EQUINE CARE: Weaning Foals With Less Stress

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

There are many ways to wean foals and some methods are less stressful than others. Least stressful are methods in which the foal makes gradual adjustment to being apart from his dam or other adult members of the herd. The most stressful methods include abrupt separation from the mare and other adults. There is no “best” way to wean, however, because many factors enter this equation, including age, health, and temperament of the individual foal (and dam) and your own situation—facilities, conditions and management time. There are some general tips, however, and these can often be tweaked to fit your own (or the foal’s) situation.

Trauma of separation is emotional (for both mare and foal) as well as physical, especially for a very young or insecure foal. A 5 to 6-month-old foal is more independent, and able to handle weaning better than a 3-month-old foal. Some foals must be weaned early, however, due to drought/poor pasture and lack of good feed for the mare, or health of the mare (or she’s old or thin) or to keep a fast-growing foal from developing skeletal problems due to too much milk. If care is taken to make the transition as smooth as possible, it’s not so hard on the mare and foal.

Age at weaning is usually determined by what’s best for the mare and/or foal. If you have to wean a foal early, keep in mind that foals are most vulnerable to disease at 2 to 4 months of age when passive immunity from colostrum is waning and their own immune system is just starting to take over the job of producing antibodies. Thus it is crucial to minimize stress.

Bill Tracy, longtime horseman who has worked at JEH Stallion Station in New Mexico and Oak Tree Ranch in Bandera, Texas, is presently the farm manager at Mike Grossman’s Eureka Thoroughbred Farm in Fredericksburg, Texas. He has dealt with many mares and foals over the years and says that for his program weaning starts when foals are born—getting them prepared for what will happen to them later in life. “You can’t just run them out in big pastures while they’re growing up and then expect them to be manageable at weaning time,” he says.

“We imprint every foal that’s born and handle them right away. We put a little halter on and lead them with a come-along rope. Whenever we take the mare out of the stall to turn her out, the foal is led to the paddock with her, and when we go to get them we put the halter back on the foal and lead them back in. The foals learn to lead quickly, and it’s not difficult—not even the first time—because they are not bigger and stronger than we are,” he says.

“We just gently get them into a corner and put the little halter on, and the little butt rope. Our come-along rope is a little different than most people use because we don’t have a snap on the end of it. We put the rope through the halter and the other end goes around behind the foal’s rump, and you can hold both ends in your hand. Then if they do get loose, the rope just falls off and doesn’t scare them,” says Tracy.

“If it’s snapped on the halter and goes dragging along with them, bumping their legs, it becomes a very scary deal and they tend to run and crash into things. With the rope not attached, if a baby throws himself down, all you have to do is open your hand and the middle of the rope stays in your hand and the ends come right off,” he says. There’s nothing dragging behind the foal.

“We handle the foals, pick up their feet and do all the basic things in the first couple weeks. Most of our mares are bred again on foal heat or the next heat. We have them up and handy so we are catching the babies and bringing mamas and babies back in, especially during the first 15 days of life. After the mare is bred they might get turned out for a while, but we keep doing a little something with them,” explains Tracy.

He likes to turn mares and foals out on pasture in groups of 6 or 8, always an even number. “When it comes time for weaning, we bring two mares out of that group. We take them to the other end of the ranch, leaving the foals there in the pasture with their buddies. The foals are upset for only a short time. They might run up and down the fence once or twice, wondering where mom is, but the other foals aren’t worried so the two frantic ones decide to go back to playing with their buddies,” he says.

“The foal says, ‘where’s mom?’ and his buddies answer and say ‘we don’t know, but we’re over here playing’. So the lone foal doesn’t want to be a complete dope and goes with them. Peer influence carries as much weight with horses as with humans. They are not upset for more than a few minutes and it’s not a big deal,” he explains.

The mares are given a small dose of tranquilizer (whatever the vet recommends) when taken out of the pasture, before they are loaded in the trailer to haul them away, so they are not screaming. “We get the mares out of earshot, turned out in a pasture at the far end of the ranch. They are moving around at pasture, getting some exercise, so they are not standing around building up a lot of swelling in their udder. We just watch the mares to be sure that none of them get mastitis. We don’t ever milk the mares. That just prolongs the dry up process,” he says. The weaning is always done in pairs. Two mares will buddy up with one another and not be so stressed at losing their babies. The foals are still with their familiar group; they are happy in their pasture with their buddies and about a week later two more mares are removed. By that time the first two are weaned and content and the second two are hanging around with their pals. “We do that 3 or 4 more times and we have them all weaned,” says Tracy.

The oldest ones in the group are generally weaned first, and the youngest ones left until last, so they are a little older by the time their turn comes. “But the way we set it up, all the foals in a group are fairly close in age, to be a compatible group.”

The first ones weaned are soon very independent. “When we wean the next ones they say, ‘come with us;

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don’t worry about your mom.’ Before long, it’s just a pasture full of babies. The last two might holler a little, but they go with their friends. The foals generally don’t nicker more than a few minutes when we take the mare away. Sometimes the mares carry on more than the foals, but most of them are about ready to wean their babies and don’t fuss a lot,” he says.

All the foals on the ranch have neck straps for identification. “After they are all weaned, we work with them periodically, in a little catch pen in the corner of the pasture. Every few days we get them all in there and give them attention and rubbing, being nice to them without doing any foot trimming, shots, etc. for those first weeks. We just hang out with them. If you need to catch one for some reason, and you’ve taught them to come into that catch pen, you can easily catch them. Since they are already halter broke, it’s no big deal when you put a halter on them,” he says.

“Basically weaning is a no-stress deal. There are many other ways to wean foals, especially when people have just a small place, but this is a system that works for us, and we have a lot of foals.”

Most foals aren’t weaned until they are about 6 months old, but sometimes things happen and you have to do it quicker. “One year I had a foal that was 4 ½ months old and his mother colicked and died. He got weaned at that age, but did fine. He was used to being handled. I didn’t have a group that he was with, so I just selected another mare and foal to put in a stall next to him. She was a kind, friendly mare with a foal about his age. He bonded with them and we put them in paddocks where they were close to one another, to socialize through the fence,” says Tracy.

“Then after a few days we just put them together and they went back to a group of mares and foals. When it came weaning time we weaned those two foals in the pasture like we did the others. The orphan foal had a friend to hang out with. Fortunately he was old enough and eating enough by the time he lost his mother that there was no problem,” Tracy says.

You want the foals eating well and doing well, and already dewormed by the time you wean. It goes smoothly if they are healthy. “You don’t want to stress one that might have a health problem. In that case you should wait until later to wean him. A foal with a problem will usually be in the barn anyway--where you can get hands on. You are almost weaning him every day because he is adjusting to human handling and won’t miss mom so much when the time comes for weaning,” he explains.

There are some common sense guidelines for weaning, and the main thing is to avoid stress. If weather is stormy or horribly hot when you’d planned to wean, it’s best to postpone until better weather. “Good sense and good horsemanship are the main things,” says Tracy.

“We start weaning foals at 5 to 6 months. One summer we postponed some of the weaning, however, because we had more than 3 weeks in a row where the temperature was over 100 degrees. Weaning during the heat is too much stress. It doesn’t hurt the mare to keep nursing her foal for another week or two, waiting until cooler weather.”

FENCELINE WEANING - Some horsemen do fenceline weaning, with mares and foals in separate but adjacent pens. This type of weaning was inspired by a study several decades ago at Texas A&M, which showed that foals with fenceline contact with their dams during the first week of weaning had fewer signs of stress (less whinnying, pacing, running, and lower cortisol levels in their blood) than foals abruptly/completely separated from their mothers. Most mares and foals accept fenceline weaning with very little protest and after 5 to 9 days can be completely separated with no additional stress.

Data from that study showed that physical separation with continued visual, smell and hearing contact—but no nursing—was less stressful than sudden separation. A foal at 5 to 6 months of age doesn’t need milk anymore, but is still emotionally dependent on his dam. To suddenly take her away usually leaves him insecure and frantic. Horses are herd animals, happiest with other horses. Foals with an adult companion are least stressed during weaning. TFH