I’ll be bringing home a 2yo next week from the trainer where he’s just been lightly backed. I bought him a few weeks ago out of state, and my plan is to give him the winter to grow and play with him a bit on the ground, and mid-spring I’ll start to get on him again.
My older gelding is in a 20 acre pasture with two retired buddies - all 3 of them are quite mild mannered, no one has hind shoes and they play together but no serious shenanigans occur. They live out mostly, with a large shed. They do come into stalls in the barn when the weather is bad.
One of the other geldings is a serious worrier, and he’s the only one who really acts upset for a bit when I take my older horse out to ride.
I’m curious about the best way to go about adding the new youngster into this dynamic.
We’ll be opening an adjacent pasture so the 4 of them will have another 15-20 acres to hang out in.
I wanted the youngster to have a herd to grow up with - he had a small band of half siblings at his breeder’s place.
What’s the best way to avoid separation anxiety when I go to start working with him?
I also have the option of putting the 2yo out with one of the other 3 geldings instead, and leaving my older guy out with the other.
Whatever routine you choose for introducing your youngster (congrats, btw! 
), I just want to recommend a brilliant method I learned from a great horse behaviourist in the UK: start getting piles of his poo right now and leave them in the paddock with your current horses! Do it as often as you can before he moves, and continue doing so, if he’s separated from the others at first. That way, the existing herd will get used to his scent early on and the introductions will be much smoother.
Since we’ve been using this method at my barn, all the introductions of new horses, including my own 2yo, have been super smooth and calm, with no fights and stress. The herd just instantly accepted the newbies, and that was it.
We put every new horse in a pen with a water through where the others come and go for water from the pasture all day long.
After some days, they know each other well visiting over the fence, the newbie gets used to horses coming and going without getting excited about it and they have sorted who is boss and who may be your friend.
Then the morning we are turning him with the others, we put many extra hay piles and let him with them and rarely there is any chasing around, they seem to have sorted their differences those days behind a fence.
Our old vet used to say, much of his work is treating injured horses because humans confine them and then insist they live with each other and some just don’t get along.
As per him, domestic horses not in larger pastures are better off with very few others of their choosing or alone with neighbors.
Not knowing your horses, maybe start him with just one horse could work as introduction, see how that goes and if it seems ok, then try them together.
Interesting about putting a stranger’s manure in with an established herd for some time before bringing said new horse.
I think keeping a horse across the fence for some days serves similar purpose.
At our barn, the newby is stalled amongst the others, but turned out separately where h and they can see each other but not reach each other. Depending on the horse, and the herd we contnue this fo a week, or more., sometimes turning them out with one herd member before turning them out with the herd.
A new horse in the barn is always more work, and a break in the all important rhythm and routine.
I always make a large pen off the barn ( that they share) and put the new horse in there. That way it has a safe area with shelter and they can get to know each other at leisure. After a few days to week if all is quiet I let the new horse out and see what happens ( which has been nothing) .
Depending on personalities or age I may do it for just a few hours at a time or start with letting them out with just 1 horse first and add the others over time. With my last 2 added herd members I have just let them out with the 2 I had and all was great.
This may go without saying, but any time I release a new horse into a pasture, I put all the other horses up first and then hand-walk the newcomer around all the perimeter and cross fences. That way they get to see their boundaries before they are expected to respect them. Once the fence tour is complete, I release that horse to explore on theri own for a couple of hours, and then turn the others out and let them all say hi. This is, of course, after several days of letting them get to know each other over a safe boundary.
I have never heard of the poop pre-introduction method, but I also can’t think of any recent acquisitions where that would have been possible. Interesting concept though!
My goodness! The site reconfiguration has kept me locked out for a few days.
Thanks everyone for reading - I see I wasn’t clear with what my question was. I agree with all your suggestions on how to introduce a new horse, they are similar to what I intended. My question is more in regard to combining the horses.
What turnout configuration works best to discourage herdbound behavior? According to the trainer backing him, this 2yo has been a bit herdbound with his stablemate when they came in together.
I purchased a 3 year old in August. I have a very small horse property with limited turn-out options, ie. one turnout. I already had 3 geldings at home, a 9 year old, 6 year old (very dominant) and 18 year old. I knew the personalities of the three very, very well. Only one had/has hind shoes (the 6 year old). So, I first just turned the young guy out with the oldest gelding who was my ‘uncle’ for years for the various weanlings I raised. I would bring the other two inside while the oldest and newest/youngest were turned out for a few hours together. Once that was clearly going well (about one week) I then started to add the 9 year old to the mix because he is very submissive. Again, things went relatively well without major injury. I kept that group together, alternating turnout times between the newest/youngest with Mr. Dominant/sassy pants leaving the other two out (uncle and Mr. Submission all 24/7) for at least 2 weeks. I then bit the bullet and started to turn out Mr. dominant/sassy pants with the newest one for short periods of time bringing the uncle in simply to decrease the number of flying hooves until I knew all would settle down. Despite posturing and several bite marks it all went reasonably well. There were some minor injuries but so far nothing career ending. The new guy is very bold and very confident which in many ways helps and in some ways causes the heart stopping rough play; but, I think the gradual introductions and managing of the groups in such a way has lessened the severity of contact. I bring them in and separate them when it comes to feeding (ration balancer/supplements et al) time; but, otherwise they’re turned out together as one herd now.
As far as herd-bound concerns, I will say that the youngsters are simply a bit more likely to merry up with someone eventually and if you stick to a routine which removes one or the other relatively regularly I think you can prevent a full blown problem. However, having said that some horses simply are more insecure and maintain those tendencies to ‘need another’. The three older ones I have are routinely worked alone including trailering to another location. The new one is showing signs of becoming attached to the others; but, with his bold nature I think continuing to take the others away and leaving the new guy to deal with it, plus eventually taking him off to work somewhere else when the time comes will help.
I ran into a similar situation with my filly (long yearling). She has a somewhat herdbound personality (prefers horses to people) and I was really worried about it getting worse once I put her out to pasture with four other mares. I worked her up to it by first pulling one of the older mares from pasture to be her neighbor in a smaller pen. I’d take my filly on walks over to the big pasture and turn filly + buddy out together in the roundpen so they got used to running together.
By consistently pulling my filly from her buddy, but always bringing her back, she became less herdbound in general because she knows her buddy is coming back. I turned the buddy back out in the big pasture, followed by my filly. The drama was minimal and you can pull any of them out without much fuss.
Train him to calm himself. Teach him that when you’re there he is playing with you, not his other friends. Exactly how depends on your temperament, his, and your environment.
But a good place to start is keep him actively doing and thinking - avoid static things like grooming on cross ties for a while. Then brief periods of static things after the active ones before going back to his buddies. Keep the active things simple in that you focus on one thing for the day. Like going for a walk - imagine a box beside you where you want him to be and correct him when he steps out of the box (not before, let him make the mistake).
I’ve found that the larger groups are less concerned when one member leaves. If you run two pairs your youngster’s buddy will be more likely to call back than if the other three are together.
