Rusty's First Day
I am going to be using one mustang, Rusty, to describe the first process detailed in our Training Manual. Rusty was captured in September 2011 from the Jicarilla Ranger District and adopted by Roy Hudgeons, of the USFS. He is an orange-red gelding with a long wavy mane.
During the initial acclimation phase of Mustang Camp training, we use respondent conditioning as the most direct method of calming the animal and setting its attitude towards humans. We want to form an association in the horses mind between us and pleasure. When they see us, we want them to expect positive things.
Overcoming Flight Distance: learning to eat from the hand
Approach and eat from the hand relaxed: free feeding
• Objective: The animal will be able to approach the human and be fed through the fence at a rate of 10 bites per minute.
• The Set-Up: The animal should have had time to adjust to his new surroundings, but not gotten in the habit of being fed with open access to the hay. We usually give them overnight from the time they arrive. Carefully limit distractions such as barking dogs, machinery, horse fights, etc.
• Prerequisite Training: None
• Protocol: Make yourself as unobtrusive as possible, sitting or crouching outside the fence where the horses are. Position yourself behind a fence post, or even crouch under the neck of a tame horse. Toss a bit of hay into the pen and wait. Make yourself comfortable and wait. Keep waiting. They will eventually creep up and eat the hay. Unobtrusively replenish it, putting it slightly closer each time. When they start staying for you to replenish, you can hold some hay and rest your hand on the fence. Don’t reach for the horse and don’t stick your hand way inside the fence. If they aren’t hungry, it will be slower. Use small bites of food that they can chew quickly and do not let much hay drop on the ground. Be careful not to do anything to scare them in the first 15 minutes that they are eating from your hand. You can gradually get more casual and let them see you stand and move but a moment of herd panic could set you back a long way. Your goal is to make it easy and pleasant for the horse, don't do anything to undermine that. Once you can move around, put the hay back from the fence where you have to walk away from the animals to get it. Return to them very slowly with the hay held out in front of you.. they will quickly be sticking their noses through the panel wishing you would hurry up. Now you know the animal has their mind off of fear and onto desire for food.
When the horses get very relaxed, they will be feeding as fast as you can hand them small bites. This may not happen until the second day. If one horse lags behind the others, continue this process after it is in its individual stall. Until you can get them to eat from your hand relaxed, you cannot proceed with positive reinforcement. Take your time to do this exercise thoroughly, and the rest of the training program gets much easier.
• What ifs: What if the horses keep fighting each other or one is upsetting the others? You may have to separate them. The horse that is causing the commotion is more afraid than the others. What if a horse is trying to bite? Feed it with salad tongs and don’t put your hand in the pen. It is probably also biting its herd-mates and should be separated. Treat aggression at this stage like you are dealing with a carnivorous animal --- don’t take chances. It will calm down as it’s fear diminishes. What if the horse gets frightened by touching my fingers when it takes the hay? Try to avoid that contact if it bothers the horse. Check that you are maximizing predictability and trust that the horse is going to get hungry enough to overcome its squeamishness. What if I have checked everything over and over and it should work, but one horse just can’t relax? There may be other psychological or health factors keeping that horse from being able to let down, such as heavy parasite loads or low grade infection. When your horse is relaxed and feeling good, extraneous noises will not bother them. As long as they are jumpy they are not relaxed.
So how did Rusty do? Rusty started out biting his penmate to warn him away from the human, but his penmate (still unnamed) is a friendly and hungry guy. There is something about the sound of horses chewing that makes other horses want to eat. I started the chewing-noise generator by feeding Terragon and Ol' Joe next door. Then the little foal in the pen next to Rusty was brave enough to take hay from the human. Rusty's penmate was soon at the fence. Rusty couldn't hold out much longer so he grabbed a bite and jumped back to the center of the pen. The new mares started chomping. The rhythm was intoxicating and Rusty couldn't help himself as he succumbed to the temptation of the unconditioned stimulus.
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