We weaned our now 2yo colt when he was 5 months. I wouldn’t have minded waiting
longer, but as we were coming into a hard winter, I wanted the mare to have a
chance to recover and the baby no longer needed milk.
We have a run off one of the stalls that is pretty big. We put baby and my mare in the run at
night and mom in during the day, so they each still got to be with the herd and
be out on the big pasture at times.The mare and baby were both pretty independent – mom completely
leaving baby when he was 4 days old.
The second she realized we were letting her out and locking
baby in, she bolted and didn’t come back til feed time.She was a little uncomfortable with
excess milk for a few days, but after that, she wouldn’t have let him
drink for anything.There was never
any emotional trauma, but we kept them separated until he didn’t try to
drink – took about a month.
The mare never dried up.She still has milk after 2 years.And baby is independent, not cranky
(after being raised by 5 mares!) and I can take him anywhere by himself and all the
mares will share food with him even when they’d kick each other.
