Always fun trying new horses together.
Weaning is difficult. I've heard a varity of ways, but none are easy. I could never get Dot and Belle out of hearing range of each other but could get them out of sight. It never bothered Belle, but Dot was sad. I've heard, but haven't tried successfully, that it is less stressful on the baby if the mother and foal can stand in pens together where they can see and sniff each other but foal can't nurse. I tried it here but Dot managed to get her head thru the panels to nurse, and Belle let her.
I thought it odd that Belle had a bag for over a year after Dot stopped nursing. her bag was full but not enough to cause pain, but she had milk. Is that normal?
Becky
Just as a FYI. I heard a horrible story yesterday from Tina about an experience by someone I know. I'm sure everyone one here would know better, but i thought this girl would have too, so I'm just passing it on.
This girl had a foal 3 months ago. She is friends with the people who own the stud she used. These people IMO, break their horses the "cowboy" way, not much finess, more just buck em out, whup and ride type. Any way the girl with the foal called her friend who owns the stud and asked what she should be doing witht the foal now at 3 months. Tina was not sure if the foal had had any handling, halter broke and such.
She was told at 3 months to start ponying the foal. So, she "tied" the foal to saddle of the foals mare whose name BTW is "Spook". I guess it spooked her to have the foal tied to her, when the girl got on, the mare took off, and she couldn't get her stopped. The foal had to be put down. Broke it's back.
Sounds like a really sad sad deal, with alot of mistakes.
Becky
They are the sneakiest little buggers when you're trying to wean them. I took Grace away for a month and she was right back to nursing as soon as I brought her back, and she was over a year old then. THEN I tried a spiked noseband on her halter. Well that didn't work either. She figured out how to hold her head so that the spikes would more or less lay down and wouldn't stick. She was at least 18mths old before Truly finally weaned her herself. I'm sure it would've been sooner if Truly had been having another foal right away. I checked Bluebell's udder the other day and even though she has a huge bag and I saw Hope sticking her head under there like she was nursing, I didn't get any milk out when I squeezed, so I think she had stopped giving milk in preparation for the new baby. I had wondered if that would happen and was worried if it didn't if there would be colostrum for the new baby when it was born. I guess it's like what Deaconjim says to RoS about worrying over things that God's already taken care of. Horses were having babies long before people came into the picture.
I think my friend Tiff is trying that... she doesn't have a good way to separate them except by stalling one of them and switching them back and forth.
Of course, she tried this for a couple weeks, it was a hassle, the two seemed to be over crying over each other, so she put them back together... they went right back to nursing.