I don’t think you can make an accurate assessment of either of their temperaments yet. If neither of them have any handling it is perfectly normal for them to react this way. No different than if you captured a mustang mare and foal and threw them in a stall. Keep yourself safe until you can tame them then see what you have.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;6490568]
I don’t think you can make an accurate assessment of either of their temperaments yet. If neither of them have any handling it is perfectly normal for them to react this way. No different than if you captured a mustang mare and foal and threw them in a stall. Keep yourself safe until you can tame them then see what you have.[/QUOTE]
I agree!
I’d expect a mustang mare and foal to try to flee, not attack.
I hope the OP can bring the mare and foal around. Not an auspicious start though.
[QUOTE=grayarabpony;6490769]
I’d expect a mustang mare and foal to try to flee, not attack.
I hope the OP can bring the mare and foal around. Not an auspicious start though.[/QUOTE]
How do you flee in a stall? Fight or flight, with the flight option taken away.
[QUOTE=alterchicken;6489638]
Sorry I haven’t posted sooner and thanks for the various suggestions. Here’s the update…
I’ve been turning them out in the round pen (filly just follows of course, still can’t get near her) and then doing some round pen work with them. Filly is freaked and ripping around but mare is pretty calm, I keep her working till she’s submissive.
Have been catching the mare at the stall door/round pen gate with grain and she now nickers when she sees me coming and heads over to be caught. She is quite head shy and all movements around her need to be slow or her eyes bug out and head jerks up. Very sensitive around the nose, not possible to get a chain over her nose without a major issue so not even trying. Have been working on giving her a good forehead and neck rub and working my way down to the nose. Have not had another ear laid back from her or any more threats but mind you I haven’t done anything other than catch her with grain and then lead and chase a bit in the round pen. I feed/water through the stall bars and feed door.
I feel like the mare will come around OK though I don’t think I will ever trust her or turn my back on her. Hopefully she’ll be better with more handling and getting the foal off her. The filly is another story, I am not comfortable attempting to squeeze her in the stall with a panel and I don’t have a chute of any sort. I think she would get very violent if we tried and either hurt herself or us.
Had the vet here yesterday and discussed with him. He lent his pole syringe to someone and never got it back but gave me instructions on how to make one. So we are going to do that and jab her with some Dorm in the stall, then get mare out and deal with the mask, haltering, worming etc. The filly does not know what grain is so trying to doctor some feed with tranq at this point I don’t think will be successful.
I think after that I’m going to keep up with the round pen work with the pair, hopefully it will start to get through to the filly as well, teach her what grain is, and then wait to wean the filly at 4 months or as close to it as I can, I’m not terribly comfortable weaning at 3 months. But I’ll play it by ear. If things go south the filly gets weaned!
Wish me luck :eek:[/QUOTE]
Good luck.
Consider setting up your round pen so that you can sort and separate them in full view of each other especially once you have the mare round penning to your liking. This will give you the opportunity to work with the filly one on one. Not have to worry about both in the same pen with you tho.
Hang some hay for the mare so she is standing just there on the other side of the panel and has something to do. But you and baby get one on one time.
It is hard enough dealing with one freakazoid at a time…2 are double trouble.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;6491432]
How do you flee in a stall? Fight or flight, with the flight option taken away.[/QUOTE]
Trying to avoid person entering the stall, climbing the walls. :rolleyes:
Difficulty
There are just many more people who are not able to deal with problems…create problems yes…but not solve problems. The world is filled with low reactive stock horses and that is a good thing. This mare could come from great stock and have a fully reasonable cause for her behavior. Solving the problem seems doable…then you keep her or sell her…how do you find customers who can manage a known problem. The writer has an alter for a good reason. I have gone to starting horses at one place and then sending them to another atmosphere to help give them more experience in the world. A lot of our sport horses are not bred to be born broke and many farms are so designed to be safe they limit exposure to buzy things horses need to see to be safe. This mare and foal have some challenges ahead. If she was a top eventing mare who earned her right to be a broodmare and is reactive and difficult but that worked for her as a competitor now she has to produce foals that have her assets but not her faults. How do you find and sell these foals? If you want the young horses you breed to be in good places through their lives it is best not to start with quirky challenging temperaments. Breed great temperaments. PatO
[QUOTE=grayarabpony;6491832]
Trying to avoid person entering the stall, climbing the walls. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
I would guess she also feels the need to protect her foal. Would not be the first time a mare kicks a predator to protect the foal.
Nope, no way is a mustang mare going to rush to attack someone outside of the stall. Very unlikely to lash out unless she was truly cornered. Besides, you’d think this mare would have had more handling than a feral horse.
Anyway good luck OP! I hope you can bring these 2 around.
This. I was once attacked by a friend’s horse while I was cleaning his stall. He had never given me a problem before. I could easily catch him in pasture, rode him easily many time, had handled him in his stall often.
He was a horse with a history of poor handling who may have been abused. Something I did must have made something in his wee brain click the wrong way. He swung his head at me, bit me hard in the chest which knocked me to the back of the stall. If it had not been cold (I was wearing a sweater, blouse and bra), I might have had a mastectomy without sedation. He shredded all the layers - including the bra and I was sore for weeks. I fully expected him to finish me off while I was lying in the back of the stall, but he let me crawl out without attacking again.
He never tried to hurt anyone again. I refused to go into his stall ever again.
When there is no possibility of flight, a horse may very well resort to attack mode if it has either had no handling or has been abused. Either will cause fear and without the ability to flee, fear can transform to violent defense.
IF there was an abuse history (not known from story here) then the mare could tend towards the aggressive…fight instead of flight. Was she pasture bred? If so she might be nearly feral. One time I was working with a horse that had always been fine . Was not my horse. One day he flipped out. Then I heard “oops. sorry”. Turns out he had a history at a previous home of being abused with a pitchfork. The person cleaning stalls in the barn had cheerfully come down the aisle swinging the pitchfork. A (now elderly) mare I have now was Hi.De.Ous. with deworming and vaccinations. Was known to have come from a farm with ill owners that could no longer care for their horses and most of them (especially the younger ones) had been virtually unhandled…so to get them trimmed and vaccinated/dewormed every once in a while the owners had a cowboy come in and rope/throw them a la calves on the range to get them done. Did not do a lot for her fond thoughts of seeing a farrier, dewormer tube or vaccine needle coming. I did not know these "gems " until after I owned the mare and found out how awful she was. ( Eventually she did get better about the shots and deworming. She never did get good for the farrier/had to be sedated a bit for him.) Then I met someone a short time later who knew her previous owner and I got the whole story. As to foals…have only had to deal with one nearly wild filly I got. Had not learned to halter, lead anything yet. Just lived out unhandled. And that was from a reputable farm too! At that age food was my friend, as to a suggestion of what to do to help with a bad un. I turned her out with a buddy in a dry lot. They came in to be fed. The buddy got fed plenty inside. She (wild filly) got shooed into the stall next door. She got only water and no food except from me. She had to come to me to get it. It took all of about 2 days before I started looking pretty good to her. After she would come to me to eat she had to let me halter her to eat.(Actually like your flymask story: she didn’t have a mask on her but DID have a very outgrown halter stuck on her head.She had been to an inspection and was a registered WB…I think the halter had to have been on her head since inspection. So…getting the halter OFF of her was a priority). Then she had to walk to the trailer and get onto that to eat/put the food in an empty/open stock trailer. FWIW the little terror turned out to be the best riding horse I ever owned by the age of 3.The only reason I got her onto a trailer in the first place to get her home was that I bought her and her mother. I just led Mom onto the trailer and at least she followed. She got weaned and handled after she got here and settled in with some new buddies for a little bit first then took Mom away.
camohn, can you break your posts up a bit more? I’d love to read what you’ve written but the one block of text makes it hard. 
if the mare and foal are in a stall they have nowhere to “run” to and so will of course lash out.
if this were me, i would put them in a small paddock… - enough room for them to feel like they have an “escape route” so they do not feel the need to fight but small enough that they can run away.
Then i would take however long it will take to get them interested in you… there are lots of ways to do this - feed them only from a bucket in your hand, sitting in their paddock for a couple hours, etc etc etc there is no need to frighten them or to “make them run”
it may take days but is far better than making them more scared.
we have done this several times with mustangs and other horses that have never been handled or handled very poorly.
it works.
