Mares and their recently weaned foals
Moderators: Roguelet, WaveMaster, madelyn
Mares and their recently weaned foals
I've thought about this a couple of timesw but have never asked. Let's say a foal is weaned from his dam in September...then the November sales roll along and he's listed side by side with his dam. Any concerns about him being "reunited" even if only during the consignment or when they are side by side in the walking ring?
My experience with weaning is that eight weeks is plenty of time for mental separation. I've put mares and foals back together again after eight weeks and had no re-attachments. But these foals were all well over six months of age, so mares and foals were both ready to be independent. I wouldn't try it with a five month old colt that was weaned at three months.
I just bought a colt and his dam from the Barretts sale. I had to ship them to me in a van, and obviously the weanling wouldn't be broke to tie yet. I asked the consignor if they could go in the same box stall, and he said no way, that the mare would kick the heck out of the baby. So they shipped in separate stalls. When they got to the farm where I was going to pick them up, the farm didn't realize they were weaned and started to put them together, but recognized right away that the mare was indeed going to wave a leg at the colt, even after they'd been next to each other on the van for eight hours. I just went and picked them up. Neither showed any signs of recognizing each other at all. It's a April 28th foal; I'm not sure when it was weaned, but it wouldn' have been last month, I'm sure.
Once I took a mare and a recently weaned baby to a halter class in a horse show. That was dumb. They got completely re-attached (I think it had been about 10 days) in the trailer, and I spent the whole day at the horse show with those two acting crazy for each other; they couldn't be five feet away. I might as well have packed up my stuff and left, because what happened later in the halter class was pretty embarrassing. It was a Produce-of-Dam class, and all they had to do was stand in a line together, but that wasn't good enough. They were fidgeting every minute trying to look at each other. I did get a ribbon, but that was only because they ran out of horses before they ran out of ribbons. One of the dumber things I've done in horsemanship.
I just bought a colt and his dam from the Barretts sale. I had to ship them to me in a van, and obviously the weanling wouldn't be broke to tie yet. I asked the consignor if they could go in the same box stall, and he said no way, that the mare would kick the heck out of the baby. So they shipped in separate stalls. When they got to the farm where I was going to pick them up, the farm didn't realize they were weaned and started to put them together, but recognized right away that the mare was indeed going to wave a leg at the colt, even after they'd been next to each other on the van for eight hours. I just went and picked them up. Neither showed any signs of recognizing each other at all. It's a April 28th foal; I'm not sure when it was weaned, but it wouldn' have been last month, I'm sure.
Once I took a mare and a recently weaned baby to a halter class in a horse show. That was dumb. They got completely re-attached (I think it had been about 10 days) in the trailer, and I spent the whole day at the horse show with those two acting crazy for each other; they couldn't be five feet away. I might as well have packed up my stuff and left, because what happened later in the halter class was pretty embarrassing. It was a Produce-of-Dam class, and all they had to do was stand in a line together, but that wasn't good enough. They were fidgeting every minute trying to look at each other. I did get a ribbon, but that was only because they ran out of horses before they ran out of ribbons. One of the dumber things I've done in horsemanship.
"When I am on my deathbed, I imagine I will say, 'Thank God I did that'" - Arthur Hancock, on buying back Gato del Sol from Europe after Exceller was killed in a slaughterhouse in Sweden.