My Mare is savaging foal - any experiences?

Gosh, i really feel for you. Having just been through our first experience of having a foal (un-planned BOGOF one) i know how stressful even a relatively straightforward experience is.
Our mare is a young maiden & isn't being the best Mum, although now 3 weeks on, things have settled down.

The lady that foaled ours is having exactly the same problem as you with her next 'charge'. Again a maiden mare, big & powerful & apparently has always been a bit of a cow! She was going for her colt foal really badly, bitting & kicking him until he was on the floor. They had 3 vet visits on Bank Holiday Monday (that will be expensive!) She tolerates him feeding but attacks if anyone so much as looks over the stable door or if he goes anywhere near her hay or food. They are having to keep everyone well away, she is luckily on a tiny, tucked away yard & even her companion pony has been moved to a different yard so she is now the only horse there which seems to be helping. She is better turned out but has to be supervised the whole time& because of foals 'dropped pasterns' he's only been allowed out for short spells. It's taking 2 people to feed her as she has to be taken outside & held while the foal is kept a safe distance away.
I hope that your mare will continue to improve & accept her foal, they are such a worry aren't they? Good luck.
 
Really feel for you GGRider, brings back memories of one of our mares - she point blank refused to bond with her foal, (no physical issues with/after the birth) - turned them out after two days to see if she woud be better. Biggest mistake ever - she charged the foal who went down - cuts and bruises - so brought them in and got the vet - a/bs ! Mare wouldnt let foal feed unless we held her. After three days foal couldn't get up when he had laid down so got him xrayed, and it turned out he had shattered his leg, don't know how he could stand! The only time mare got protective was when we took her away from him at the vets. She didn't pine for him at all!
We found out about a year later she had a HUGE granuloma on an ovary and vets think it was there while carrying the foal and it caused too much testosterone in her system.
Really hope things improve for you.
 
Just a thought, if they were OK inside but the problems started in the field, maybe putting them back inside would have triggered the earlier maternal behaviour? If it doesn't work, go back to what did work and try again? Probably of no relevance now but someone might need to access this thread in the future. Place, i.e. where things happened, often has a big importance to animals.
 
Really strange she was ok inside and then went mental outside, if I am reading it correctly that could have just been a coincidence and the behaviour is not necessarily due to the change in location. I also have plenty of experience of this in sheep, but I have never ever had an issue with a ewe liking her lamb them rejecting it, that is very odd. It would point to me that there is something going on like an infection or the season making her behave in this way.

I certainly do not think its anything at all to do with you foaling her inside.

I have a ewe just now that I had to lamb as she wasn't getting them out. She hasn't had a lamb before and she was given to me along with 8 others, she's older than she should be for a first lamb. Anyway probably if she had lambed herself she would have wanted them, but me having to catch her and lamb her interfered with the normal run of things and she hated the sight of them. A night in the stocks has almost changed her mind. It sounds like your mare will be ok too if you persevere and don't allow her to beat the foal up.
 
Mine did although she was confused about feeding but bonded. had to be sedated to let baby feed.
then once she came around she rejected baby.
had to tie her up, hold front leg up and do pinch on her neck to let baby feed each time 24,7 supervision. Every time she went to attack baby had to smack her.
after 3 days she bonded with baby.
 
It is interesting but not necessarily relevant that FF's ewe and A2's mare (and I think others) reverted to normal behaviour after a few days.

Does that support the hypothesis that the dam or foster dam is more likely to accept a foal/lamb after her own milk has passed through the newly born and been defecated?

Most animals do a fair bit of 'bottom sniffing' and 'dung sniffing' so clearly there are messages to be read from that end! Just because we humans don't do it, doesn't mean it isn't important to animals! (Well, I don't do it. Can't speak for others! :D).
 
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