Weanlings eating hard feed

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Albertina

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One of my YO weanlings has been weaned for about a month now, but as yet we have been unable to get her to eat hard feed
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She is eating haylage by the bucket load so she's not going hungry

Does anyone have any sugestions how we can temp her to eat her scrummy tea??
 
strange i say too my foals were attempting to eat hard food from day one when i used to feed the mares they used to try and tuck in as they got older they had seperate little feeds and had no probs did your foal not used to try and eat with mare
 
I'm surprised Tia didn't say this, probably waiting for one of us to point it out but I find it very hard to comprehend that your YO did not heed one of the most important golden rules on weaning (unless there is an accident to the mare of course which is slightly different) and that is that the foal must be happily eating hard food BEFORE you even think about weaning in the first place. Sorry if that sounds harsh but it's such a basic thing a breeder, even if an accidental one, should know, I'm a bit shocked if I'm honest. However it's done now so all we can do is try to help.

What are you trying to feed the foal now, also what age and breed is the foal now? What was the mare fed on while it was suckling too? Also how is it being kept now, is it out 24/7, out during the day or what? All of those questions answered will help us more to help you.
 
My foal didn't eat hard feed for the first few days after i got her. I bought her straight from the breeder and she had been eating along with mum. I started giving her a little bit of mix on my hand and then holding the bucket up for her. I only had to do this for 3 days before she started shouting for her dinner and would eat out of the bucket by herself. I dont really recommend this for colts or nippy foals but it worked for mine.
 
I didn't ask because I thought that it would be mentioned by the OP in further posts.

As everyone else has said, yes my foals were interested in fiddling with their mothers feed within days. By about 6 weeks they had their own feed that they were tucking into.

The foals which were shipped from the big ranch had not had hard feed and did not know what it was. It took them about a week of watching all the other horses and foals, to learn that pellets in buckets were good and tasty. All of my foals eat very well - the oldest is 7 months old and the youngest is 3 months old.
 
Have you tried mashing up the hard feed with warm water and adding a bit of sugerbeet? One of my foals (pre-weaning) didn't like dry hard feed so I made it into a mash. Once she was happily eating that, I slowly made it less mashy until she was eating it dry.
 
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My foal didn't eat hard feed for the first few days after i got her. I bought her straight from the breeder and she had been eating along with mum. I started giving her a little bit of mix on my hand and then holding the bucket up for her. I only had to do this for 3 days before she started shouting for her dinner and would eat out of the bucket by herself. I dont really recommend this for colts or nippy foals but it worked for mine.

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We also had to start our foal this year off hand feeding as even though Mum was happy for her to share the foal just wasn't interested. We held the feed bowl up and hand fed from it and then gradually lowered it so that after a month or so (took ages!) she'd eat from it. Before she was weaned last weekend we had to feed mum and as soon as mum was finished tied her up with hay so that the foal could finish hers without mum gobbling it up.
 
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