I like the three month rule. Always best in case after case scenario to have them out of sight and earshot.
LOL, Samotis! Same here, regarding the demanding looks and calls!
[QUOTE=Laurierace;6466247]
A foal should never nurse for more than a couple of minutes at a time. If he was literally attempting to nurse for ten minutes at a time she was not producing enough milk.[/QUOTE]
She had to have been. I was able to milk her, and get a considerable quantity; she had an udder half the size of a cow. The foal was huge, but healthy, and normal. Just ate a lot.
But what level of protein are you feeding your mares? If you feed double the amount of 10-12 percent protein, you are giving too much carbohydrates and nowhere near enough protein. This is where the ration balancers come in. Brand is not so important, protein and the proper amino acids, vitamins, minerals and trace minerals are.
Ration balancers are usually 25-32 percent protein. Before you scream “THAT’S TOO HIGH”, you feed 2-3 lbs twice a day. Add a pound of soybean meal for extra protein and 3/4’s to 1 pound of ground flax meal twice a day to that. I also give 3/4 - 1 pound of alfalfa pellets (forage) and 3/4’s to 1 pound of well soaked beet pulp ( totally digestible fiber). The beet pulp needs to be started in small amounts and built up if the mare has never had it before because the body needs to build up the enzymes and microbes needed to digest it. Once there, the feeding of beet pulp, along with the extra enzymes and microbes, enhances the digestion of the other feeds in the diet.
Now, with this diet, you are only feeding about 1 pound of actual grain - if any - but lots of forage and fiber, which should be the basis of the diet of all equines (grazing animals, remember?). This works MUCH better for maintaining weight and is much safer than overloading with carbohydrates, which don’t help the ribby mare and can cause acid gut syndrome. It also puts the minerals, vitamins and trace minerals into the milk that the foal needs for proper growth.
Here’s a neat trick for starting young foals off right on eating solid food. When you make up the well soaked beet pulp (I use pellets - actually much cheaper than shreds and easier to store - less bulky) I put a handful in a little bucket for the foal and hang it down low. Foals all become interested in solid food at different ages, but that doesn’t mean they can digest solid food. Some foals will try the beet pulp at 2 weeks of age, some not until 2 months or so. OK, so the foal isn’t intested, but the mare is!!
Oh, says the mare, that’s just beet pulp, I have grain in my bucket, and she leaves it alone. When she is finished eating, she will go to the baby’s bucket and eat the beet pulp. Soon, the baby becomes interested and investigates and eats a little bit. The mare will check it out - darn, still just beet pulp. She will finish it later. After the baby is eating the beet pulp readily (remember, it’s just fiber and safe for baby) add a small handful of milk based pellets. Mares LOVE milk pellets, but by now, she is convinced that there is nothing there for her. Gradually increase the amount of milk pellets up to the manufacturers directions and you will have a foal who nurses, but supplements its diet with beet pulp and milk pellets and it takes some of the pressure off the mare. The foal will clean up its ration and the mare will clean up hers. Keep the mare’s feed up high until the foal is at least 3 months old, then gradually replace the milk pellets with growth formula pellets and voila, healthy mare and foal and less, if any, weight loss on the mare.
Gayle- I laughed when I saw your Holstein/Guernsey. I totally have one of those. It scared the crapout of me the first time she foaled. She was a very healthy and easy keeper mare right up until foaling- she even had a double butt like a QH. She foaled and within a week it was like what happened??? The foal was quite chunky, but it was extremely hard to get weight back on the mare. I had 5 foals that year and she was the only one with a problem.
Great thread. Interesting to hear people talking about weaning later. I may try that this year. My foals are 2-3 months now and startign to nibble at grain and grazing with Mom.
Time to Re-Think early Weaning
Interesting thread. I weaned my mare very late this year because of several life situations and really no hurry.
She was in foal (Farrington) and had a baby at her side. Had planned to wean at 6 months but vacation and other work obligations, it didn’t happen. Finally when my mare was 8 weeks out from foaling, we decided that we had to get this done. Mare was healthy, big and happy with present baby at her side.
We brought mare into a stall one night, filly stayed out with pasture mates, 2 yo 1/2 sister and 29 yo bood mare. Some noise at departure of mom to barn, but nothing more. We returned mom to same pasture in the AM. The filly and her 2 yo 1/2 sister greeted mom in the AM when she came into the paddock. Mom made it clear … milk bar closed! They all grazed and ate the day away side by side. No nursing allowed.
We continued to bring mom in at night, the rest stayed out. No problem when she was returned to same paddock in AM. Mare is was big as a house. She never lost weight. In fact I was concerned that the vet missed twins again. She delivered a big healthy colt exactly 8 weeks later. Plenty of milk … udder was massive.
Foal is healthy and happy. His long legs got in the way! He was finally up an hour later.
I never changed mares diet thru the period of filly nursing and mom pregnant. Kept the grain and supplements the same thru out and provided plenty of hay. Mare never lost weight.
I must have the exceptional mare. She wants us there when she foals and makes it known. This foaling she delivered differently than her previous ones. And she allowed an audience to observe. She was stellar (not the easiest of deliveries). Her baby was huge in the shoulder and long legged. Took baby 4 hours to figure out how to get to the milk bar (we did milk mom and gave to baby by syringe during the interim).
Both are doing wonderful and mom will be bred back next heat. I plan to wean again in same manner next year, monitoring mom the entire time.
Interestingly enough, he has not figured out how to creep feed, nibbles on the side of the grain buscket but does not put his head in the grain. Where as his older 1/2 sister was creep feeding in 24 hours! She is tall (15 H) and looking beautiful at now 1 year old. Love her personality too … gently and kind (dad Lassico). She now creeps feeds with her older 1/2 sibling. Funny to watch the 2 of them.
Going forward, I will not rush to wean.
Although most mares will maintain weight while lactating some won’t. I’ve had one that despite being on colossal amounts of food that was designed for broodmares and 20 acres of lush grazing just for her and the foal still dropped muscle mass while developing a big belly. A couple of experienced breeders had a look at her and said she was “milking off her back”.
If you looked at her lower half she looked fine. If you looked at her upper half she had no top line left at all and looked shocking. I’m not sure why some mares do this, break down their own muscles to feed the foal while gaining a pot belly. But it does happen despite good feed with the right proportions of protein, calcium, vitamins etc.
I do agree that most skinny mares are skinny due to lack of food though.
If they’re skinny in the ribs, they need calories, if they’re skinny over the back, they need protein. Try adding 1 lb of soybean meal twice a day to her diet. Flax meal also has a good amount of protein and also the fat she needs for the milk.
[QUOTE=ise@ssl;6464559]
I felt the information on the foals in the wild and how long the mares let them nurse was interesting. We breed mares every other year and leave the foals on for at least 8 months. This article verified what we have seen in research - that the incidence of ulcers is reduced, as is the incidence of bone issues.
here’s the link to the article on the website www.horse-journal.com
Dawn J-L - I too thought it was interesting that science is catching up with what is the natural pattern for horses in the wild. Sometimes I think the Grain companies do a good selling job of convincing horse owners that foals are ready for grain earlier than they should have it.[/QUOTE]
I have a breeder friend who often lets her fillies “self-wean”. They grow up with the mare herd, and will nurse less and less as they mature. It’s very natural, and similar to how horses live in the wild. She does pull the colts out, but fairly late - usually in their yearling year. The boys first go out with an “uncle” gelding, and then get migrated into a bachelor herd. She hardly ever has problems - her horses always seem very healthy, in good flesh, and very well-adjusted mentally.
I absolutely agree with the article. I always cringe when I hear of foals being weaned early, unless there is a dire emergency or loss of the mare. Foals do so much better and are more secure with their dam. Even the most independent foal likes the security of mom to run back to.
Thin broodmares need more calories and I will add an ulcer supplement if needed. But usually it is a calories in and calories out problem.
[QUOTE=DownYonder;6468809]
I have a breeder friend who often lets her fillies “self-wean”. They grow up with the mare herd, and will nurse less and less as they mature. It’s very natural, and similar to how horses live in the wild. She does pull the colts out, but fairly late - usually in their yearling year. The boys first go out with an “uncle” gelding, and then get migrated into a bachelor herd. She hardly ever has problems - her horses always seem very healthy, in good flesh, and very well-adjusted mentally.[/QUOTE]
I have had great results doing it this way. Both with colts ( they get gelded) and fillies. They just stay with the herd. Most mares will wean the foal a while before their next foal is due. If you are concerned you can separate them at the last month if you think the foal is still nursing. It is much less stressful for everybody involved.
Our easiest weaning to date was a shared fence line. I won’t seperate until they basically (on their own) have nothing to do with eathother other than occassional nursing. We kept the filly with her buddies that she hung out with 24/7 anyway, and moved the mare with a bud next to them. Not a peep, nobody cared, and all was very peaceful. After some time, we put them all back out together. Also very peaceful, with no nursing or attempts at it.
Our mares look good right now, but I was thinking about weaning the colt around 4 months. Only because he can be a pain in the butt and terrorizes his mom who is too nice to punish him. He rears and chases and bites at her and she just runs away or tries to ignore it. He’ll go completely out of sight with my gelding and she’ll hang out by the barn with the ladies (who she shares a fence line with). He can be a stinker, and will be gelded as soon as it cools down enough that the bugs aren’t a huge problem. Until then, I feel sorry for his mom!
The earliest we weaned was 3 months, but that is because we lost the dam in a tragic accident. Not ideal 
[QUOTE=Tiki;6465758]
And yes, to the people who bring skinny, ribby mares to inspections and say the foal draws them down… yeah, sure, if you don’t feed the mare enough for 2. Mares with foals at their side need twice the protein and an increased fat level. If you give the mare enough food, the foal won’t draw her down. Not even a TB mare.[/QUOTE]
This is just not true.
There are plenty of people who feed their mares free choice everything and still the mare cannot maintain weight until after weaning. For these mares, leaving the foal on past 6 months of age risks her health going into winter, especially those of us who live in SEVERE weather conditions such as those of us who raise horses in the conditions Alberta throws our way where blizzards with screeching winds last for days at a time at -40 plus windchill temperatures. There is no such thing as global care fitting all situations. In those conditions, I certainly do NOT want her udder wet from a suckling foal as she would lose her udder to severe frostbite.
I had such a mare, a Dutch warmblood mare who was my FEI dressage mare. She was on free choice round bale of 50/50 grass/alfalfa, lush pasture (as our pasture is always quite lush as we have ample space) and was getting upwards of 15 pounds of broodmare kibble split into 3 feedings each with a 1/2 cup of sunflower oil on it PER DAY. She was a bone rack. She couldn’t even eat it all. As the foal transitioned himself onto solids, she began to look better because his demands were decreased, but it certainly was NOT from a lack of food choices from our end. It took her 3 months post weaning to gain weight. She was also the boss mare, so she got first choice of everything. I chose to wean him at 5 months which gave her only 6 weeks to dry up and recover in time for the first serious snowfall at the end of October.
Some people DO feed their horses as much as the horse can possibly eat and it still doesn’t work so it is best not to judge.
PS: I don’t have access to ration balancer feeds, so with her I had to feed minerals and higher protein hay. None of my other mares have this problem and feeding them is certainly easier.
Lack of condition on the mare is a nutrition problem. As others have said, lack of protein will drop their topline, and lack of calories will drop their fat reserves over their ribs, neck etc. Lackof calories can also result in them consuming their protein reserves for energy which will result in a dropped topline.
As some have mentioned on this thread it isn’t always as simple as just feeding them more. It isn’t just simple math. They need to calories and protein, but instead of just providing more, they need to actually eat and utilize more. My best broodies are great eaters. They have super appetites and it seems like they can eat all day. They maintain great flesh over their ribs and toplines and raise big strong foals. They are well barrelled and are very good at utilizing fibre. Some of these weedy mares that drop condition when nursing do not get the right kind of quality fibre, or do not have the bacterial populations in their gut to properly utilize fibre. A healthy horse is a fibre fermenter, but if their hindgut isn’t functioning properly they cannot cannot utilize the food properly. Poor digestion leads to poor appetites. A broodie should ramp up her intakes of everything when she starts lactating. They often will be more hungry and will eat more hay then a pregnant or barren mare. Some mares won’t. Lifestyle changes and reducing stress can help improve gut health, as well as adding some probiotics, and better quality fermentable fibres.
I actually work for a feed company, but I don’t encourage early weaning to sell more feed. I but encourage a more natural approach of later weaning, careful supplementation of the foal and better management of the broodmare so the owners don’t feel the need to wean so young. We can feed an early weaned foal if we have to…we do a good job with orphans, but mommas milk is still best…with some nutritional add ons when they are old enough to eat solid foods.
[QUOTE=Tiki;6468549]
If they’re skinny in the ribs, they need calories, if they’re skinny over the back, they need protein. Try adding 1 lb of soybean meal twice a day to her diet. Flax meal also has a good amount of protein and also the fat she needs for the milk.[/QUOTE]
This is exactly what’s happening to my mare. (over the back but plenty of cover over the ribs)
So… where does one get soybean meal, and how is the best way to feed it? I’ve never used it before.
[QUOTE=Tiki;6468549]
If they’re skinny in the ribs, they need calories, if they’re skinny over the back, they need protein. Try adding 1 lb of soybean meal twice a day to her diet. Flax meal also has a good amount of protein and also the fat she needs for the milk.[/QUOTE]
This is exactly what’s happening to my mare. (losing over the back but plenty of cover over the ribs)
So… where does one get soybean meal, and how is the best way to feed it? I’ve never used it before.
Flax meal is easy to get at a store like Whole Foods or a health food store as I know because my hubby eats it regularly!
So shall we expect a picture of a yearling nursing on the cover of Time magazine?
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Only if it’s nursing in a very public place as so to create the most controversy. ;-p
Maybe in a field next to a big highway…
