in today's video I'm gonna go over the benefits and dangers of feeding treats
to horses if you're new here my name is brandi and this channel is all about
horsemanship and my journey with horses I'm here with muffin and muffin is just
kind of hanging out and chillin she doesn't she's not expecting a treat or
anything and that in my opinion is the best time to give a horse a treat so if
I want to give my horse a treat I'm gonna wait and tell they're not looking
for it they're not searching me and she's standing nice and quiet that's a
perfect time to get a little reward so the treats that I have are they're
just real little I don't like to give very big treats I don't remember the
name I don't remember the name of this particular treat but I can post that in
the description below so she's not expecting this whatsoever so the best
thing to do see your little ears go up she's like oh thank you that was so nice
but if she were moving around dancing anything like that there's absolutely no
way I'm gonna give her a treat now is something that you might see is she
might start sort of searching me a little bit and wondering if she's gonna
get another one or try to figure out where another one's gonna come from and
that's all I've got for her and I'm just gonna leave it at that because I'm just
using this as an example today it's very very rare that I'll give my horse
multiple treats in one day because then they continue to search for it here I
have an example of a horse that's not gonna get a treat from me
this is Annabelle and prior to me owning Annabelle she was given a tremendous
amount of treats and it got to be a very bad habit for her and right now she's
she's frustrated because she was tied and the other horses the other horses
exited the area so she got upset sitting by herself so she's going to be a little
bit distracted here but anyway Annabelle has some pretty bad habits and I just
want to kind of emphasize on how hard it is to get a horse over those habits so
right now you can see she's smelling me she knows that that I have that scent on
me I either had a treat or have treats or
whatever that moment where a horse is searching for a tree is a lot of times
where I see people giving them treats so that is the absolute worst thing that
you can do because it gets worse and worse and worse they start really sort
of I don't want to call it begging because that's not the right word but
sort of hunting for those treats they're looking for that those bad behaviors and
horses can very quickly lead to things such as pushing biting just all around
getting rather aggressive so Annabelle is a horse that is she is basically
banned from just getting treats as just because so some of the horses it's
absolutely fine to just walk up and give them a little treat you know or as
you're putting them away or just because you know you're eating an apple for
lunch and you want to give your core to your horse that's great and it's
absolutely great no problem but this is not a horse that can have that ever so
the only time this horse will get a treat is when it's used for positive
reinforcement and only in one situation that I can think of and that is catching
Annabelle got Annabelle got into a habit you see how she smells that I mean and
she's she's just kind of searching for it it's not gonna happen
but Annabelle got into a habit where she would walk away from a person if they
were going up to catch her and it wasn't anything major but it was just she would
turn to leave so in that situation we made it a point for a short time that
when we went out to catch her we after we do catch her and get the halter on
that's when we give her a treat but she has no idea it's there she doesn't
expect it whatsoever but it just makes it so when we do go to catch her she's a
little bit more willing to do so something that would help her instead of
giving her a treat is some round pen work working on hooking on in the round
pen but I didn't have a round pen setup at the time so it just really wasn't an
option so we've been working on that now to fix
that problem and eliminating those treats so but I can say we probably did
that maybe a dozen times so not anything not anything that became a habit there
now I want to tell you a little story about the best horse in the world and
how treats went very bad for him so I had this horse named poco and I gave
lessons to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of beginners and kids on on him
and one of the things that we did after every lessons is the setting was he was
in a in cross ties and after his ride every time he was given a treat so not
in this one particular day I had a young girl she was probably about five years
old and once is her lesson was done and she was finished grooming him he was
standing in the cross ties and she was stored at whirling around and dancing in
front of him and as she sort of went by him he just knocked her right over so he
rooted his nose out and knocked a little girl over and that was a moment because
the reason he did that is he was like hey I need my treat
what's the holdup here what are you doing give me my treat and that was the
moment forward that he never received a treat again after lessons so the only
time he got treats was if he was just standing really quietly I was eating an
apple had a core went over and gave it to him he was not expecting it
whatsoever or if I had any students that really wanted to give him a treat after
their lesson they were allowed to put it in a bucket in the stall before the
horse was put away but that was a problem that could have gotten really
really bad had I not done something about it at that point his ears were
pinned when he did it so that could easily lead to biting as well luckily
all he did was was knock her over but it was um it could have been very bad this
is my filly ona if you'd like to know more about her you can check out this
link right here ona has never had a treat as long as I owned her and I'm
pretty confident that her previous with the ridge that she came from I'm pretty
sure that they didn't give her any treats so I'm gonna show you today her
very first treat and see how she reacts to it
she's got to sniff it with both nostrils
nibble at it and I have to just because a lot of times what they do with their
first street is they'll they'll drop it because they're not really sure if it's
something that they want to eat or not
what do you think gonna is that worth it or not worth it would you do it again
you think so a lot of times people are like oh it's so mean that it's so sad
they've never had a treat before or oh it was so sad to see that they wouldn't
take a treat or this or that it's not sad it's just it's something different
for them they don't know what it is it's like it's like giving something new a
new food to a kid that they've never had before
um no big deal you know they they don't need treats in their life it's just that
it's a treat so as long as she's not searching for it I'll give her another
one I'll see if she'll take it she goes
now I can honestly tell you this is probably the last treat she's gonna get
for quite some time I used to go through oh I don't know a small bag a small bag
maybe a 1-pound bag or something of treats it would last me a year or longer
and now I've been going through a lot more just because of certain situations
that have arose at the barn but but so that's about how often I feed treats so
what I would like to know is do you give your horses treats or do not give your
horses treats comment yes or no in the comments below good girl yeah it was
just a weird experience for you one thing that I really don't believe in is
bribery so using treats to bribe a horse to do something is not an effective way
of training a horse a recent situation that I did use bribery with treats is
with our Pony Rosie and if you're not familiar with Rosie story be sure to
check out her story in this link right here basically I needed to get her
loaded and I needed to do it quickly so I used everything that I could to get
her loaded up in that situation I know that it's not training it's definitely
not going to help for the future but I just had to do what I had to do so I
took that day and said ok I need to work on this
with her knowing that I'll go forward and actually train her to load the
trailer bribing her is not going to be a long-term thing that's gonna work out so
I see a lot of people that's how they they get their horses loaded into the
trailers is they use grain or that's how they catch their horse but basically if
you don't have grain or you don't have a treat and that horse is used to getting
that when you load them or when you catch them good luck catching them in
the future or loading them in the future another situation that I think is
fantastic for using treats as positive reinforcement is if a horse is getting
regular medication so for instance with Rosie with all the medication that she
was receiving basically she got to the point where she would see me coming and
just turn and leave so I knew that I had to do something to make it so it wasn't
such an unpleasant experience for this pony so what I started doing is I would
administer the medication and then give her a small treat right afterwards
whether it be an apple core or a part of a carrot or a an actual horse treat
whatever it was she got something after each dose was administered and I find
that that really helped and she got to where she was looking forward to me
coming out and getting her instead of just dreading the the nasty stuff I was
gonna be putting in her mouth another story I'm going to tell you about is a
rescue horse that's been at my farm for several years and when she first arrived
the person who adopted her is a first-time horse owner okay but has
always had dogs and used treats for training and that sort of thing but
anyway it became a situation where the horse was the horse was the horse had
been neglected and starved so she really really really was food
driven after that so when this person adopted her she started giving her a lot
of treats thinking that it was a great way to bond with her horse and basically
what ended up happening is the horse started to get pretty pushy and one day
one of my boarders went out to the pasture to catch their horse and this
this rescue mayor came up to the to the gal and when she was shooed away so the
gals just sorta went to shoo her away the horse Pinder ears reared up and came
down bit the gal shoulder and pinned her down in the snow and that kind of
behavior is incredibly dangerous dangerous obviously so but what-what
made that happen is for one the horse was pushy on the ground to begin with
but she associated people with always giving her treats so anybody that she
approached she expected to get a treat from so she got to the point where she
just assumed that humans spit out treats all the time so as of that day that
horse was forbidden to be hand-fed anything ever and she even even with
grain is a little bit on the on the pushy side so if she's getting grain
she's one that'll stand at the gate chase the other horses off she gets
really aggressive about that sort of stuff so from that day forward no treats
period and since then I have I have ended up with the horse and we've worked
on ground manners and there's been no issues of her showing any aggression
towards people at all and she knows that she's not getting a treat it's
absolutely not an option and if there's a moment where she even comes up to
somebody in the pasture she's driven away just to let know that no this is
not this is not allowed but that is a very bad habit that lasted it would took
a really long time to get rid of and it could have been an extremely dangerous
situation now I want to tell you a little bit about Sally this is Sally and
if you if you want to know a little bit more about Sally you can check out a
video that I have right here Sally is a very good example of a horse that's
she's not horse she's a mule a mule that is an equine that is
incredibly difficult to catch um Sally's been with me for several
months now she came over the summer and I'm taking
my time with her and gaining trust the way that I feel is the best possible way
for this animal but basically what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna show you kind of how I got her to the point where I could catch her and
touch her and just basically handle her because at first it was not an option so
with her it would take me an hour or longer to catch her just to get near her
and to pet her so I gave up completely on catching her for quite some time and
just focused on her getting to trust me so I used grain sometimes in a sense
where I would sit and wait for her to come to me and then I would offer her a
little bit of her grain she gets grain once a day and that was a perfect
opportunity for me to work with her on a daily basis and she got used to that and
then I wanted to make it a little bit more convenient not just be at feeding
time so basically what I would do is I would walk up and I would pet her and I
wish I could show you how it was before but I'd walk up I better never treat now
this is an animal that is so good with feeding her treats and grain whatever
she's very kind about it she's never searched for it
she's never expecting it so she's a perfect example of an animal that I can
do this with where there's others that I wouldn't even consider it but so
basically she has gotten to the point where she will follow me with ease and
she trusts me but when I send somebody else out to try
and catch her it's not happening so basically I have a lot more work to do
with her to get her so she's comfortable with that but I also need to start
sending other people out to catch her and now I know that the way that I did
this with her works so I'm gonna have other people do it the same way until we
get her to the point where she's just comfortable with anybody approaching
so I'm gonna walk up to her you see her nostrils flare just a little bit that's
concerned to her so and that's okay because she's going to do that for a
while and I'm okay with that halter on and that's a good opportunity to give
her a treat especially when she steps forward like that with me
the better Sally gets with her catching and handling the less that I'm going to
offer her any kind of a treat so right now she's she is in a pen by herself so
I can work with her if I need to in that area it's a smaller area so I have the
ability to work with her but pretty soon I'm gonna be adding her out with my herd
so when she's out with a herd of a dozen other horses I need to make sure that I
can catch her so once I'm really comfortable and
knowing that I can catch her the way she is we've had a pretty good success rate
now but once I turn around what I heard it could change so and that's where I'll
go back to you know I'll go out once I do catch her she'll get a treat but
eventually the goal is no more treats just on an occasional basis the way I
look at it is I want to give my horse a treat just about as often as I give my
kids ice cream so or even myself and that's really not very often you know
and when you do get it it's a treat it's something special it's not something
that's expected or done on a daily basis one thing nice about giving treats is it
can definitely be something that your your equine looks forward to and that
they they appreciate and it can be a really good thing when done in a manner
that is positive and thought-out you wouldn't want to encourage your horse to
to bite and that's something where with kids feeding treats
I really recommend from my own personal experience I really recommend that kids
maybe put a treat in a bucket or lay in the stall or something like that and be
very cautious about how they feed treats to a horse I have several horses that
have nibbled at fingers simply because they really thought that they were
getting be given a treat and with kids you know
if they're eating an apple or something like that before they come to the barn
they smell like a treat so it's a it's a very honest mistake on the horses part
but if we can teach our horses not to be mouthy on us to begin with that is a the
perfect way of going about it well I hope you're able to find this video
useful helpful a little bit interesting maybe if you did please be sure to give
it a like and share it with your friends and make sure to leave me a comment
below I'd really love to hear what kind of treats you feed your horses if you do
if you don't I'm curious to know so and don't forget to hit that subscribe
button thanks for watching