If you plan to feed your weanling grain, introduce it to him when he’s about 1–2 months old.

Most foals are weaned at about 4 to 6 months, just when their nutritional needs begin to outpace their mothers’ milk supply. Designed to provide all of a foal’s nutritional needs at birth, a mare’s milk yield naturally starts to decline after the first month or two. By the time the foal is 4 months old, he must supplement his nursing with other food sources, such as forage (hay and pasture) and grain. Accustoming him to these nonmilk sources well before weaning time not only will help him maintain consistent growth throughout the transition, it will also help to avoid the “kid-in-the-candy-store” syndrome. In this situation, weanlings with no previous exposure to grain overeat, either ­because of the novelty of it or to compensate for previously inadequate nutrition.

Your foal will taste-test grass and hay as early as a few days old. But because the microorganism populations in newborns’ hindguts need several months to develop fully, he will have trouble digesting this forage initially. As he ­matures, his forage intake will increase and play a larger part in his diet. It’s important to continue encouraging his appetite for forage as he approaches weaning time. (A 4-month-old weanling should eat enough daily forage to equal between 0.5 and 1 percent of his body weight.) Think of him as a fussy toddler who won’t eat his vegetables unless they’re really tasty. Turn him out on a productive pasture or entice him with good-quality, palatable hay (fresh and clean, early-cut).

A growing foal requires high levels of protein, calcium and other minerals. After weaning, most horse owners provide some of this nutrition in the form of a concentrate balanced specifically for young horses. If you plan to feed your weanling grain, introduce him to it when he’s about 1 or 2 months old, starting with just a handful at a time and increasing the amount incrementally.

Introduce Grain

A corner creep feeder is tied into an existing fence line. The 4-foot height allows foals to duck underneath, without allowing the mares access.

One good way to introduce nursing foals to grain is with a creep feeder: a four-sided, single-railed enclosure built either in the corner of the fence line or standing alone in the center of the pasture (the latter is preferable for group feeding, as it allows escape on all four sides). While mature horses are too big to duck under the rails, foals can come and go as they please. Young foals usually will take a few bites at a time and then return to their dams. This feeding method thus reduces the risks of digestive problems, such as colic and ulcers, brought on by large meals.

If you have only one foal, make the creep feeder sides about 8 feet long, set at your mare’s chest height. For each additional foal, add another 2 feet in length to each side. Space individual, shallow plastic, rubber or wood pans or troughs far apart and ­observe the group dynamics carefully to be sure that no foal is hogging the trough. Remember to ­remove excess feed daily to prevent spoilage.

If you don’t use a creep feeder, offer your foal small meals when his dam is being fed. He can eat out of her feeder—in which case, be sure the feed meets his nutritional needs, which are higher than the mare’s in some respects. (Many commercial dealers offer “mare-and-foal” concentrates, which work well in these circumstances.) If the mare doesn’t share well, feed your foal separately, either in an adjoining stall or just outside her stall (if it opens into a safe enclosure). Or mount a foal feeder, which has openings too narrow for an adult horse’s muzzle to access, for him on the wall of her stall.

A stand-alone creep feeder is better for larger groups of horses because it allows four sides for escape.

After weaning, it’s easiest to regulate your foal’s grain ration by feeding him individually. However, if it’s more convenient to continue feeding him in a group, monitor his grain intake carefully. Without the option of his mother’s milk, he may be tempted to eat more grain than he needs. On the flip side, he may eat too little grain if other foals bully him away from it.

It’s midmorning at Hilltop Farm, a sport-horse breeding facility in Colora, Maryland. Megan Fischer, the director of Raising Services, and her crew open a gate in the “foal weaning pasture” to let the herd of mares and foals into a paddock where piles of fresh hay are spread out on the ground. As the horses settle down to eat, Megan quickly and quietly halters the mother of the oldest foal, a 4-month-old colt and leads her to a trailer waiting beside the paddock. Her foal doesn’t even lift his head from the hay pile he’s working on with one of his buddies. He’s a confident, independent foal, but, more importantly, he’s accustomed to being separated from his mother for short periods of time.

Megan takes the mare to a far pasture out of earshot of the foal weaning field. After unloading, the mare whinnies once for her colt, then recognizes some former friends in the pasture and trots out to join them. Back in the foal weaning paddock, when the hay is gone, the mares and foals are released into the bigger pasture. The new weanling takes a quick canter around the field looking for his mother, then rejoins the rest of the herd, who are grazing quietly.

How can breaking the strong mother-foal bond be so peaceful? As Megan and Dr. Christine Skelly, associate professor of Michigan State University’s Adult Equine Extension Programs and founder and director of My Horse University, explain in this article, by taking steps to instill confidence in your foal beforehand, you can make this potentially traumatic transition smooth and painless.

Why Wean, and When?
In the wild, mares allow their foals to nurse for a year or more, not pushing them away until they give birth to their next offspring. In domestic situations, however, there are many practical reasons to wean earlier. For example, you may want to sell your foal by a certain age, or you may have riding/competition plans for your mare that can’t be achieved with the foal tagging alongside.

Another compelling reason to wean is if your mare’s body condition is rapidly deteriorating. This happens sometimes when a foal’s nutritional demands outpace the mare’s milk supply. Without adequate nutrients to sustain her own body, the mare may experience health issues, such as an inability to conceive again. A nursing mare should maintain a body condition score of 5 or 6, which, says Dr. Skelly, “means her backbone is level—not protruding out or hidden below a crease of fat—and you should be able to feel, but not see, her ribs.”

Dr. Skelly generally recommends weaning between 4 and 6 months of age. “Before four months, foals are not as adept at eating forage and grain,” she explains. It’s fine to wait longer than 6 months, she says, “but keep in mind that the bigger they get, the harder they’re going to be to handle.”

Preparing the Foal
Both Dr. Skelly and Megan recommend approaching the weaning process with the goal of minimizing stress. “The mare-foal bond is extremely strong,” says Dr. Skelly. “You’re removing everything that a foal knows: the caregiving and nutritional bond, as well as communication through all of the senses—sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell.”

The more abruptly you deprive the foal of these things, the more traumatic the experience can be. He may panic and injure himself—or the stress of weaning may suppress his immune system. Dr. Skelly says this makes a foal more vulnerable to conditions such as colds, flu, strangles and pneumonia.

To fortify your foal’s immune system, she recommends following a good health program from birth, including vaccination and deworming schedules approved by your veterinarian, as well as regular hoof trimming. Note: If you plan to castrate your colt, give him several weeks to adjust to being weaned first.

Handling your foal frequently and ­accustoming him to a routine early on will help to minimize stress levels at weaning time. At Hilltop, says Megan, “we break our program into building blocks. From birth to weaning time, we’re building the foals’ confidence, teaching them the same routines they’ll experience as yearlings, two-year-olds and three-year-olds.”

These experiences include daily grooming, picking up feet and leading alongside the mare. Once a foal is comfortable being handled, he’s led just outside the mare’s stall to be groomed. When he’s comfortable with that, he’s led to a grooming area farther away, but still in sight of his dam. Eventually, he graduates to being led away from his mother—and vice versa—long enough to have his hooves trimmed.

Megan says her program introduces ­everything to the foals step-by-step, adapting it to suit each individual. She explains, “The foals who are laid-back and willing to try whatever we ask of them need only a day with each step. Some foals worry and need more time to build confidence.”

Regular handling is a great way to get to know your foal’s temperament, which will help you anticipate how he will react to the weaning process. Megan explains, “Some foals are so confident they’re just like, ‘See ya, Mom!’ Some are real ‘mama’s boys’ and have a much harder time.’”

"Of course I am biased, but I think there is nothing in the world more important to the average horse owner better understanding their horse and, in turn, enhancing their horse's welfare, than to know more about horse behavior," says Dr. Camie Heleski, coordinator of the Michigan State University Horse Management Program and lead instructor for the online behavior course. "[That means] everything from understanding that the horse evolved to eat lots of reasonably low-quality forage through the vast portion of the day ... to always remembering that the horse evolved as a creature of prey, hence their first reaction is always to flee from a potential source of danger."

Here's a look at these categories, with comments from some behavioral experts:

Ingestive Behavior refers to a horse's eating and drinking habits. Given the choice, as most horse owners know, equines like to forage or graze most of the day. What is less commonly known is that they prefer to ingest many different species of plants, not merely grass or hay. This follows a pattern observed in wild horses and illustrated in experiments conducted by Dr. Debbie Goodwin, a lecturer in Applied Animal Behavior at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom) and honorary president of the International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) council.

"Horses have only been domesticated for around 6,000 years, and so much of their digestive physiology and foraging behavior has changed very little during domestication," says Goodwin. "Owners can meet their horses' nutritional and foraging motivational needs by providing a varied forage diet for their horses. There are many forages suitable for horses available on the market, so the variety offered can be tailored to meet the nutritional and workload requirements of individuals, and cater to their dietary preferences."

She recommends contacting your local feed merchant for long-chop hay or haylages, plus short-chop, bucket-fed forages that are suitable for horses and that provide "a variety of physical shapes and textures as well as tastes and nutritional content." Since these products are more common in Europe than in America, Dr. Christine Skelly, director of curriculum for My Horse University, suggests planting "a variety of grass and legume species in a pasture mix and/or feed mixed hay (grass and legume blend)." Be sure to offer only small quantities of novel forages at first, ensuring that your horse's usual forage is also available.

Though well-fed horses are unlikely to ingest toxic plants, it is important to note that this is still a possibility. As for water, the old rule of making it available 24/7 is worth heeding, even though in the wild, horses only drink a few times a day.

What goes in must come out, and that is where Eliminative Behavior plays a role. Some horses are not particular about where they defecate or urinate, while others have preferred elimination areas, especially in larger pastures. (Horses are notorious for avoiding these soiled spots, but mowing and dragging will maximize utilization and help kill parasites, while rotating pastures will refresh these areas.)

In addition, stallions will defecate on other horse's fecal piles, generally after smelling them. "Dung piles are used to signal the presence of a resident stallion," explains Natalie Waran, senior vice president of the ISES council and head of the School of Natural Sciences at Unitec New Zealand. "Horses are not territorial about space, but stallions are protective of their mares! The constant piling of dung ensures that it remains fresh, and the pheromones strong. Other stallions may 'over-mark' by placing their dung over that of the resident stallion to try to claim ownership."

"Curiosity killed the cat" applies to more than just felines. A horse's Investigative Behavior--an outgrowth of its natural curiosity--can get it into trouble when checking out objects left within reach. Because of the risk of injury, horse owners should keep pastures and barn aisles free of such enticements.

Is a horse's investigative behavior any indication of its intelligence? Not necessarily, according to Dr. Cindy McCall, professor and extension horse specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences at Alabama's Auburn University. "I don't know of any studies linking investigative behavior with intelligence in horses," she notes. "And there are so many other factors [that] influence both investigative behavior (e.g., age, gender, management) and intelligence (e.g., type of test, reinforcers and reinforcement delivery system, previous experiences of the horse) that it would be difficult to draw conclusions about their relationship."

Through MHU's horse welfare and behavior program, participants can learn about horse behavior and how it can influence the way they interact with horses. Video and written information can help learners understand why horses react to certain situations.

The horse selection and evaluation curriculum is designed to help would-be horse owners better understand how a horse's form relates to its function and how to evaluate potential mounts for various uses.

The programs' learning modules can be used in group meetings and discussion groups. Learners can also access the information individually and learn at their own pace.

"My Horse University is excited about being able to provide education to youth." says Dr. Christine Skelly, director and founder of My Horse University. "This is a great way for leaders of youth groups to be able to use online resources for education."

Agape Equestrian Intern Program, a nonprofit organization located in Georgetown, Texas, sought out MHU to provide information on horse behavior and welfare for their intern program focused on young women between the ages of 13-18.

"The online course taught these advanced riders that it is more than just getting on a horse, that there is ongoing research in the field of equine science. This program is a great foundation for learning about horse behavior and welfare," says Joycelyn Romero, director of the Texas Equine U Intern Program.

Future MHU courses will focus on equine nutrition, health, reproduction and exercise physiology.

For more information on how your youth equine programs can work with My Horse University, email info@myhorseuniversity.com or call 517-353-3123.