Separate paddocks?

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Cc088

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Two weeks ago I got 3 foals. I also have a 5 year old mare. I have tried to put the foals in one paddock and my mare in the other but the first time they broke down their fence before I put on energiser then broke her out so they could all be together. She is really good with them. Today I again separated them but my mare was really distressed and the foals weren't happy either but thought I'd stick with it - until someone's dog came running into the field and started chasing the foals resulting in them running straight through electric fence to escape - I then let my mare out as I didn't want her in a small paddock with a rather big dog running loose. Now I need to decide whether to again separate them tomorrow or just make a bigger paddock for them all to be together and muzzle my rather overweight mare? What do people suggest?
 
The foals need to learn about the electric fencing if you must use it although I am not keen on it for youngsters, you must always have it on if you are going to use it, you need to make sure the foals understand that it is a barrier and that they will get a shock, if one goes through the others will not be shocked so they will just follow and they will all potentially continue to run through it and may end up badly injured.

Ideally the foals would be kept in a separate field with a proper fence around it , the mare if she is normally alone is likely to be upset now if she is in the same field with just tape between her and them, she will have enjoyed having company and if there is nowhere they can be separated by decent fencing I think the safest option is to put them all together/

I would be looking for the owner of the dog and making sure that it is not going to be running about loose again, chasing livestock will put it at risk of being shot, they may take a warning seriously if they hear that, they are lucky the foals were not injured.
 
Are any of the foals colts? If so they need splitting from fillies and your mare and you need better fencing to do that.

If all girls then I would put them in together, you run the risk of them hurting themselves each time they break through the fence and youngsters injure themselves easily enough as it is
 
Two are colts however had the vet out last week and because they are only 5 months old one hasn't dropped and the other only has one down at the minute. Will keep checking them and as soon as they drop they are getting gelded.
 
Luckily my mare started chasing the dog away - went for a walk but found no sign of it so put it on Facebook and owner been found - he says it jumped his fence and he is going to keep a better eye on it. My mare was quite protective of the foals so if I hadn't of intervened and shouted at the dog which made him leave she could well have kicked him and killed him. I now have the joy tomorrow of trying to catch the foals again in a 5 acre field.
 
Cc088 said:
Two are colts however had the vet out last week and because they are only 5 months old one hasn't dropped and the other only has one down at the minute. Will keep checking them and as soon as they drop they are getting gelded.
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Don't rely on that. I have heard of rare occasions where very young colts have been left with mares thinking they hadn't yet dropped and accidents happened!
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Foals need to be in with adults to learn how to socialise properly with other horses, who better than your mare to teach them?
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Absolutely. Introduce them to the electric fencing properly (I always made someone else do that, so they blamed OH) and leave them with the next best thing to Mum. :)


As for catching the foals, they will probably follow your mare in a yard where you can get hold of them more easily :)
 
muckypony said:
Don't rely on that. I have heard of rare occasions where very young colts have been left with mares thinking they hadn't yet dropped and accidents happened!
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I was gonna say this. I bought my boy as a youngster. He had covered 9 mares he was running with. They thought he was too young to be fertile (oops).

Sadly they subsequently lost 3 of the mares and all but one of the foals through miscarriages.
 
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