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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 725
  
| Currently Halter Breaking a Weanling that was untouched, Any advice, tips, just wanting to see what works the best, and different opinions. |
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  Neat Freak
Posts: 11216
 
Location: Wonderful Wyoming | well mine are all untouched until we wean at 5 or 6 months. I put mine in a round pen and rope them. But you have to be a pretty decent roper or you'll do more harm than good. Some people put them in a tighter area where they can reach over or through and touch them, but that can be dangerous too. I can give you some ideas over the phone if you want to pm me. I absolutely adore halter breaking and get paid to do a few of my ranchy neighbors untouched babies. These are out of mares that are wilder than coyotes. |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 540
Location: My own little world :) | Bump! I could use this very advice as well. I weaned mine in a round pen and have been working on round pen reasoning per se. He is getting to where he really wants to stop, stand, and face me but not a fan of if I come up close to him. Have yet to touch him. |
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Expert
Posts: 4766
Location: Bandera, TX | I grew up breaking babies and for the life of me don't want to go back to having to do it that way. I now have my babies all loading on the trailer with the momma pretty quick after they are born and I even 'tie' them when they're young.
I used to rope them then neck them to a donkey to help us get the batches done pretty quick. We had lots of ranch hands that were a huge help after the donkey did its part. The really rank colts sure fed off that calm-you can't frazzle me donkey. Once they realized the donkey wasn't running from the human it really helped matters.
The hands and I took babies to the water hose and ran water all down their legs and then a soft cotton rope to get them from breaking their pretty handy firing devices off into one of us.
My husband built a pretty handy set of pens off of the water lot. We had a lane that went down to our breaking and cutting round pens. We had two gates on the round pens; made from cedar rails, very forgiving. The dams had food waiting on them and got to understanding the cutting out real quick. We seperated babies from dams and I would rope one and work with it then move onto the next. The rank ones got the donkey. All the while me and the hands worked around fussy colts till they all had a hand on them then we'd turn 'em back out with the mares. We could get a dozen broken in two weeks time. Once they were handling we would fence line wean. We had high fences and the mare trap had cedar rail 4' high so we didn't have injuries. |
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 Thick and Wavy
Posts: 6102
Location: Nebraska | I was really lucky with my filly this year. I broke my arm the week before she was born so I wasn't able to do a whole lot with her when she was a baby baby. Then I decided to wait until I had full strength before I even attempted anything with her, which ended up being the end of Sept. She was somewhat gentle as I could walk up to her and sometimes pet her while I fed mama but that was about it. When I weaned her, I would just walk up to her and pet her the whole time she ate. It only took a couple of days for her to learn that she had to tolerate me touching her if she wanted her grain haha. I slipped the halter on while she was eating one day. The next day I tried to lead her and it took all of maybe 20 min. I was so glad she didn't try anything stupid as I'm not sure my arm could've handled it. She was just a little balky but picked it up really quick that the pressure was relived when she moved. It took about 2 min to teach her to back. I left the halter on in the roundpen for a couple weeks and just practiced taking it on/off, leading her around, picking up her feet, and tying while the old lady I weaned her with ate 2x a day. |
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 Expert
Posts: 2674
Location: Silver Lake, MN | I halter broke a few this fall, it was actually pretty fun but it's work. We got them into a catch pen and put a halter on them and then I ran them into stalls and that is where they stayed for a couple of days. The ones that are really hard to catch I have used a whip or something long where it would touch them but I still have enough space to stay safe and they were in a small enough area they couldn't really go that far. Once they figured out I wasn't going to kill them things went pretty smoothly and I became the food lady, the lady that pets and then we went to leading, tieing and picking up feet. Everyone did really well and after about 2 weeks I was super happy with where they were at.
I also teach them to give to their hindquarter right away...I think that helps when they first feel pressure on the leadrope. Don't know if what I did was right or wrong but it worked so far. Wish I had enough time to get them all loaded on a trailer before they left...that will be my goal next time.
I also have a pen I can turn them out in and run them in and out of the their stalls. It was nice until they learned the program. Once you take away mom and any buddys they get pretty cooperative. Some I left a short dog leash on in their stalls, it's stiff and won't wrap around anything and gave me an option to catch them if really needed.
Edited by CarrieH77 2016-12-13 2:30 PM
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Halter Breaking