Is it just my mare who has lost the plot while being weaned?

flaxen

flaxen

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My mare has lost the plot!!

I weaned her from her foal on Monday afternoon and started by taking her out of the field and leaving my pony and foal in one and put her next door. They ran round for a couple of minutes and then settled down to graze for the afternoon.

At tea time I put smartie in my pony's stable where he cant see them or jump out and put my pony in the barn in a pen erected for him next to my mare, there was lots of neighing at each other and she didnt really eat anything and just weaved and box walked but seem quiet at 10pm when I checked them.

On Tuesday morning I left smartie shut in and turned my mare and my pony out at the other end of the farm. Our farm staff said that she spent the whole day galloping up and down the fence line and at one point slipped on the hardcore in the gateway and lost her feet from under her and fell on her side.

When I got her in last night I was met with a lathered horse who has cut her legs quite badly, she was pretty wound up and I couldnt really get much sense out of her. I cleaned her legs up, jabbed her with penicillin and bute, put her cooler on under her rug and put them all to bed.

This morning I was met with a dehydrated horse who is stiff and lame not having eaten or drunk for 24hrs.

I have given her some fluids, sedation and more jabs and cold hosed and rebandaged her legs, she is now going to have to stay in as I cant turn her out due to her wounds.

She is quiet and settled tonight and has eaten and drunk a small amount and has only neighed a couple of times.

Has anyone else's mares behaved like this and would really appreciate some advise as Im worried about her.
 
When you wean they need to be far enough away that they can't hear each other, other wise they are going to be able to talk to each other and get themselves very upset and very wound up. My mares go 40 acres away (thats as far as I can go on our farm) from their foals, which is enough for most of them but 1 mare has to go to a yard in the next village because she catches one whinny from her foal on the wind and she'll jump any fence/gate between her and the foal. Most my mares run around for an hour or two, then they stand at the fence giving me very black looks, then after a few hours they start to graze but come back to the fence if they see anyone, and they slowly move away over the next couple days and start grazing further and further up the field.
 
flaxen said:
Has anyone else's mares behaved like this and would really appreciate some advise as Im worried about her.
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Yes - about 6 years ago one of my sport horse mares went BESERK, and jumped about 10 fences in an attempt to find her foal. She aborted the foal she was carrying as a result!

Because of this, I've never carried out abrupt weaning since. I bring mare and foal into adjoining stables (ideally in pairs with the two foals in one stable and a mare either side). I take them out to the school each day for a run around and for foals to have one good drink - and then take mares to a FAR field after 4-5 days of this treatment - and keep foals in. I've found this the least stressful method for mares AND foals and not had a problem since.
 
i find if they cant hear each other the running around is over very quickly, if they can neigh to each other then it can go on for ages and is distressing for both mare and foal
 
Yes, she jumped out of the field and went cantering down the road to find her, luckly for her there were no cars about and we were at the other field with her filly to catch her when she turned up.
The filly doesn't mind at all being away from mum but our mare goes bonkers when she carn't see her.
She has got so attached to this foal but her last one she had 4 years ago she didn't want anything to do with and the foal (also a filly) ended up getting colic and died :( .
Our other mare on the other hand gets so fed up with them by the time weaning comes she doesn't give it a second thought, its just like "oh more food for me then" .
 
That's why I move my mares completely away at weaning. If yours can hear each other they are bound to get very upset, it's only natural especially in such a small herd as well.

My mares all seem to give a sigh of relief when they're led up the road, even if foal is only about six months; is yours any younger, sorry, didn't notice if you said?
 
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I would take the mare away totally (to another yard).

I have always dropped mares off for approx 3 months at my friend's yard which is around 2 miles away to ensure they can't hear each other.
 
I understand from previous threads from the OP that this foal is only just 5 months old and is having to be weaned now due to the mare not doing well. In these circumstances, I would agree that gradual weaning is likely to be very dificult and that taking the mare a long way away would be beneficial to the welfare of both mare and foal.
 
I weaned my 51/2 month foal off her very protective fiery mother a few weeks back. I introduced a sweet friendly mare a few weeks before to play nanny. The foal didn't really care about nanny and just wanted to stay with her mum. I seperated them gradually for 30mins at a time and because they could hear each other this caused problems..... the mare went crazy so I figured that this wasn't going to work. On the day of seperation I turned the mare into the field on 5 ml's of Sedelin and once this had kicked in she just stood still in the field. I then popped the foal on the lorry and took her to her new home.. the baby screamed for a bit and then calmed down, she was turned out with other foals and within 24hours had settled in and became one of the gang. The mare also moved yards on the day and was suprisingly really chilled.

I was really worried about doing this, so I understand how you feel, I think you may have to seperate them instantly and keep them out of earshot of each other.

Good Luck
 
It really is on a case by case basis, some mares are so chilled out about it yet others especially maidens can be so foal proud and attached it is traumatic if they are separated for 5 minutes. Like others here, I am an advocate of gradual weaning and do it over the course of a couple of weeks but before that the foals will be fed separately from mum and get used to being fed on the yard or on the ramp of a trailer (get 'em early!) and it is usually one step further to separate completely. I weaned one pair using a very gradual method and because of various circumstances mare and foal were in separate stables but in a different block and it worked fine. My mares are luckily pretty chilled, but I had one mare (a maiden) who could not be caught for four months even with feed with a foal at foot. The guy I had sold her to eventually herded her and foal into a shed and locked the mare in and separated the foal - not ideal but necessary under the circumstances as the mare was too aggressive to let anyone get near her and the foal.
 
I have 30 acres here with yard and house in centre of land, so it is impossible to separate them without them being in shouting distance. I would not trust my mares to anyone in this area for 6 weeks.

So I wean slowly and at about 9 months (my mares only foal every two years). It has worked in the past, right now I have two fillies separated at night and they are all quite calm. In about a week they will be separated during the day but still allowed to suckle first thing.

Then they will have a month apart.
 
I don't breed, so maybe why it all sounds so sad:(

I can remember my grampy telling me about a mare he was taking to the new forest sales. They were crossing to the mainland on the old IOW ferry which wasn't much more than a glorified row boat then and of how she litrally jumped ship and swam back to the island and her foal.

The nice thing to come out of it was the fact that he was so impressed with her act of heroism, that he kept her.:)
 
I would agree that this has to be looked at on a case by case basis, but in the great majority of cases and under "normal" circumstances (not the case for the OP's mare and foal), gradual weaning is the best, least stressful way of doing things PROVIDED the foal is at least 7 months old, but ideally 9-10 months old.

More than the mare's personality, the level of hormones that "tell" the broodmare to be protective and motherly, to feed and defend their foal will decrease gradually - a mare who is very protective of her 5 month old, will most probably be a lot less protective of her 8 month old.

In a feral or wild herd environment, a mare will wean her foal around 10 months old when their hormones will be telling her she should put her energy and the very sparse winter resources into the last trimester foetus inside her, rather than into milk for that strapping nearly yearling who is bloody big enough to look after himself. In a captive environment, the mare might not be in foal again and might not feel the same urgency to send the foal on his merry way, BUT, most will accept as the way of the world to have their foal weaned.

As long as people will insist that 5 or 6 months is an adequate age for weaning (and again, there are circumstances when it is necessary, in which case abrupt separation is probably the safest option), there will be injured mares and foals through going through fencing and stable doors, colic, ulcers, cribbing and sadly also deaths on both sides. The fact a foal eats by itself doesn't mean it's ready to wean. If the mare is doing well, what is the hurry? Why not wait another 3 months when both mare and foal are psychologically (& hormonally) equiped for the separation - which you then can safely do at home without any fuss or stress to anyone concerned?

With all due respect to the wealth of knowledge and experience of the people on this forum, I feel there is still an enormous amount of pressure to upkeep "traditional" methods. Who decided 6 months was a good age and why? Horses have evolved over millions of years to wean their foals at 10 months old, an age when presumably they are the most likely to become well adjusted adults who will be more able to survive and pass on their genes? Why do we feel the need to temper with that?
 
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Well said Ginnie Redwings. When I bought my first brood mare - the breeder said just that - leave the foals until they are 9 months and you have no problems.

However, I don't breed my mares every year and I make sure they have enough condition in the autumn to cope with removal of hard feed and to suckle their foals for 8- 9 mths.
 
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