Question/young horse first tieing....

[welsummerchicks]

I don't turn anything loose with a lead on it. I think that is way, way too dangerous. Seen that go to heck in a bucket REAL FAST. Never again. I don't think stepping on it teaches them anything either. Plus I know a good many horses that are very halter broke and will stand tied all day, but if that lead rope dangles down around their feet and they step on it they totally lose it and start going crazy. One of the quietest horses I've ever met, almost 20, the owner insisted on having him step on the lead over and over and over 'to teach him to deal with it' and EVERY TIME he totally loses it and about kills himself trying to get away.

What I like to do is teach them to give gradually like the poster above described. I'm not going to take a young horse that isn't real halter broke and just tie him hoping he don't kill himself.

 

[babyblue]

Quote:
yup just a foot or so, that way if they do lose it and go flying there is noting to drag and tangle. I would never ever ever turn a horse loose with enough rope to step on (well I don't turn a horse loose with anything on at all) but enough to step on is enough to tangle and break a leg.

 

[chickenzoo]

I like using a clip or something like the Aussie tie ring. The horse can pull rope thru w/o getting hurt and learn how to stand tied. You use it with a long lead rope at first.

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

I hope you don't mind a bit of a different experience with this.

I am an ol cowboy who, for 40 years or more, taught babies to tie by tying them to the stoutest tree I could find. I used an innertube between the baby's lead rope and the tree to give some "give" to the setup. Worked for me for 40+ years.

Then about a year ago--maybe less--I had a youngster really freak out on me. She was tied via lead rope and innertube to an 8 x 8 post set 4 feet in the ground using a 50# bag of concrete. The day she freaked over it, she broke the lead rope, the halter, and pulled the post out of the ground. It is amazing how strong a baby can be. And she was so freaked that there was no way I could get close enough to her to release her. So everything broke and she flipped over, picked herself up and ran straight into her stall.

The incident changed her whole personality. She had been a sweet, easygoing youngster that you could handle all over -- and she turned into a mean, distrusting, kick/bite-you-first-and-ask-questions-later adult. Heaven help the person who startles her or crosses her. She will fight you to the death--hers or yours--it doesn't seem to matter which to her.

So I started all over with her. It has taken many months but she does finally trust me. Me. NOBODY else. A sensible person would probably put her down. I won't do that. I made this mess and it is up to me to fix it. And she cannot be tied. Not anywhere or with anything. She will kill herself to get free.

Oh, and one other detail: This perfectly formed youngster now has one foreleg that is 2" shorter than the other. We believe but cannot prove that this happened during the tie-out thing. When the halter/lead rope broke, she flipped over backwards and got up limping on that leg. The growth plates in that cannon fused and the leg stopped growing while the other leg continued to grow. We've been told the surgery to correct this will cost upwards of $10,000. For a mare no one can handle but me (and even I cannot handle the injured leg--although we are working on that). One result of all of this is that I taught everyone in the barn (including her) to ground tie.

I think if I were starting a baby today, I would teach the halter, leading, AND ground-tying before I ever tried tying that baby to anything solid. Because you never know what could happen when you tie them. I tied horses for all of my adult lifetime without a serious accident until this happened. Now I don't tie anybody.


Rusty

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I don't have much experience halter breaking a youngster, but I would work on ground work and pressure release as much as you can before tying.

Luckily most of my horses have been pretty good about tying when we got them, but we've had to teach them patience. We do a lot of trail riding, so tying quietly is really important. However, we had a fatal accident with a horse who was tied to a post that came out of the ground. It was a freak accident on a day where she was having issues, but it has taught us to never ever tie to anything that can come loose or out of the ground. My dad and I have spent many hours sitting on hay bales near the barn with the horses tied just teaching them to stand quietly (not hours at a time, but over a course of many months!). This has really, really come in handy and most of our horses (I wouldn't fully trust the baby 100% yet) will stand quietly now with or without hay for as long as we need them to. We've gone trail riding with too many people who have to constantly put down feed or hay just to get their horse to stand!

If I had to choose a method to teach a horse to tie, I would probably use the tire method. It seems like it works well for a majority of the people who mention it to me. However, I would also do a lot of work teaching pressure/release with a good rope halter before jumping right into tying.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Rusty that's why I always shake my head when I hear the insistence on the 'tie 'em hard' method. Especially with an adult that won't tie. It's bad enough with a lighter weight smaller baby - it's 10 times worse with an adult that won't tie.

I've seen so many adult horses you couldn't tie because they had had some sort of wreck or accident. And there's ALWAYS some smart guy that insists the horse has to be tied up! I've seen a good many wrecks caused by that. My experience is if an adult horse has already been ruined in that respect, it is VERY unlikely anyone will change that at this point without killing the animal or coming darn close.

Even with a little one, if they fight and have a wreck (and quite a few do), that sort of thing can ruin a horse's life - rick their back or neck permanently, ruin the growth of a leg (as you found - growth plates get crushed and that affects the growth of the leg permanently) or destroy their temperament - and that may never recover too. And in some cases, just plain old kill them.

Tie 'tie 'em hard' evolved when horses cost a few dollars each and there were hundreds of them to break each spring and no time to handle them all or ease them in. They were, in a word, dispensable. If one died fighting the tie or was permanently ruined - it just was not that big a deal.

 

[judiechristine]

I don't know how much you have worked with him, but always put a halter on as young as possible and when weaned put a cotton lead on it and let them drag it around for a week or longer. That way when they step on it it teaches them about pressure and gets them used to the rope..Just a short lead about 5-6 feet and make sure the area is clear of hazards so they dont get caught up on something. Happy Trails

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

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What this whole episode did was teach her that if she fights hard enough, she will win. Now the only way to approach her is with an open hand and a kind word. There is no bullying this gal into anything. But...treat her gently and she'll learn what she needs to. I can bathe, brush, halter, lead, doctor her without a fight of any kind. To spray her I spray one side and ask her to turn around, which she does, and then spray the other side. It's a game she likes. She will follow me around but is getting the idea of ground tying as long as I don't leave her line of sight or ask her to be still for longer than 15 minutes. Her dislike of other people may be a bit inherited, as her daddy is much the same way, although her mamma wasn't like that at all. And neither was she until this happened.

Saddling is interesting, though. She's a bit of a character in that after I throw the saddle pad up there and I reach for the saddle, she grabs the end of the pad, pulls it off, and pops me with it. She seems to think that is a grand joke on me!

But she is only 2 and has the bad leg, so I don't know that I'm ever gonna actually ride her. I just figure the more handling a youngster gets, the better an adult they turn into.

What this whole thing has done is force me to reexamine all of my training methods. I have found so many ways to lighten up my approach, and not just with her. Everybody seems to enjoy the difference. I'd like to think I learned a lot from this and have become a better horseman because of it.


Rusty