Weaning

I will be weaning Troy at 6 months of age, and I am travelling them both to a separate yard and then bringing Hannah straight back to my yard leaving him there... I am absolutely dreading it if I am honest
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I think I will cry like a lunatic and seriously embarress myself
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I have just over a month to go now.
 
Becki, can I just suggest you think about actually leaving Hannah there with him for a week at least?
That way, he will have her as a security blanket, she will help him learn the new fence boundaries safely;make friends too, also, he'll still have the comfort of her milkbar while he takes in the stress of a move. After the week, he should have made friends with the other youngsters, will have got used to the new water gently and with different handlers too. The ones I have had here to wean using this method haven't batted an eyelid when the mare does go home because they are already 'at home' with their new friends, handlers etc; the two I had before I started this method, were an absolute stressy nightmare and took a long time to settle and eat without shouting all the time for weeks even though they were with other foals.
You are asking a terrific lot of him to cope with the upheaval of moving, new people and food/water plus losing his mum at the same time; his weaning would be very stressful for him the way you suggest, you are cutting out all the things he knows at a stroke. I know I'm an old softy, but I always try to put myself in their shoes and how it would affect me. (I know, humans have different ways to looking at things, but weaning needs to be as stressfree as you can make it).
 
I naturally wean. I have used this method for years and every weaning has been so stressfree for both mare and foal. Generally the mare starts to go out for rides when the foal gets to about 6 - 8 weeks old. These rides become longer gradually - our little mare who has the 16 week old foal can be gone for up to 3 hours a day now; neither of them bother.

I'd say usually the foal become totally self-sufficient by about 8 months this way. I know this doesn't work for everyone, but it does for us.
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Some people over here do wean foals awfully young in my opinion, and yes I have also seen foals weaned and available for sale at 3 or 4 months old. It's kinda ironic though that all the little meat foals aren't shipped down here until they are 5 months old....
 
Where he is going cannot cater for this unfortunately, which is why Hannah is going to have to come home the same day. They have been separated for short periods and both do not seem overly concerned. Hannah is more interested in her food (no changes there then) and Troy is more interested in meeting the other horses and drags me away from his Mum over to them.

I know that this is quite an abrupt way of weaning, but the place he will be going to is exactly what I wanted for him... He will be going out with a gelding and Hannah WILL NOT go out with one at all unfortunately. She gets really stresed out and starts flying her back legs around and chasing the geldings. But with mares she is absolutely content and does not bother.

The other option was to wean him at the yard I am on, but he would have to move to a stable down at the bottom where he would not see any other horses and would probably still be able to hear Hannah if she shouted him. He also would not be able to go out in the field as I would not want him to get attached to another and then have to travel alone to the new place. Plus, there are no suitable geldings for him to go out with anyway.
 
Forgot to add... Troy and Hannah are getting a bit big for their stable now
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He is touching 14hh (will measure him tonight) and he has suddenly shot up again. Plus he is getting a bit too 'rough' for Hannah, and as she used to suffer from some back problems I am very concious that he will be damaging her further by leaping on her (although she has been really double barreling him recently). He will be 27 weeks when weaned...
 
I normally wean from 6months plus never before, as mine live in a mixed age herd i tend to just take the mum's away to another field out of sight when i feel the time is right leaving the foals with the rest of the group including the nanny mares and this has always worked well for us. Some of my friends swear the best way to wean is to bring the babies into a stable and shut them away for a few days, for me like Pat says this is more stressful for the foals as they lose everything they know in one go and i have heard of more injurys happening with this method, they argue safer in than out charging around feilds in a panic but maybe i just time it right as whenever i have weaned in the past the most weve got from the foals is a few calls and then oh sod that and carry on eating with nannny lol
 
I know you have deliberated over what to do for some time now - if it helps you any, all of the weanlings we take at our farm generally come at around 5 or 6 months old without their mothers. I collect them and travel them here alone and when they arrive they are turned out with a herd of other youngsters. None of the weanlings have ever created a stir; they have all just settled in straight away. Good luck however you choose to do it.
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we never wean earlier than 5 months and I prefer to wait till 6 months. We take 1 or 2 mares away at a time, leaving the foals in their established herd with eventually just an unrelated nanny mare to keep an eye on them.
 
We wean gradually - eventually having mare and foal next to each other able to see and touch but foal not able to drink. Try to do this with 2 foals together but this year only have 1 as we had a stillborn foal earlier.

We wait until around 6 months old. Our foals dont seem to mind this situation and settle very quickly with mum there but not able to drink. Mares them go out into the field during day and come back at night. Foals then start going out with a nanny.

Since using this method we have found that foals settle very quickly, mares dry up nicely and we have had no problems with stress.

The foals eventually are yarded for the winter and mares go into winter grazing.
 
Jomiln,

I'm interested in your method - never tried it this way but this year I have a very clingy mare. Don't think the foal will be bothered as she's very bold. Do you have any probs with the mares shouting and trying to charge back to the yard?
 
mine will be weaned at 5 months - my mare tends to tell me when they are ready as she jumps out the field and leaves baby to !! but i guess every foal is different so we will wait and see !!

I normally take the mare away and leave the foal with its security blanket of its foaling box and familier fields !!!

its horrible takig mum away she calls and calls for about a day then thats it and i think she forgets what she is calling for !
 

My main trouble with this mare is that she's been badly teated in the past - I don't know for SURE but IMHO I suspect that when she was brought into this country she had a foal pulled away from her too soon (lots of assumptions there but I think it's going to make life difficult!)

Anyway, she's in foal again so I'm hoping she'll start to naturally push foaly away. Fingers crossed it will all go fine. I'm a long way off as yet (foal only 3 1/2 mo).
 
I like to wait until 6 months but gem was so awful with her baby I weaned him at just under 5 months (by about a week), I walked her and him down the yard into a stable then walked her out n the door was shut on the foal, he shouted once then munched hay, she didn't bat an eye even when he called.......... I fed him milk pellets till he was about 7 months old just to try and make up the deficit but havent noticed a difference till he went out on doctor green this spring. I will be weaning Kali at 6 months.
 
I wean very much depending on the foal, I like to wean at 5 to 6 months (usually the latter) but I have taken a couple off at 4 months because they were growing too fast and were over weight.

I have had to take a foal off at 3 1/2 months because mum had to go into have a major operation and the vet college didn't want the foal but you would have never known it.

I have a foal atm that mum died a couple of weeks back she was a week short of 4 months, it took about a week to get her onto hard food because they weren't yet on hard food because I am nowhere near thinking of weaning yet but she eating everything in sight now and is really settled, she is on the stallion block because one of other of the stallions is always in so there is always someone for her to look at.
 
Could you not leave troy at the yard where he is and take the mare? I agree with MFH the way you intend to wean could prove very traumatic for Troy, the journey, new environment, taking his mum away, new people etc. Research suggests that traumatic weaning can seriously affect the horse later with stable vices and insecurities etc. When we wean we take some feed down to the field and when the foal is eating take the mare away leaving the foal with his freinds. One foal took two days before he called for his mum.
 
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Where he is going cannot cater for this unfortunately, which is why Hannah is going to have to come home the same day. They have been separated for short periods and both do not seem overly concerned. Hannah is more interested in her food (no changes there then) and Troy is more interested in meeting the other horses and drags me away from his Mum over to them.

I know that this is quite an abrupt way of weaning, but the place he will be going to is exactly what I wanted for him... He will be going out with a gelding and Hannah WILL NOT go out with one at all unfortunately. She gets really stresed out and starts flying her back legs around and chasing the geldings. But with mares she is absolutely content and does not bother.

The other option was to wean him at the yard I am on, but he would have to move to a stable down at the bottom where he would not see any other horses and would probably still be able to hear Hannah if she shouted him. He also would not be able to go out in the field as I would not want him to get attached to another and then have to travel alone to the new place. Plus, there are no suitable geldings for him to go out with anyway.

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Becki dont worry, I did exactly what you are planning to do. My mare had a strop on the way home, normally a lovely traveller she stomped and sulked till we got home and scowled at me for hours afterwards.

Huey ran round and called for her, but he had lots of other horses he was next to, could sniff and see which kept him interested in a few other things. We went back to him a few hours later after sorting Mum out and he was stuffing his face! He never called again for her after the time that she left

Best thing we did, as he like Troy was too big to keep buggering around with his Mum!

And for those which say its not a great method, dependant on circumstances its the best which some of us can do. I did however wean Huey off of her milk 2/3 weeks before he went, he was seperated in the field from her with electric fence and she had dried up by the time he left.

I now have a completely well adjusted yearling who is happy to leave his friends in the field, independant enough to walk down the road infront of the older ones and do pretty much what everyone else can! (and i have to say is better behaved than most)
 
The yard where I am wean according to the foal - but it's usually around the 5 or 6 month mark. It's usually trouble free - although last years weaning was pretty traumatic for the mare and she did take about a fortnight to really settle. Her colt really wasn't bothered. He was with granny and aunty who he'd been with from day one more or less.

The mare goes to one end of the farm, the foal to the other.

I too would urge caution to Becki. Hannah may well be a real handful comming home, so make sure you have at least three people travelling with you.
 
No, I cannot keep him at the yard I am at as there is no longer a horse suitable for turning them out with. They all have back shoes on, and I am simply not risking it. Plus, they are mostly large powerful horses.
 
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