Did you know...?
A Scientific Approach to Weaning the Foal
Christine Skelly, Ph.D.
Management practices for young horses are often dictated by tradition or convenience. However, a mare’s milk quantity and quality and the mare-foal bond may be the best reference points for managing a young horse.
Creep Feeding
Preparation for weaning begins a few weeks after the birth of a foal. Initially, a foal is dependent on nursing to meet its nutritional needs for early rapid growth. However, a mare’s milk yield and milk composition begin to decrease after the first month of lactation. By the time a foal is four-months old, a mare’s milk does not meet her foal’s energy requirement. The decline in milk-energy levels combined with the high nutritional requirement for growth indicate that for optimal development the foal should receive supplemental feeding while nursing.
In the first few days of life, a foal will begin sampling grass out in the pasture. If given the opportunity, a foal will even sample the mare’s grain. However, its digestive system is not able to handle large quantities of forage. Therefore, additional nutrients are easier to feed in the form of concentrates (grain).
Creep feeders are designed to let foals eat grain while keeping the adult horses out of the feed. Creep feeders should be placed where mares and foals are frequently located. The corner feeder is the easiest creep feeder to build (Figure 1). However, four-sided creep feeders give easier access and escape for a foal (Figure 2) and can help prevent over-crowding around the feeder. The heights of the feeder sides are dependent on the size of the mares you are trying to keep out. For the average 1100-lb mature horse, a creep feeder should stand four-feet high and provide two-feet wide openings for foals to enter and exit. To prevent over-crowding and possible injury, creep feeders should increase in area size as the number of foals increases.
The creep feeder should be checked daily. Wet feed should be cleaned out before it spoils. In general, foals can have free access to creep feed without over-eating. If a foal has constant access to the feed, it will eat the grain similar to the way it nurses the mare, taking small amounts frequently. A pelleted ration formulated for young growing foals will prevent them from sorting the feed and will also ensure every bite is balanced nutritionally.
Weaning Systems
Weaning time on a farm is often associated with loud whinnying, pacing across the fence lines, and an occasional injury for an anxious foal or dam. There is no doubt that the mare-foal bond is strong. This bond is formed during the first few moments after birth and, if left uninterrupted, will continue until the mare begins nursing her next foal.
A conventional weaning system is abrupt separation of the foal and dam so that they can’t see, touch, or hear each other. A 1987 study conducted at Texas A&M University by eXtension HorseQuest team member Dr. McCall compared abrupt and gradual weaning systems. The results indicated that foals weaned abruptly with no mare/foal contact experienced more stress than foals weaned in a gradual weaning system.
The gradual weaning method involves the mare and foal being allowed to maintain all contact, including seeing, touching and hearing each other, except for nursing. In this method, dams were separated from their foals by a mesh wire fence. Mares could reach over the fence and touch their foals, but the foal could not nurse. During the first few hours of separation, the mare and foal stood side by side along the fence. Within the first day, the foal would seek out the feeder and eat some feed. After feeding, the foal would then return to the dam. In a few days, the foal spent less time by the dam and more time at the feeder. The dam experienced initial discomfort during the early weaning period, as her udder distended. After several days, as milk production ceased and the udder began to decrease in size, the mare wandered further away from her foal while grazing. In a week, the mare could easily be led away from the foal. It is extremely important to let a mare’s udder dry out naturally. Attempts to milk a mare at this stage to relieve her discomfort will only stimulate lactation and prolong the drying-out process.
The benefits of creep feeding were also supported in the same study on weaning systems. Foals that were weaned in the abrupt-weaning system and not creep fed consumed more feed and gained more weight immediately after weaning when compared to other foals also weaned with the abrupt-weaning system but creep fed prior to weaning. This initial high feed consumption and weight gain in the abrupt-weaned, non-creep fed group could be contributed to compensatory gain. In other words, these foals started at a lower nutritional plane at the beginning of the weaning period. When offered feed for the first time, the non-creep fed foals had larger feed intakes and gained more weight during the first few weeks after weaning. Thus foals that were creep fed prior to weaning avoided the “kid in the candy store” syndrome, and displayed more consistent feed intakes and weight gains after weaning. Early planning for weaning, nutrition, and exercise of a young horse is necessary to promote optimum development of a growing horse.
Reccomended Reading:
- Texas A&M University Extension: Design and Use of Creep Feeders for Foals by Dr. Pete Gibbs
- Texas A&M University Extension: Minimizing Weaning Stress in Foals by Dr. Doug Householder
- eXtension: Feeding a Growing Horse
for MHU e-Tips
and email alerts!
My Horse University is a national program located on the campus of Michigan State University and founded by the MSU Department of Animal Science, MSU Extension and MSU Global.
