Weaning A Foal
Some time ago, my veterinarian described a visit to another client, where she saw a mare nursing what seemed like an absolutely grown pony. When my vet asked that customer about it, the customer confirmed that the mare and the other pony were mum and child. The mother of 20 years old and the son of 16! These 2 horses were never separated and due to this, the son wasn’t weaned. This made the gelding completely useless for any purpose at all. If he was taken away from his mum for even a short spell, he disintegrated into an absolute mindless panic. He never moved from his position at the bottom of the herd’s pecking order over the years, and this made him an object to be bullied by even the weakest and newest of newcomers. The mare had got bored with defending her child; he was pocked all over his body with old and fresh teeth marks and scars in the unmistaken shape of hooves.
While this situation is relatively rare, thank the Lord, it does teach you that it’s vital that a baby horse be weaned in the right manner at the right time. This is a critical contribution to the growth and development of the baby both as a riding partner and as a unit of his herd.
While there’s no fixed guidelines about the right age to wean away baby horses, it’s a matter that is decided on a very individual basis. The right age to wean differs from case to case.
If you talk with 12 experts, you’ll get thirteen ideas involving the ‘best’ methodology of weaning away a young horse. There are nevertheless , some facets of weaning you want to pay attention to.
1. Ensure that the baby is eating solid food like hay or grass without difficulty before initiating weaning.
2. When you are sure the time is right, physically separate the mare from the her foal, but let them stay within vision of each other.
3. Continuously move the foal farther away from its mother, so they are no longer within visual range or reach of each other. Make sure you don’t wrestle them apart by force.
4. Give the baby as much attention as your are able to by socializing and bonding with it, you are easing the discomfort of its separation from its mummy. Further, you are also helping the baby adjust to humans and paving the way for some solid bonding with humans later in its life.
Once you are done with these primary weaning steps, what follows also has to be done with care. It is an inbuilt instinct for a baby to want to remain in proximity to its mother, and it’s clear that you have got to be awfully sensitive about weaning a baby if you don’t want it to be scared badly. You have to get the process just right and what it boils down to is this: you’re the most knowledgeable and the best judge of your horses. At the first sign of trouble, ask your vet or rope in some neighbours who are veteran horse folk. Certainly some of them will have been through your kind of experience before, and will have some answers for you.
Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers visit HorseHorses
