bad baby horse behaviour

I am the legal guardian of the yearling, Chevy. This means Horsey Teen has very little to do with her. I do most of the handling, which does not bode well for Chevy. Teen's input mostly has been to walk by and growl at me, 'that is NOT a dog!' in response to something I am doing with little horse. I'm not sure what she means.

Today I put Chevy into a make-shift pen, yellow rope on metal poles, to graze. There was a wee small patch of grass and thought I would let her eat it. (septic field) I plop her in her 'pasture', go off to do something else when, zip, the horse goes running by. Hmmm. I find her near the hay shed, take her back to the pen. She's in for about a minute then zip, out she goes again. Scoots under the rope. I caught her and tied her to a tree while contemplating what to do about this.

If I were to follow Horsey Teen's method, I would clock horse on head with a stick next time she scoots under the fence. There will be NO fence bargers in this family! Not without a beating, anyway. After Chevy had been tied to the tree a while I put her back in rope pen saying, "Let that tie up be a lesson to you, Missy, you STAY in your pen or I will let Horsey Teen deal with you, and no one wants that!" I left her in the pen and had gotten about 150 feet away when she did it again, under the rope and this time runs right over to me and stops. Like a dog.

Okay. What to do? Scooting under fence in BAD. But running to me and stopping is GOOD. She could have run up the drive and onto the road. That could have been catastrophic. So I want her to feel it's okay to approach me, so it is not a good idea to thump her on the head for running to me, instead of away from me. But I also want her to know that fence fudging is BAD and if I reward her, it teaches her it's okay to skitter under whatever barrier is in her way. Agh, a parenting dilemma!

What did I do? I gave her 'the look', lead her back to her pen and when she pitched a fit on the way there (rope burn to hand) I ran her in circles while whacking her ass. Do NOT pitch fits when on lead! Then I put her in her pen and went away, a failed horse mom.

What's the word on how to deal with this? Horse is 14 months old and quite small. And bad.

I say put an electric rope just under the other rope, so when she goes to duck under she gets a shock, quick lesson since horses hate electricity. Leave a long lead on her so you can keep a hold in case she bolts from the electricity but ours only take once and they never test the fence again...Even when it is shut off.

I agree a little hot wire lesson would cure her of this, and in the long run she will have a lot more respect for a fence!! Our gelding had the Hotwire treatment when he was young znd to this day our fence can be laying on the ground znd he won't cross it even if all the other horses have crossed it!! It is a wonderful fence crawler fixer!!

Exactly right both hidden and Smoky.
@ Uno: fix your fence, your fence right now is not fit for a little yearling. Fix it and then you will be happy again!

Piet, it's true, you could hardly call this a fence. IT's a yellow nylon rope that I hoped would look enough like the electric tape to keep her in. Joke's on me! Our other horse does stay in this, but only because she is completely food oriented and NOTHING will dislodge her from grass. As long as there is grass to eat, I could fence her in with dental floss.

Chevy scoots under our electric fence too. She does not get shocked. We have been suspecting for some time that the fencer is kaput. Or at least not conducting very well. Point is, Chevy is not afraid of the fence since it inflicts little, if any, zap. Time to upgrade and put the fear into her. I feel so mean!

Uno, baby horse is very smart. Does exactly what you taught it to do. When it climbs under the fence it is to come to you, after all that is what happened the first two times.

Is your fencer properly grounded? It won't provide much zap if it's not.

Farmchiq, I think it is pretty well grounded. But it has been broken and patched together many, many times. It looks like a Frankenfence. I think the multiple breaks and repairs have taken some of the oomph out. If anyone knows of an effective way to mend electric fence so that the conductivity is still intact, I'm all ears.

We do not use a single wire. We use tape or braided. To mend we usually tie a knot (very technical) and then I wind bare wire around the whole thing to hopefully carry more current along. Have no idea if this works or not.

Not quite, Coopslave! First two times she zipped off to some other patch of grass and stopped to eat. Was NOT about to be left alone in that new place! It was only third escape that she ran to me. Who knows, maybe her baby mind can't cope with a change of scenery. But she is a brat, either way.