Imprinting other mammals

Hi!

Stupid question: There's an 'imprinting' process for horses. Can this be done with goats and other livestock as well? Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

Sweetened wrote:Hi!

Stupid question: There's an 'imprinting' process for horses. Can this be done with goats and other livestock as well? Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

I can't see how it will hurt. There is nothing worse than a sheep or goat afraid to be touched. Makes vetting and shearing difficult.

Wait- upon further thought, it may make a ram or buck too friendly and they may look upon you as a potential target...if you know what I mean.

I leave all the bonding to Doug. When the kids are born he spends hourd cuddling them.

We used to imprint our miniature foals. Once they were born and licked off, we handled every body part.

Patted under their hooves I forget, about 40 times per foot. Wiggled our fingers in their nostrils, rubbed

our hands all over their legs, in the ears ( important if clipping inside for showing) Lifted up tail,

just so they would let us handle it. Finger in their mouth. Basically handling every body part. Takes a

little while to complete, but soooo worth it. There is a video you can buy on imprinting foals, by a vet

in the states, can't recall his name, but well worth the money.

You could easily do this with other animals.

Imprinting goes a long way, but as sue said, with bucks and rams you need to be careful. I have found with bottle fed or imprinted rams they get very bold and aggressive, with bucks they just get really annoying. I have imprinted yaks, cows, horses, goats, sheep and pigs. All turn out easy to handle but of them all it works the least with sheep, mostly because of their flighty nature.