by Kathryn Kincannon
Dear Alpha Mare,
My mare is going to be having her first foal this spring – a first for both of us! We are very excited about it and, of course, want to make sure we do the right thing for both Katanya and her new baby.
I have been reading up on the practice of imprinting and find myself uncertain as to whether it is a beneficial or detrimental process to put a newborn horse through. My mare and I would greatly value your opinion.
Mary and Katanya
Dear Mary and “Almost-Mama” Katanya,
First of all, congratulations! Your new life will be cause for much celebration! Chris and I are also making ready for Riversong Ranch’s first-born horse: our Trakehner mare, Katja, is due in early June. So this question is both near and dear to my own heart, as well as yours (and many others I’m sure!) at this time of year.
The practice of imprinting newborn horses is a fairly new phenomenon, and was developed with the intention and hope that acclimating these fearful, vulnerable beings to a sensory experience (smell, touch, taste, sound, sight) of fairly ordinary daily happenings – i.e. tapping on hooves, sound of clippers, the touch of intimate areas like ears, mouth, etc. – at a very young and impressionable age would assist them in taking such experiences in stride when they occurred later in their development.
The theory sounds plausible. The reality of it, though, can be otherwise. For when it comes to any such invasive treatment of vulnerable animals like horses – be it foaling, imprinting, weaning, or castrating – it is not so much what we do with our horses, as how we do it that matters to them and sets the tone for how they feel about us.
Either “absence makes the heart grow fonder” or “familiarity breeds contempt.” Sadly, we can almost predict (and yes this is a generality) that when we work with a horse that has been imprinted, it will exhibit the latter, and often with loads of attitude!
That said, I take a fairly common-sense approach to imprinting. Namely, if you were a mare and you had carried a foal for 11 months and, after much pain and suffering, finally are able to rid yourself of all the weight and discomfort so that you can progress to the nursing and raising of it outside of your womb, would you take happily to another being taking your baby from you and assuming some kind of nurturing process as soon as it was born?
I can’t imagine anyone who would say “Yes.” And yet, we do this to our horses and just “assume” that, since we have only good intentions, they should like it, deluding ourselves with the perception that it is “for their own good.”
Hogwash. I witnessed an imprinting session in the United States a few years ago, and I will readily say that I was not impressed. I understood the concept well-enough and was not opposed to the idea of imprinting, but when I saw how it was done, I felt very badly for the new mama and her newborn – both of whom appeared agitated and traumatized throughout the ordeal.
Here’s what I saw. It was about 4 a.m. when the mare – who had had a fairly long and exhausting delivery – finally pushed her perfect little newborn into world. While there is no question that an additional pair of human hands were needed and, no doubt, appreciated by the mama in assisting her with extricating the baby from her womb, helping to clear out nostrils, insuring it was healthy and breathing properly, etc., it was very obvious to me that she found such hands both offensive and intrusive when they didn’t go away once her baby was there beside her on the ground.
What she needed and wanted was what any new mother would want: time to rest and nuzzle and clean and smell and revel in this new little vulnerable being she just brought into existence. She deserved time to do what mothers do best: insuring this new baby feels safe and sound and still very much bonded to the one who gave it life so that even without an umbilical cord, the strength of their connection would always be there.
But she didn’t get it. Instead, the baby and the mama were surrounded by a pack of two-legged predators who, ignoring the mama, started poking and prodding and cooing and oohing and aahing over the baby, never once showing any acknowledgment of how stressed both the mama and baby were becoming minute by minute.
The mama, although absolutely spent, got up on her weary four legs and began pacing around the humans who were “cradling” her newborn (shouldn’t that have been her job?). She whinnied and paced and whinnied and paced, and the baby whinnied back, pleading for its mama, all the while being subjected to all kinds of “pressure/release” experiences where it was encouraged to “give into” its fears and just “relax.”
What I saw reminded me of some kind of lab experiment gone haywire: a human holding this newborn down while it thrashed and tried to get free, then beaming with victory when it finally stopped thrashing and just laid there still. Is that success? Or is that submission? From the outside looking in, if I were that newborn I would probably have been thinking it’s high time to skedaddle back into the womb.
Ahh, heavy sigh. So, with all of that said and done, what do I recommend? Number one, that you have a gracious and respectful relationship with the mama before she brings a new baby into the world. That she sees you as her good shepherd, as the one she will look to for safety and comfort and care of both her and her new baby.
If you have a mare that constantly pins her ears at you when you go to feed or handle her, if she is uppity and “mare-ish” (a subject for a future column!) and not pleased with your company, rest assured, she will transfer these signals about humans to her baby, and it will feel just as wary of you as mama does.
However, if you have a warm and mutually respectful relationship with mama, she will transfer that feeling of “okay-ness” to the baby. In other words, the best way to the baby is through the mama. She’ll do all the work, and you get to bask in the end result.
Chances are, with a mare who values her relationship with you, she will actually want to show it off and will most likely push her little newborn over to you when it is up and moving around. Not a dry eye in the house when that happens. And a happy new beginning indeed.
Kathryn travels extensively with her husband, Chris Irwin, as a trainer and coach conducting clinics and “Train the Trainer” sessions throughout North America. They are currently developing Riversong Ranch Equestrian Retreat on the shores of the McLeod River just west of Edmonton. If you have a question that you’d like Kathryn to answer in a future column, please email her at alphamare@telus.net
