Training a Young Draft Horse to Team Harness

I'm Josh. We're working horses today and working on training a few. It's evening about 6 30 overcast and usually where our evenings start to get a session in with the horses. This little filly I have is a Belgian filly or a Percheron filly rather. She is uh five months old out of this big bay mare here. What I usually do when I'm working the other two I'll just leave her tied for a while on about 30 inches and she's getting used to the concept. Her dispositions like this all the time kind of mopey and and still you can see she needs brushed out a little bit but a nice filly I think. This is our older mare kind of our main mare big bay here. She's our only mare. Name's Belle. Hey Belle. She's got a lot of spirit. It's funny when she's uh I'd like to say that she's a strong independent woman who needs no man. She uh if she's open out and open in her field she likes being out open in the field but in a pen she'll come right up pretty easy for us. So tonight's objective is to get Belle there. She's just weaned this filly off her about two weeks or so and uh so she's starting to put condition back on but overall she's uh who we're using to help train Duke here. Duke came to us I think two months ago. He's uh still learning the ropes. You can see he's not always so crazy about um getting his halter on. I didn't really like that how he walks away from me. Easy dude. See how he uh turns away from me. I'm just gonna wait for him to put his head back in. Good boy. I'd really like to put his halter on the other side of him too. Cool boy. That's it. Good boy. He's like I said he's only this is our 13th session with him. Well this will be the 13th time we get him harnessed rather. Sometimes especially like he was just out in the field um where he came from. Kind of cool. See how he pops his head up like that. It's just a little reactive. Don't really don't really like that a lot. Keeping this lead rope on him. That's easy dude. Easy. I'm just gonna let him investigate that. Kind of walk into his halter there. Good boy. Really what I'd like him to do is lower his head a bit and uh kind of offer so I can pull the halter up over the top of him here. But having a halter on is better than not letting me put a halter on at all. Celebrate where we're celebrating a win where it is. I know a lot of people that uh will work their horses. We're gonna go down here. I know a lot of people that'll work their horses like on a very progressive scale. You know it's like well if I can't get him to get his halter on I'm not gonna do anything until I get his halter on. Like well that's good if you had time for that. Tough thing for us is you know we have things to do. Not only that but we work and uh not only the farm but also a job. And so it's kind of like a kid. You know like if you have a kid I think if you have a kid and the kid is maybe misbehaving in school but is getting really good grades. Like do you stop sending them to school because they're misbehaving? No. You kind of coach them through each section of their progression in life. So Duke getting a little uneasy about his halter is in my opinion no reason to just stop there until he's completely comfortable with the throat balter. It's just something to make note of and then kind of track his progress as it goes on throughout the day. So one thing he does do really well. Come on Duke. A lot of horses would spook or get a little uncomfortable being in tight spaces like that and he does pretty well with that. I feel good about. This is our uh our notorious harnessing tree and uh him too being a young horse. I'm just gonna let him stand there. I had a guy tell me one time that one of the best things you can you can teach young horses to just stay standing on 30 inches of rope especially workhorses, draft horses. So that's kind of what this tree's purpose is. Duke too he's like we've said before he's going to be a workhorse on a produce farm. Each part of you know kind of getting harnessed and getting ready here. Kind of take easy for him. He steps out. Not going to get too worked up over it. Yeah standing still there. Turning in towards me as we're putting things on him. Good progression. This is his 13th harness and this is the harness that his uh his owner gave me. It's to use with him. It's not the best thing in the world but doing the job so far. Duke. Easy. Easy. Good boy. You can notice I'm talking soft. Kind of like kids too. I think there's a lot to be said for tone. See how he just got a little flighty with me there. First time I popped some of these on him he was bumping around and tossing around and getting all kinds of worked up. You can see his ears are fully perked up and he's paying attention. You know what do you got going on over here with me? It's on me here. Not like he hasn't seen it before or felt it before. Like I said this is lucky number 13 on him. He's just getting a little nervous. We're just gonna sit there pet him. Let him get comfortable with the fact that he's got this on him. Good boy. Good boy Duke. His hamstrap here is a little loose. Let me tighten that up and get the hole right. Good boy. That's it. Usually the kids aren't in the background and he's kind of got his eye over there too. Hey what are those kids up to? What's going on? This is his team line. Step over. Good boy. Pull that around. He has been a little sensitive about his feet. So I've been trying to be a little less introduced more and more to him each day on his feet. Good boy. Good boy. Watch his tail too. He's been holding his tail pretty tight as I move. Easy. Good. You're okay. Good boy. So he tries to bump out and I'm obviously not going to put myself in a position to get kicked here. Honestly I'm watching his eyes. I grew up playing basketball. It's like one of the things in basketball they talk about a lot of your pericular vision. That's one thing I always in the corner of my eye I'm looking out the corner of his. Good boy. So for his 13th time being harnessed the fact that he's pretty well stood still for me here I'm pretty happy about. Now again he's he was a May 24 colt. So he if he bounces around or steps around on me I'm not going to fight it. Again just celebrate the progression. We'll take a break. So again this is Bell. Bell is coming to our she's our trained 10 year old and she is come to be partners with Duke here tonight. What I like about Bell is like I said she's a strong independent woman that needs no man. And so the couple times they've been in the field together I remember watch out. She has not cared at all of nipping him around and telling him exactly who and how and where he's got to be. So she she doesn't take too much of his young boy shenanigans which I like. Probably be worth saying too. You know the purpose of this channel is yes. Yes you do. Yes honey you do. The purpose of this channel and I guess of sharing what we're doing with the horses I know how nasty is to help show people I think a little bit more about what these animals can do. This is Duke is the fifth horse we've had here in four years at the farm. I had our first horse we bought was a 20 year old mare dead broke mare Belgian for two thousand dollars at Mount Hope actually out of the Busy Beaver. And then with that mare I took in a two year old train somebody after less than two years of working draft horses and trained her for 90 days and turned her back to her owner broke her in the harness like we're doing Duke. And then I wanted a younger mare that was breeding sound so I told that first mare and got this mare here and now Duke's training here. The purpose of me saying that as an introduction though is we really want to help people understand that if you want to work horses or you want to consider working with horses it's I think it's more biologically natural than maybe people give it credit for. Open up good good girl like I can't tell you how many young men I know that see what we're doing think it's awesome you know or see what we're doing and like we pulled out a UTV stuck in the mud with the horses one time people saw a video of that and they thought it was crazy crazy cool. And so I hope to to serve as a bit of an inspiration of not so much of it easy girl easy right here much of a better way to farm but maybe an alternative way to farm that has some benefits that are worth I think talking about and considering that are also extremely attainable to the normal person you know and I think we easy we can't forget that you know farming with these horses was the way that we farmed was the way that Americans farmed you know less than 100 years ago and we're losing we've lost a lot of that knowledge that thankfully has been preserved by the Amish community and that we English as they call us can come back and learn and break up our love affair with John Deere and Kubota if we want to you know. So anyhow something to consider and hopefully to serve as an education point but also just as inspiration for young people that maybe want to try to farm a little bit differently. So okay picking up here on the training section so if we're not careful we're going to have a bit of a quacked up mess so we're going to tell Duke hey Duke step over boy step over this is his second time in team and he's now on the other side so I'm just pulling him over so that he can know the second time in team first time on the right side step over Duke I really don't want the mare to move rather him move step over boy step over step over step over Duke step over now I'm speaking and then applying pressure and waiting for him to respond step over Duke step over boy thank god this mare is real calm capable step over boy that's it okay there we go purpose of tying their back rings together like to try to keep them try to keep them from bouncing out on each other easy dude one of the things that this harness is missing is a strap underneath of his belly and I put my team lines up in the mare bridge and keep them connected easy and the last thing we're going to do is put a yoke on them to pull their front end together easier every time I work with one too I always like to stop and think about okay like what's the objective right now I want to be safe step over Duke step over step over good boy step over step over watching those bottom feet step over step over easy easy good good boy step over Duke good good boy so he's checked off his uh his harnesses are all intact I'd like to tighten that bottom strap up you know underneath of his underneath his uh flank there I need to get something for that that's not great again this is something that was given to me by his owner but really we should have something tied from the bottom here probably up to his yoke line now this team again point number two try not to get killed try to have a positive reinforcement environment for the horse to learn it helps when you have a massive one that's training the small one you know you'll see here bell kind of holds him steady and tells him where he needs to go um easy team easy back back back but good so we're going to work them together back and see bell's kind of showing the way now hot team and we're just going to walk nice and easy all I'm trying to do is keep them equal keep it keep it good easy bell is half out of a pulling bred uh Belgian mare easy team easy and um easy she's kind of got a prance to her when she gets started last time we did this we uh I worked her for a little bit just to get this prance off of her first easy hobbit hobbit careful step team just to get this prance out of her a little bit before we got started now all we're going to try to do is walk down this lane and that is it easy team if they bounce trot around move around I'm really not too upset with that easy bell easy I just want them to work together bell easy easy and just respond to commands as I'm going give it a bit easy bell easy bell give it give it so again I'm not getting not getting too worked up but one's wanting to go and one's just kind of pushing the other one along second time being harnessed in team in my opinion is just getting used to the rhythm so I'll periodically every hundred feet or so just stop them and get them used to standing still specifically the younger one yeah this is what it is training young horses you know taking your time waiting patiently and being aware of what they can do um you know from a danger perspective but um anyhow yeah so we're going to keep doing this we're going to go up and down this lane I'm going to try to keep the horses on each side of the rut excuse me on each side of the rut easy m easy hunt and uh on each side of the rut and we're just going to stop and start and practice that as we keep going but stick with us it'll get more adventurous as time goes on I swear but working on the fundamentals of walking walking in a straight line stopping and walking again is a good place to start for a young colt so that's where we're going to go so until next time have a blessed day