Icelandic Horse foals can be very friendly, but some can be stand-offish. We like to be able to touch the foals as soon as possible, without upsetting the mare, so that the foals know humans are a part of their lives.

Generally, it only takes a few seconds, every few days or so, to have an Icelandic Horse foal look forward to seeing you. The babies are born with lots of gunky stuff near their skin, which also attracts dirt, so they really enjoy solid, firm scratching on their backs and butts.

When a foal realizes that you can be an advantage to him, he may try to back his butt into you as an invitation to groom or scratch him. That's a nice sign of an attempt to communicate, but we don't want to encourage a horse to present his butt. You can turn away and approach to his side and scratch from there.







Using "Scratching" as a Tool

Scratching a foal can be used as a tool to aid in his learning process. It can be used as a method of communication. It can be a "Yes! Correct!" answer to him. We can help the foal learn by using scratching as a reward for him!

Present the halter and allow the baby to smell it at his leisure. He may want to mouth it or paw it. Let the halter become known to the foal.

The pictures on this page below are of the same filly, at a few days of age to a few weeks, with the last picture being at five months old.



The halter can be carried in the hand that scratches the foal, so that he's used to having it touch his body. When comfortable, the foal can accept the halter on different parts of his body.





A good attitude to take when getting a foal used to the halter is to go with the goal of just exposing the baby, and quitting before reaching the foal's saturation point or before he gets nervous, which would be over-exposing him, or over-facing him.









Just a little at a time is OK. "Can you put your nose in here a little?" You may ask that for two or three or four sessions, before progressing to "Can you put your nose all the way in here?"



Pretty soon baby is wearing her halter as pretty and as easy as pie!