Soft weaning experience

[HappyHackerK8]

Ok, weaning!?!

Thinking ahead as my filly is still only 3m.

She is out with mum and two other youngsters who are already weaned…

Do I try and soft wean? Is it horrendous? Does it prolong the stress or make it easier by ramping up the time apart? I’ve read for and against for both methods and watched the recent webinar from FEI. Does anyone has any positive or negative experiences of Soft Weaning?

 

[JBM]

Never personally done it but heard it’s better to wait until they’re past 6 months

 

[HappyHackerK8]

Never personally done it but heard it’s better to wait until they’re past 6 months

Yeah - I’m thinking ahead! Not planning on weaning at 3 months

 

[tda]

There has been a recent thread on this very subject

 

[HappyHackerK8]

There has been a recent thread on this very subject

Ohhh, I’ll have a search…thank you

 

[HappyHackerK8]

An update on soft / gradual weaning for anyone who might want to give it a try:

Separated for about an hour a day at 4m. ~ filly was naturally independent and happily eating plenty of haylage/grazing and balancer. Increased this over the month so that by 5m she was separate from mum for most of the day, enjoying her youngster pals.

Brought them both in at the end of the day to be stabled together - I could lead them in one at a time so I was confident that both were happy with brief separation.

Plan was continue this throughout month 5, fully wean at 6m…

Reality - storm Babet had other plans! Our fields were very water logged so took the decision to bring forward weaning as filly hit all bench marks at 5m. Separated first thing in the morning - kept filly in the stable she had shared with mum, next to her yearling friends she had been grazing with. Moved mare across the yard out of sight and sound.

Filly didn’t care less! Mare had 24hrs of calling out and looking stressy (added aloe juice to her water for gastric protection) reduced down her balancer/hard feed over the weekend to nothing, to help with milk reduction.

Weaned on an friday and by Monday both mare and filly were perfectly fine. Fields had dried due to all the wind so we took the filly back out with other youngsters for a bit of head space. We only did this once we were certain she wasn’t going to tear round and injure herself. Keeping mare in for the time being as grazing wouldn’t allow for out of sight/sound. She is happily being lightly exercised for an hour a day for some enrichment and to help with milk reduction. Bag has significantly reduced over the course of a week!

I would call this a success I know that this wouldn’t be good for all, I think to avoid unwanted stress levels in mare and foal you would have to monitor closely throughout and watch for stereotypical/stressy behaviour. I was lucky, and both enjoyed their brief time apart!

Hope this helps decide if this process is for you or not