Foals - How Do You Keep Them Entertained!

measles

measles

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Our foal is one month old now and seems to constantly want to investigate which is great but last night I caught her playing in the water in the stable - she was splashing with her front legs in their water bucket! I had wondered how the water was getting full of shavings!

I can stop this by wall mounting the bucket but she clearly is looking for things to get up to when she's in the stable. Other favourite activites are digging up the bankings, licking the walls, standing on her toptoes to pul down mouthfulls of hay and then chewing enthusiastically etc etc.

She and Mum are out from 6.30am - 6pm at night and both are thriving so their routine seems ideal. I realise most of this is normal foal behaviour but how do you keep your foal stimulated and happy?
 
Just leave it to be a foal and do what comes naturally. And use a rubber bucket rather than a plastic one if foaly is going to play with it - it's safer.
 
If you can lots of little (a couple of mins max) training sesions on easy things should help. They're like little sponges at that age!
 
before you put them to bed let them loose in the school while you're mucking out with footballs and other fun and scary things. The foal will bomb round, usually with mum stood in the middle! The sand and investigating will tire the foal out so when you put them to bed it should sleep! We found a spacehopper is quite funny with a gangly legged foal!!! hehe
 
I kept my two out at grass...and periodically pushed my OH towards them so they were entertained bullying him (trying to take his clothes off, ordering him to scratch them, galloping up and down in front of him etc).
They grew up nicely...but he seems strangely foal phobic now.
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when i had to stable my mare and foal i used to throw in a couple of turnips to keep the little one entertained!, she loved kicking it round the stable
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and only now and again had a bite!! i also used to bury carrots and bread in the hay on the floor but this was done when she was older and was already used to eatin carrots and bread. a friend used to put cones in her stable to entertain her foal!
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I gave mine an Aunt and an Uncle for lack of other babies. Auntie is very patient and a good fly whisk, but Uncle, well, he's just fun, fun, fun! Mum is for food only now. The GSD is often quite good as a playmate too, he playbows to her and she runs him round (never him chasing her, he's not allowed to) Butterflies too, although I don't think they appreciate the game, we have big yellow swallowtails here the size of sparrows (literally) and she's often chasing them.

Fergus adores Isabella, she follows him about, rears and plays chase with him, stands underneath his tail, she'll fall asleep at his feet and he'll stand there nodding off over her. Sweetest of all, is them grooming each other, she can only reach halfway up his side while he grooms her back, haven't managed to get photos yet, as every time I go near they decide that I am more interesting.
 
Thanks, everyone. I do worry that she is a tad bored in her stable but the weather's been so cold and wet here that it would be risky keeping her out all night when she's still so titchy.

I bet she's like s turnip on string to play with and her teeth are so small still that she shouldn't be able to bite through it and choke. Have a large stable mirror so might try that too.
 
I tend to agree with Amymay, it doesn't need entertainment. playing is natural and so is investigating, just make sure it's in a safe environment.
We removed a dividing tape fence from one of our fields after the foals continually ran through it despite the electric being on last year, luckily they have three mates each to play with this year so have tended to torment each other not their dams.
 
Troy is going through his Asbo faze at the moment so is driving me and his Mum mad!

Hannah and Troy are stabled every night, and they get used to it. He munches on her hay, has his little tea and then is left to his own devices.
 
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