# when to 'wean' an orphan foal



## Cuppatea (24 September 2010)

We have an orphan foal whom we have been feeding foal milk from a bucket. When is the earliest that we can wean her off the bucket milk? She has been eating hard feed - stud mix and foal pellets since before her mother died but would like to get her off the milk


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## JanetGeorge (25 September 2010)

Rowenna said:



			We have an orphan foal whom we have been feeding foal milk from a bucket. When is the earliest that we can wean her off the bucket milk? She has been eating hard feed - stud mix and foal pellets since before her mother died but would like to get her off the milk
		
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How old is she?  I had one orphaned at 8 weeks old last year - couldn't get the little poppet to take milk at all - he weaned himself and it didn't do him any harm at all!


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## cruiseline (25 September 2010)

We have reduced our orphan foals milk to 2 feeds a day, morning and night. She is now 4 months old and in the next 4 weeks she will be taken off the milk all together. She is also eating hard feed, foal creep pellets and youngstock mix and tucks into her haylage very well.


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## Maesfen (25 September 2010)

I weaned the two orphan boys from the bucket at about 5 months old the same way as Cruiseline, it worked very well and they didn't look back although they did look for the bucket for a few days when it was stopped completely.


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## Berpisc (25 September 2010)

Mine was about 4 months when I weaned her off the bucket milk, that was two years ago and she has developed fine


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## Cuppatea (25 September 2010)

JanetGeorge said:



			How old is she?  I had one orphaned at 8 weeks old last year - couldn't get the little poppet to take milk at all - he weaned himself and it didn't do him any harm at all!
		
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she is about 4 months old now, she was orphaned at about 6 weeks i think. She has another filly (still with mother) by the same stallion in the field with her who was born a couple of days before her but the orphaned foal was always the bigger of the two untill we lost her mother but is the smaller now. I'm just worried that taking her off the milk might stunt her even more?


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## SKY (25 September 2010)

i only ever touch wood, lost one mare, 7 years ago.  she blew her foal on that well that when she had to be pts the foal was only 6 weeks but everyone thought she was 6 months as she was so big.  foal wouldn't take milk so we got milk pellets for foal and hay and paired her up with my gelding so she had company and someone to show her the ropes, in and out of field.  she is on my sig dazzling dapper the second from left.  she is massive now and never had a problem with her touch wood.


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## Tnavas (26 September 2010)

If you have grazing and she is eating other feed then she will be fine if you wean her now. Genetics decides the height so she will catch up again so long as she is fed a sensible diet. Mothers milk is losing its quality at about 3 months and the foal by then will be eating grass more than milk. I weam all mine at 5 months from their mums so that mum can recover in time for winter.


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## Peasfriend (26 September 2010)

echo Evelyn - my 5 year old was orphaned at a week old and subsequently bottle fed.  You'd have to ask volatis when she weaned him as I'm not sure, but he was around 
13.2hh at 6 months.  He's since grown to 18hh, so it's pretty safe to say that being orphaned didn't affect his growth


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## varkie (26 September 2010)

We kept our orphan foal on replacement milk until 6 months.  I know that the mothers milk quality drops off earlier than this, but our chap had been orphaned at just four weeks, and I felt that he wasn't as mature as others his age, so made the decision to keep him on the replacement milk a bit longer.


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