From: Jackie
Dear Jessica,
Thank you for Horse Sense, I learn something every week! It's better than most of the horse magazines I get. I have a four month old foal, bought from a friend who had to move her mare (it's a long story). Eddy is in a stall with a small paddock attached, but he doesn't seem very happy there. I think he misses his mother, but he will get over that, right? Here's my question! I can keep him where he is, which is right at the boarding barn where my older horse lives, and where I would see him every day. That's what I would prefer. But my friend (the one who owns Eddy's mother) is very insistent that I should move him to another barn ten miles away. At this barn, there are no stalls, just pastures and sheds. I have visited this place, and it's pretty nice but very basic, although the horses look healthy. The fences are good and safe, and the owners are nice people who like horses, but I just don't know if Eddy would do as well if he is only out with other horses. I would only see him once or twice a week, so I worry about his training. And he would be in a group of seven horses (he would be the eighth) in one field. I've read that young horses should be turned out with other young horses, and there are three other colts in the field, all about Eddy's age. The other horses are older -- the oldest is almost twenty years old and very swaybacked. Do you think that this environment would really be better for Eddy than his own stall in a place where I would see him and work with him every day? I really need your help! Thank you! Jackie
I know that you want to have him where you can see him every day, and you would like to work with him every day too, but that really doesn't make much sense right now. What Eddy needs, at four months, and for the next year or two, is space to run and play and develop, and companions to play with. He also needs teachers -- not just human teachers, but older horses that can educate him in 'horse' ways. Horses, between birth and about age two, are educated primarily by other horses -- that's nature's way, and that's the best way. Horses that are deprived of such contact, and aren't allowed to develop naturally, never really learn to speak 'horse', and so will find it more difficult to learn to speak 'human.' Eddy needs to play and grow with others of his own age -- and he needs role models and discipline from older horses. The set-up you've described sounds perfect.
Of course you will be involved with Eddy -- he's your horse! But once or twice a week will give you plenty of time to teach him what he needs to know about dealing with people -- and again, half of your work will be done FOR you by the other horses. Little horses that learn horse discipline and horse manners are very quick to learn the types of discipline and manners that humans expect from them; little horses that live in stalls and never get out to play with horses their own age and learn from older horses grow up to be dysfunctional socially, and this backfires when you want to teach them 'human' discipline. It's like learning a language -- it IS learning a language! Once you've learned ONE language, you've learned how to learn, and it's easy to pick up a second language -- but if you never really learn your own language during your early years, it's TOO LATE to learn ANY language thoroughly.
I vote for putting Eddy into the big field with the other horses and letting him grow up to be a real horse. By the time he's ready to learn about being a riding horse, he will know how to learn, and he will be physically able to deal with the work involved.
Jessica
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