horse question - again

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This Sunday we are going to pick up our second team of Belgian horses. We are very excited!!! Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to introduce the new horses to our current two. I realize there will be some establishing pecking order, but I don't want a fight either. This is a totally new area for me and any help would be appreciated. Joanie

-- Joanie (ber-gust@prodigy.net), June 08, 2001

Answers

We usually put the new horses in an adjoining pasture so they can see and smell oneanother for a couple days before letting them in the herd. If you don't have an adjoining pasture, they can get to know oneanother in the barn. If you have any real dominant horses, you can seperate that one by itself to introduce the two new ones. Depends on how aggressive your horses are. There is always a bit of squeeling and striking out no matter how easygoing the horse and even if they've shared a barn, but I've not seen any seriously injured yet.

-- Epona (crystalepona2000@yahoo.com), June 08, 2001.

I forgot to mention we always make sure there are no shoes on any of the horses to reduce the risk of injury while introducing

-- Epona (crystalepona2000@yahoo.com), June 08, 2001.

I do about the same thing as Epona. Although I wouldn't put the horses in ajoining pastures if you're set up with wire. I have barbless wire and while it can't "slice and dice" it will still rub the hair and skin off a leg caught in it-been there, done that. So, I put the new horse in the stall next to the most domiment horse. They do their snufflin' and squealin' with a nice heavy board wall between them. I just introduced a new horse to my other two last week--worked well with no problems.

Congrats and good luck with your new team.

Stacy in New York

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@Aol.com), June 09, 2001.


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