Does anyone have any good ways to teach a foal to tie? What is a good age to start teaching them? Please Respond!!
There ought to be a law that all breeders teach their horses to tie AT SOME POINT in their youth.
I have a large TB that I won’t risk tying to anything. I thought he was good, then one day while tacking him in his stall, he sat back big time, broke the new cotton lead rope and flipped himself over while wearing my dressage saddle. Hit his head on a rafter on the way over.
Scared the bejeezus out of me and him. I think he also pulled something in his back or neck in the process and it took a good year for him to feel like he was really moving right.
So I am resigned to just live with one that doesn’t tie. And, I respectfully say, please save the conversation about all the methods available in re-training one to tie. This one is 17h and has already been to Dr. Barry Grant on spinal compression issues. I just don’t think it is worth the risk and I can live with it. 
But back to the original topic of this post. I commend you for wanting to know how and when to do it correctly, thank you, thank you. Your horse’s future handlers will greatly appreciate your efforts. 
“The older I get, the better I used to be.”
Well, I have never taught a foal to tie, but I recently taught an unhandled yearling to tie.
First step was to teach him to lead.
Then I would leave him loose in his stall with a LONG cotton lead. The intention is for him to stand on it, pull baqck, discover that he is pulling against himself, and work through the "OMG " response.
Next I taught him to stand in the cross ties. Ours are attached high and attached to inner tubes, so ther is a little bit of give. I worked on picking out feet, putting on flyspray, etc.
Now I am tieing him in his stall while working on him (he has bandages on his hind legs which are redone each day). This is workin fine.
I tried tieing him outside to hose his leg, but he pulled back and broke the stiching on the halter. (But he stands fine to be hosed while someone is holding him.) So obviously we hasven’t completed the training ptocess. But that is how I am going about it. I’ll probably try tieing him outside (without hosing him) in the next week or so.
One technique I have heard, but have never used,is to tie a second rope around the butt, so that when they DO pull back, they pull against their butt as well as the neck.
That sounds very interesting, Heather. Did you put a snap or anything on the end of your bungee cord? And did you tie it on the bottom (chin) ring on his halter?
I like the sound of your scenario, but I have one question. Did Shane ever actually question the tension and, if so, what happened and how did you deal with it?
I wouldn’t say a horse is trained to tie until it has gone against the resistance and learned that the resistance will win.
Robby
Thanks for the replys! My foal is only three months old and far from learning to be tied but as the owner of two horses who are notorious for setting back on the crossties or when tied becuse their previous owners did not teach them to tie I wanted to get a head start with her. 
Oh yes, definately, sorry if that wasn’t clear.
The bungee had a snap on each end already ($2.99 at Lowe’s), and I snapped one end to his chin ring, and the other to first the twine loop in the screw eye, and then the screw eye itself.
And yes, you definately let them “hit the end of it” so to speak, the trick is to always be near by, and not let them get overly flustered oir frustrated witht the restraint, since that’s what can trigger the full-blown panic attack/temper tantrum. And you increase their time to learn patience a bit by bit.
So, for instance, on day one, you let him eat his food, try to go back toMom, feel the bungee holding him, let him do small this-way-and-that tugs, then let him off to go talk to Mom. On day 20, for instance, he’s going to have to stand there until Mom is done with her meal (disclaimer–no real time should be implied here, each horse must go at his own pace).
Evnetually, you do let them, “have it out” with the bungee, since most will really test it once (our colt was pretty independant and pretty dominant, so one day after he’d been doing the little drill fine for about 3 weeks, he dicided he wanted to eat Mom’s food instead of his, and through a snait right fromthe get go. We knew he was just testing the siutation, so we let him hop around, and try to pull back, and just gnerally fuss. After 5 minutes, he settled down, reluctantly, and ate his food, and waited quietly to be let out (albeit with his little ears pinned back, and a sulky look on his face, LOL). The trick is just to not trigger that reponse, before they are mentally and physiucally prepared to understand the answer (which is no, you stand tied like a good baby).
If you are near any trees that have tall branches, get an intertube and put it around a tall branch. Tie the lead rope to the intertube and then when they pull and try to sit back, it gives. If you don’t have any trees to do this on. This is the advice that Texas A&M gave me and I tried it. It worked beautifully on my baby.
I like the sound of your method! I’ll have to remember that!
Robby
A 3 month-old foal is too young to teach to tie. A foal’s neck is VERY delicate and you can really mess them up, if not kill them, but confusing them at that young of an age.
I have a personal friend who is a very successful breeder who was teaching a foal to tie and left it in the barn to run into the house, came back and foal was dead. Snapped it’s neck.
I would teach tieing until the horse was at least weaned and more mature - probably as a yearling. And then I’d start by teaching it to ground tie. If/when you’re going to teach permanent tying, do it with cotton and make sure you’re tying to something really secure. There is nothing more annoying - not to mention dangerous - than a horse who “sits back” on a lead rope.
Robby
And always, always, always have their first lesson on a single tie (as opposed to a cross tie), with a quick release knot, and the lead rope tied at at least eye level with the horse, if not higher.
Cross ties seem to panic them a bit more, and if something bad happens, it is a lot eaier to untie one quick release knot than two crossties.
I don’t think that I would really worry about tie lessons until at least after the trauma of weaning is well over. Right now it would be unreasonable to expect a baby to pay more attention to you than mom if s/he became scared (which is exactly what will happen as soon as s/he hits the end of the line).
Until then, lots of short lessons on ground tying, learning the word “whoa” and breaking to lead, instead of being “broke to drag” as Buck Brannaman so eloquently puts it seem like just the thing, and will make her first tying lessons trauma free.
I taught my baby to tie right before we weaned him, he was about 7 months old. I would think you wouldn’t want to do it much before then, because they are so fragile, and have the atttnetion and concentration skills of gnats.
And yes, he had already learned to lead, and had done the drag a rope around on the halter and learn not to panic when it pulls thing.
We did it with his mother (who was a very reliable tier (sp?)) and in conjunction with eating. I got a very soft bungee cord, and attached it to a screw eye in the stall wall over a feeder (I initially attached it with bailing twine, so it would break easily). Mom already had a similar screw eye over her feeder (as that’s where we tied her for grooming, etc). Brought them in at dinner time, tied each in “their” corner of the stall with dinner. STarted out untying baby within a few minutes of him finishing his food, and then left him tied longer and longer each day. We were always standing right at the stall to observe when he started to get upset, and to rush in should he seriously freak. Within two weeks, he’d stand tied indefinately (though he did chew through two bungees 
gotta love those mouthy colts). Once he learned and was confident, we weaned him and he spent the next year out in the field with other babies. When we brought him back as a two year old, we did a couple re-introducotry sessions to the tying concept, but he’s never had a problem with it–as a three year old he now cross ties like a pro.
I learned this method from a breeder friend of mine who learned it from some WB breeders in Germany. The trick to it is to (a) never leave the baby unattended; (b)never let him get to the point of frustration that he either panics or has a temper tantrum; ©always initially use something like twine as a link to ensure that if panic does ensure, the baby will break free long before it gets injured (FWIW, when I’m teaching something to cross tie, I leave twine loops on their halters for a few weeks to ensure the same thing). If Mom won’t tie reliably, then I would think you’de need an extra helper to hold her in her corner.
Good luck.
Does anyone have any good ways to teach a foal to tie? What is a good age to start teaching them? Please Respond!!
I have never taught a foal to tie, however, from what I have seen I agree with the advice above. I personally know a warmblood mare who injured her neck not once but twice as a foal after being put in cross ties. I also saw a foal who was being taught to lead go over backward and break its neck. As someone else mentioned, their necks are extremely delicate. My advice would be if you are not too sure of yourself (I wouldn’t be either) see if you can get some help from a professional along the way who has had success with foals.
If it’s true that “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” I must be training for the Olympics!
Does anyone teach their horses to tie? I think it is kinda funny that 58 people have read this but no one has responded. O Well
at the farm i worked on, we taught the babies to lead- and later, to tie- using a rump rope. They learn pretty quick, and seems to be much safer than some other methods. Plus, they remember…balky 2 yr olds would load right on the trailer if you threw a rump rope on them…
I don’t tie foals,so to speak, I’ll leave a shank on them if they are hard to catch, but any work with them will be with someone else holding the end of the shank or me myself holding it. My yearling does now cross tie, after weaning is when we started to add them to his training, the same person who held him for me when I was grooming him with mama, held him in the cross tie area, then we moved him to the wash stall since it’s three sided and his only escape was forward and he had already learned “people respect” so that was not an option for him. When we added cross ties, she would also hold him on the end of the shank, then gradually I did it myself (holding the shank) after a while a dropped the shank on the ground, I still to this day leave it hang off him while on the cross ties, but he generally just stands there because he knows if he’s a good boy he’ll get TREATS 
Thanks for all the suggestions! As I said in my above post I think she is a long way away from tieing lessons also. But after my one horse had just torn the barn apart because he set back on the crossties earlier that morning I was curious as to what age people started to teach their babies to tie.
