin/calorie intake - not just fattening!)  Make sure she has had dental care, and that she is not overweight or has any health issues before she becomes pregnant, because these issues will be difficult to address once she is in foal.  Make sure she is super confident with the trailer - you might need to move her unexpectedly, so you don’t want to start a program too late! 
3. Prepare a space for your mare with birthing and the foal’s early learning in mind. Safe troughs, no hazards (like loose wire, rubbish or corrugated iron, and ensure any buildings are checked for things like protruding nails or potential foot traps) Use a paddock that has been spelled for several months and remove all manure before spelling it.  Make sure your fencing reaches the ground, even a 6” gap at the bottom of the fence can cause an accidental separation between mare and foal - when the foal can lie down and stretch it’s head and neck under the fence, it is then possible for the rest of it’s body to follow when it goes to get up again.  
4. Move the mare into the space you have in mind for her to birth at least 1 month before her first due date if possible. Remember, the ’due date’ is a wide window of between 320 and 365 days.  Clean the paddock of manure daily, it’s worth the effort to have a clean, poo free paddock. If she has a bond-mate, either house them next door (with a safe fence) or bring them in too. Preferably a mare who has experience with foals and/or foaling mares but preferably not a gelding, as geldings can become very stallion like when there is a foal on the ground, in fact all horses in the vicinity will become super-charged with adrenaline when a foal is born.
5. Make sure the birthing space has shelter for wind, sun and/or rain. It is not safe to leave blankets on a pregnant or birthing mare.
6. Good luck trying to witness the birth…I’ve missed every one of my mare’s! Mares are dynamic birthers, even first timers - even when I’ve been certain of my mare’s imminent birthing and camped out doing hourly checks…I usually find her and the foal very shortly after it has arrived! 
7. Learn all you can about ‘imprinting’ and ‘early learning’ for foals. Doctor Robert Miller was the first person whose books I read on this topic, Pat Parelli was a student of his and took his philosophy a lot further. Pat has been my biggest influence regarding raising foals and teaching them to be not only friendly but respectful ‘citizens’.  
8. Imprinting stage: This is the first ‘window of opportunity’  for learning which happens immediately after birth.  The foal’s brain ‘imprints’ onto the nearest moving thing/s it sees in the first hours after birth. Usually the first ‘moving mass’ is the foal’s mother, but in the wild it would also include other members of it’s mother’s herd.  If we have a great bond with the mare, we can be part of this natural imprinting process in a positive way, but we need to remember they are also imprinting about things their mother reacts unfavourably to.  During those early hours after birth, and especially before the foal gets to it’s feet and learns to nurse, the best thing you can be is a calm, casual ‘piece of the furniture’.  To keep it positive, focus on being there with the mare first and foremost, it is very natural for people to get very focused on the foal, this can cause the mare to become alarmed. If your mare moves away from you when you approach her and the foal, this impression is being imprinted on the foal. Do whatever works to cause your mare to be happy to see you, bring treats (who comes empty handed to a birthing event?) hang out whilst she eats, give her a massage, whatever your mare loves. Most of all, don’t alarm her with your eagerness to meet and make contact with her foal. 
9. Don’t be in a hurry to ‘do imprinting’. Imprinting is happening with or without your ‘doing anything’.  Allow it to be an indirect process, if you get too intent on getting something done ie. rubbing the foal with a plastic bag or handling its feet, you might end up causing the exact opposite effect to what you had intended.  Allow, allow, allow…the foal to discover you, it’s mum, the udder, the environment, it’s own sea-legs and so on. Be a part of the process, be involved but don’t interfere or be interruptive.  Allow the foal to investigate you, and resist the urge to reach out and touch the foal at first, especially on the head or poll, wait for the foal to touch you…or touch the mother and then allow your touch to include the foal - when the foal is nursing is a good time for that, and you’ll often find the first touch starts best at the hindquarters.  The mare will be full of endorphins once the foal begins to latch on and feed, you’ll see a ’sleepy’ look come over her. The foal is tuned into her every emotion and reaction/response, so her relaxation coupled with your gentle touch can make a really positive impression.  This is usually the moments I handle my foal’s legs and feet for the first time. 
10. The imprinting window closes fairly soon after birth, and progresses to the ‘early learning’ stage. This is a really valuable window of opportunity, one where you can really help your foal to begin to learn how to live in the human world as trouble free as is possible.  By now, there will have been some repetition of visits, and the foal will start to recognise patterns of behaviour and also routine. The foal is in a real ‘discovery’ mindset now. You can start to introduce ‘objects’ of importance, tools like sticks, plastic bags, brushes, tarps, saddle pads and floats - whatever might be part of your horse’s life.
11. Be selective about ‘visitors’. It’s best to wait until the imprinting stage is over, you have settled into a routine, and the mare and foal are relaxed and hopefully even meeting you at the gate when you turn up. Everyone will be keen to see your new foal, but for the sake of your relationship with the mare and the foal, keep this in check. It is great if the foal is exposed to other people in a timely and positive way, but your mare might see visitors as something alarming…if she’s moving away when you approach you know it’s not right. Have your visitors wait at a distance whilst you re-establish contact with the mare and even halter her, bring her a bucket of her favourite food…then signal to your visitors when it’s ok for them to approach…not in a sneaky way, but not in a direct way. Have them come to you, not the mare or foal, don’t be in a hurry, chat to them and help them understand why this early learning stage is so important.  Every interaction your mare and foal have with humans means something to them and is either strengthening your partnership with them or degrading it. First impressions last a lifetime. 
12. Once the ‘early learning’ stage begins, you will notice the foal becoming more confident about you, and touching you more and more. Depending on your foal’s unique ‘horse-anality’, it may be either a. little more hesitant or b. rather pushy even bordering on ‘rude’!  This is natural behaviour, your approach and choice of actions need to depend on what the foal is ‘offering’.  Don’t take it personally if your foal reacts in a less than desirable way!  If your foal is a bit hesitant and less confident about you, spend more time building rapport, which means more relaxation, slowing down your approach and adding more retreat, with lots of waiting for the foal to come to you.  If your foal is really confident, approaching more than retreating, is very mouthy, feels like it is invading your space and possibly pawing or rearing, you need to spend some time teaching it to ‘yield’. The right time for yielding is not so much about the actions, because sometimes the best thing you could do for the relationship is allow your foal to touch you, even get a little pushy especially if it is a naturally timid individual. But you need to know how to read the difference between a foal building it’s confidence and one that is pushing a boundary.  It is a pendulum though, one minute you will allow, and the next you will redirect the foal. Don’t blame the foal, it’s just exploring it’s world and trying to figure out what kind of ‘herd member’ you are. Can it move you? Or can you move it? When you first yield your foal away from you, it may at first look a little unsure and stand away from you, may blink or look sleepy, it may go to it’s mum and nurse and you may feel a bit unsure yourself. Relax, just like good parenting, you need to set boundaries and be clear about them. If you get the balance right, your foal won’t lose confidence in approaching you, but it will be less keen to ‘invade’ your space. 
13. If your foal does something that causes your adrenaline to come up, ie it goes to bite or kick you and you think ‘you little - - - - -  (insert swear word of choice)  DON’T react! Reset and think about how you can re-approach. Flicking a foal on the nose for biting for example or smacking it on the hind end for kicking does not work long term! That little adrenaline rush you feel when your horse alarms you? That’s your predatory nature rearing it’s head…our default instinct is to fight back and punish. So instead, step back and think about how you can approach things differently.
14. If or when you need to move the mare and newborn foal to a new location, first teach the foal to lead from a body or neck string and have someone very experienced lead the mare and allow her to follow the foal. The mare will ALWAYS follow the foal, but the foal will not always follow the mare!  If you are leading a mare and expecting the foal to follow and you go into a new ‘unsafe place’ - your foal may baulk and when the person keeps leading the mare away this unwittingly causes the foal to feel it just got separated (much like two soap bubbles coming apart) becoming very alarmed and spinning to race back to the ‘last safe place’ it spent time with it’s mother. You’ll know when this is about to happen, because the mare will start to turn towards the foal and nicker in an alarmed way…just before they become separated. Unfortunately, there are usually obstacles between the foal and the ‘last safe place’, like fences and even farm machinery… in it’s panic to find safety the foal can end up having a serious accident. It is our interference that causes this to happen, the foal is not ’stupid’ and ‘running away from it’s mother’, it is following mother nature’s instructions.

 

1. One last piece of advice about raising a young horse. You’ll never get it perfect!  Find good mentorship and look for good information. Keep improving yourself, your knowledge as well as your practise. You’ll be able to judge a good mentor by observing their own horses - if they are calm, confident and competent…chances are that person has something to teach you.   

This year’s foal is now approaching 2 weeks old, and she is already clearly showing her true self! She has a high willpower, is super confident and like her mum is very assertive over others, including her ‘playmates’ who at this point are a pet sheep and a mini pony. I am not going to be able to be lazy with this one…no more sleeping in for me!  
 




Next in the series: Halter training your foal.