Izzy Taylor from Animalweb talks to Dr Veronica Fowler about the decisions behind breeding a foal and why it might be time to rethink weaning.
Breeding a foal is an exciting prospect, but how often do we stop to consider the whole journey before taking that first step? And when it comes to weaning, should we accept that stress is simply part of the process?
In this episode of the Animalweb Podcast, Izzy Taylor is joined by Dr Veronica Fowler for a conversation that challenges some familiar ideas about breeding and raising young horses.
With a background in animal health, scientific research and equine welfare, alongside experience breeding her own Welsh ponies, Veronica brings science and personal experience together to explore what responsible breeding really involves.
The discussion starts with the decision to breed. What makes a good reason? Which responsibilities can be overlooked? And what should owners have considered long before a foal arrives?
Veronica then turns to weaning, questioning practices many horse owners have grown up accepting. She introduces her foal-led approach and shares why she believes we should pay closer attention to the needs of both mare and foal.
Throughout the episode, you’ll discover:
- The questions to ask before deciding to breed.
- Why planning needs to extend beyond the foaling date.
- The assumptions about weaning Veronica wants owners to reconsider.
- What it means to take a foal-led approach.
- How owners can feel better supported through the process.
Whether you’re considering breeding, preparing for weaning or simply curious about how we can improve the lives of young horses, this episode offers a fresh perspective on familiar traditions.
Listen now to find out how to put mare and foal welfare first when breeding and weaning.
CLICK here to head over to the main Podcast page to see the complete list of podcasts available.
Transcription
Here is a transcription of the podcast. (Please note this is an automated transcription, so we apologise for any errors from the original podcast.)
Hello and welcome back to the Animalweb podcast. I’m Izzy and today we’re exploring the responsibilities of breeding a foal right from that very first decision to preparing for weaning. So joining me today is Dr. Veronica Fowler. Today’s discussion will discuss breeding decisions, commitments that come with producing a youngster and also her foal-led weaning approach.
So Veronica, firstly, thank you so much for joining me.
No problem.
I just thought to start with, we could start with sort of your story, a little bit about your background. So maybe just a short bit about how you got into this area of the equestrian world.
Yeah, sure. So nice to meet you. So I am Dr. Veronica Fowler. I grew up actually in the depth of Wiltshire.
within the valley of the white horse. So I don’t actually know if you’ve ever heard of that, but there is this area within Wiltshire where there’s loads of white, chalk white horses carved on the hill. So I think from a very young age, one being stuck in the village with nothing else to do, but two being surrounded by these mystical white horses on, you know, hills. I think that probably unconsciously drew me towards horses.
But anyway, I officially started riding around seven years of age. So it took me seven years to convince my parents to allow me to go near a horse. And then I got my first horse at 13, which was actually a three year old thoroughbred. So great first horse to start with. But she was with me for 20 years of her life. So that was my first introduction to horses.
I hold a PhD in Virology from the Royal Veterinary College. I have an MSc in equine science from Hartpury College, which is now Hartpury University. And actually, when I did that masters, David Marlin was actually one of the external lecturers that the Hartpury College at the time used to bring in to teach us all about equine science. So that was brilliant. He was one of my very first inspirational
equine physiologists at the time and I actually did my master’s project with him when he was at the Animal Health Trust on recurrent airway obstruction in horses. And then prior obviously to my master’s I did a bachelor’s of science in animal science from the University of Reading. My whole career has been in animal and human health and that’s spanned across academia, equine welfare, I’ve worked for equine welfare charities like the Brooke,
I’ve worked for government and more recently in the biopharma industry, focusing on working on vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for important animal diseases. Today, which is relevant for our discussion that we’re going to have shortly, is that I actually have a small herd of Section A ponies, so Welsh Section A ponies. I have six of them. Four I’ve bred myself.
I’ve ethically weaned them and I show according to best welfare. So what I mean by that is I show them from the field. They live out in a herd and if I want to go and show at affiliated shows, I will bring them in the night before, give them a bath and then go to the show. And I’ve been pretty successful in that space and competing against some big producers, particularly in the [society initials unclear in supplied transcript] world where one of my homebred ethically weaned.
Ponies was a silver medal, rosette winner at [show name unclear in supplied transcript]. So I’m really quite proud of that. And then as you know, and how we’ve ended up on this conversation today, in my spare time, I am very passionate about sharing good welfare knowledge and I run a page that I look after myself called [Facebook page name unclear in supplied transcript]. So that’s me, very nice to meet you today.
Lovely, thank you so much for that. So oh I thought we’d kick off just
a little bit
by talking about the whole process of breeding and kind of reasons for why we should breed. You I think there’s a lot out there about people having a mare and they think, I wonder what we should do with it, should we breed? So I wonder how you could talk a little bit more about how to make that decision.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.
The decision to breed is often not actually even considered. It’s more an opportunity. People have an opportunity to breed and they think, oh, it would be quite cute to have a little foal. So like historically, like for a very long time, having access to basically a mare and a stallion was seen as a good enough reason to breed. But I personally don’t think that that approach is…
justifiable any longer and I’ll explain as we talk today why I think that’s the case. One of the main reasons is there are already many horses looking for good homes so breeding decisions need to have a clear purpose rather than just a convenience or an opportunity and we should be asking ourselves why do we want to breed this foal, why should we breed this foal. Those that are thinking of breeding should ask, like I just said,
why they want that particular foal and what their specific objective is. They should be able to say what that mare and stallion is essentially objectively contributing to the health, conformation, temperament and performance, not just how many shows or medals or championships that those two parents have won. It should be much more purposeful than just looking at a kind of a horse’s career on paper.
We should have done proper breeding pre-health checks, so many people do not even bother checking for reproductive health and things like that, and controlling for infectious diseases, particularly things like contagious equine metritis. In my opinion, the mare should be vaccinated against the usuals, such as flu and tetanus.
but also against infectious diseases like equine herpesvirus. That is a virus that has many different types that are heavily involved in reproductive issues and can cause abortions. So many mares in this country and globally are still not vaccinated against equine herpesvirus. And we should ask ourselves what makes this foal meaningfully different from what already exists.
and essentially who is gonna benefit and bear the burden if things don’t go to plan. So if you set out to breed a foal for yourself, think three years ahead. If your circumstances are going to change, you don’t know that they’re not, who is essentially gonna pick up the burden if things don’t go to plan and you need to sell that foal on? Buying can and is often a more responsible option.
If the goal is just to own or compete a particular type of breed or equine, whether that’s a horse, a pony, donkey, mule, you might actually be able to achieve it more efficiently and with less risk by buying a youngster rather than breeding a youngster. Responsible breeding, in my opinion, means being willing to ask whether it’s genuinely justified or whether a suitable horse is already available.
And like only last weekend I was looking at how many foals were at one of the autumn sales and there were 226 foals of which I think just over 85 % were under the age of six months old at the point of sale. Like shockingly, one of those foals was only 105 days old when it was at the auction being sold. So like to me that seems, and this is one
This is one breed society. So just imagine how that scales as we go through other breed societies within this country. And like to me, that seems like a very large number of foals. You know, why were these foals bred? Only to be sold five months later, or in some cases, three months later. You know, these are being sold. There’s a high volume of very young foals reaching these autumn sales.
So would you say there would be a
sort of a better responsibility for people to almost with these expensive stallions that foals are often sold before they’re kind of born as such. Do you think that’s a more responsible way to sort of ensure that the foals you breed are going to be better cared for in the future? Do you think that should be more regular?
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, responsibility for producing a foal starts long before conception and it continues long after the foal arrives. so, like, I’m not sure if people are fully aware, but around 30 or 40 % of breeding attempts actually fail to result in a live-born foal. So either the foal is aborted, it’s stillborn, or it dies very soon after birth. And from some of these causes are like,
at least partly preventable, not all, but some are partly preventable. Like some are infectious diseases, for example. So some are red bags. like owners need to know what to do before breeding. They need to know what to do during pregnancy and they need to know what to do around foaling. And like this is a tricky thing to say, but we need money. Owners need money.
to be able to ensure the best welfare of those foals, like prior to conception, during pregnancy, and that’s also looking after the mare, and then after the foal is born. And like all of this should be planned in advance, it should be discussed with whoever the vet is, there should be pre-breeding health assessments. Like the age of the mare, for example, sometimes you can see mares well into their late 20s still producing foals. Is that ethical? Why?
are people breeding from mares that are that old? Is it a maiden mare? That’s important to consider. The breeding soundness, what does that reproductive tract look like? Is it compatible with a safe birth? Where you were talking about high performance horses, like semen analysis, particularly where AI is used, at the quality of the semen, even live.
cover, you know, the quality of that semen is important. And then body condition assessments and things like that for the mare and stallion prior to conceiving. Looking for infectious diseases. So I touched on that a minute ago. This is a massive passion of mine because obviously being a virologist, you know, there are a number of infectious diseases that can cause reproductive failure in horses and like that can affect the mare as also and also the foal. And, you know, there are
considerable number of people that do not screen stallions or mares for reproductive diseases prior to breeding. So they’re missing an opportunity there to either protect a pregnancy or protect a live-born foal after it’s born. Things like vaccination, biosecurity, nutritional management, know, twin pregnancy reduction, that’s my other pet hate, if I could have one, is that I
regularly see, particularly when mares come up for sale, believed to be in foal. Now that is total madness because it doesn’t cost very much money to scan a mare and one it’s really important to confirm that she is actually in foal to make sure that she’s receiving the right nutrition etc but secondly to confirm that there are no twins because twins can account again for quite high numbers of abortions somewhere between 20 and 40 percent.
Very few mares that have twin pregnancies will carry twins to term, it’s like less than 10%. So why risk it? Why would you not want to know that your mare is in foal and that she’s not carrying twins? That twin reduction is really important. So like to summarize what I’ve tried to cover in this section is like planning should cover breeding and veterinary costs, foaling facilities, where are you going to foal at home or at studs?
Who’s your experience support network? Where are you ethically gonna wean that foal? Cause we’re gonna talk about ethical weaning in a minute. know, gelding costs, that’s another one. there seems to be this kind of disappointment when colts are born, particularly in some markets, not in all, but you know, everybody wants the filly fairy, but what about those colts that are born? You know, so many of them are sold on entire.
But to castrate a colt these days can be, you know, 500 pounds. Someone has to pay for that. It’s irresponsible to keep colts entire. It’s not fair on them, particularly if the intended use is not to keep them as an entire stallion. So like, and like my last point is like a healthy foal may live for like 20 years or more, hopefully more, maybe 30, you know, some even make the 40 mark.
The commitment is much longer than that excitement of seeing those cute little eyes and those four little legs with the little foal slippers in the middle of the night. You know, like the responsibility that we have in bringing that foal into the world, it lasts so much longer than the excitement of producing one.
No, no, definitely. I think they’re all really good points. I think I’m going to sort of just to round off that section really.
just got one question for you, which is, do you think that anyone should sort of be able to breed? I’m sure it’s a question you’ve sort of thought about a lot yourself over your experience, but yeah, I’d like to hear your opinion on that.
That’s an interesting question because I quite often think in my head, should anyone be allowed to own a horse? Because there’s some very bad, you know, in order to make good ethical decisions, you need to have access to good quality information to make those decisions. like, for example, Dave Marlin’s website is a great one and I tried to sort of do a similar thing on mine. You need to have access to those good quality sources of information to ensure that your horse has a good quality life. Now, I do believe that everybody should have the opportunity to breed a foal, but that should not be
a blasé activity, it should be with proper support, proper, thorough networks, advice and following less so following those traditional methods now of how to breed, how to wean and how to show and stuff like that. We need to evolve as a community and help those new breeders understand what is.
scientifically and ethically justifiable now. So I think yes, everybody should have the opportunity to breed, but only in an ethical way now. I think those traditional practices, which we now know are scientifically and ethically not justifiable. You know, there’s a strong case there that certainly from a social license perspective, these massive breeding centers that are
just producing foals for numbers, I don’t think that’s ethical any longer, but it’s still continuing.
Yeah, no, I think that’s a really sort of well-rounded answer for that. And I think really shows kind of a more modern approach. guess people would expect you to kind of say, no, you should only breed if you know what you’re doing and everything else. But that’s kind of not a practical approach, is it? It’s not going to happen. it’s refreshing to hear the…
the, with the right knowledge, people could actually be really responsible and even more responsible than some of the big commercial centres as well.
Yeah, I would say actually some of the best ethical weaning in particular, ethical breeding happens with your everyday horse owner because they have spent the time looking at how they should do this properly. So
You know, there are some very, very good ethically bred, ethically weaned foals out of what would be considered like a backyard breeder. You know, they’re not well known studs. They are backyard breeders or they’re hobby breeders. You know, like myself, I would consider myself a hobby breeder. But, you know, I’m constantly thinking, why am I doing this? Do I need to do this? Should I do this? And actually, for the last two years, I have not bred a single foal because my
my entire goal with breeding these Section A ponies was to show that you could put two ponies that were unknown, so they were not medal winners, not championship winners, you could pick two nice looking ponies that phenotypically, so you know how you look at them, are a nice complement to each other, breed a foal from those phenotypically rather than this kind of
practice that’s done regularly where you are literally selecting parents based on the number of championships or medals that they’ve won. These were two unknown ponies. Put them together because they phenotypically complement each other. Breed a foal according to best breeding practice. So I did all of the reproductive screening. You know, I did the ultrasound scans to make sure there wasn’t twins. I vaccinated the mare to make sure
she was protected against equine herpesvirus. And then when the foal is born, raised that foal ethically and then showed him from the field. He was an [society initials unclear in supplied transcript], well, he is an [society initials unclear in supplied transcript] silver medal winner. And I ethically weaned him as well. And I sort of showcased that in, I shared his journey plus the other foals. So he’s not the only one, that’s just one example.
I shared their journey so that others can learn from that. But my goal was to prove that you can breed a champion in an ethically justifiable way and that you can wean those foals in an ethically justifiable way. I’ve actually achieved that. So my purpose in breeding is actually finished. I’ve achieved my objective.
So it would actually be irresponsible for me to continue breeding because I have no reason to do it. So I have bred no foals for the last two years for that reason.
Oh, that’s lovely. And getting to share that story is such a nice success for you to have that actual real life experience yourself with your own. So let’s talk more about the weaning process. So I know this is…
something that you’ve really done a lot of work on and you’ve mentioned some of it before earlier in what we’ve done today. So I wonder if we could just talk about, for some of our listeners, what actually makes weaning so stressful for mares and foals and why have we had to sort of change the way we do things?
Yeah, no, that’s a really good question.
I always categorize this under like rethinking weaning because there’s this narrative that still exists today. It’s the dominant narrative that weaning stress is unavoidable. So if you went out and you interviewed, I don’t know, 30, 40 people that are familiar with breeding and you asked them, is weaning stressful and unavoidable? Sorry, is the stress of weaning unavoidable?
The majority of those people would say yes, because it’s how they’ve been, it’s how the industry has schooled itself, because with the traditional sudden abrupt isolation weaning, everybody can look at those foals, they can hear them screaming, they can hear the mares screaming. It’s very obvious that that’s stressful. And so like the industry has sort of got itself in this situation where people now think that that stress is unavoidable and therefore it’s justifiable.
So it’s like stress is, it’s like weaning is gonna cause stress. So it doesn’t matter how we wean the horse and it doesn’t matter that the horse is stressed because weaning causes stress. So like, you know, there’s like this kind of vicious cycle, but it isn’t stressful. So like weaning stress or the lack of, as we’re gonna talk about in a minute, is entirely proportional to the method that is chosen.
So like people, like the message that I want to get across is that people can honestly have a personal real positive impact on how much stress a foal experiences. Like in feral herds, foals will stay with their family groups until they’re like two or three years old. Obviously that’s not always practical within domestic settings, but.
that extended period of time is necessary for like development of emotional and social securities and things like that. like we in the kind of domestic world, we will wean sometimes from three months old, which is far too young. And it’s usually in a stable as I said a minute ago. And like most of the kind of traditional reasoning.
that is given to undertake those types of practices is like to protect the mare’s condition for showing it’s for financial reasons, but also tradition. And there’s a few myths out there as well that, know, some people still believe that in order for a mare’s milk to dry up, that foal needs to be completely out of earshot, out of sight, and the mare shouldn’t be able to smell that foal. That is…
totally untrue but it’s still those myths sort of still do exist today like
Like show, like if I go onto the topic of like show foals, they’re like often weaned around four months so that they can go to these autumn shows. You start seeing these shows now. There was one fall that I looked at this weekend. It won every single class that it was in and it was in about three different championships. That fall is five or six months of age and that spent a whole day. That must have been weaned, you know, somewhere around
four months of age and then it’s been produced in a stable and then it’s been taken to a foal show and it’s been there all day in multiple different classes for a rosette around its neck. Like some early weaning does happen for like health reasons, you know, if a mare develops mastitis or if they are injured or sadly if they die, but most…
this traditional early weaning is done for like human convenience. Now from an ethical perspective like research there’s a range I’ve got a there’s a webinar that I actually did with you guys that I collated as many publications together as I could find that were of good quality and there’s like more than 25 scientific publications which if you add up the number of foals that are within them there’s about 800 foals and probably more than a hundred mares that define
the behavioral and physiological effects of weaning. And we know from those publications that traditional weaning, the stress associated with that can last several weeks. We spoke a minute ago about the increased vocalization and restlessness. That’s what most people observe. It’s very apparent and very obvious. But what you also get is a reduction in feeding and sleeping behavior.
When that reduction in sleeping behaviour is the acute effects of it have happened, what you’ll actually then see is these foals are sleeping a lot. And some people misread that as, that foal is really chilled. It’s only four days into weaning in a stable on its own and look at it, it’s sleeping really nicely on the floor. Those sorts of behaviours are misinterpreted as, this foal is fine, but actually like prolonged sleeping.
has been shown to be associated with increased cortisol and things like that. So these publications are there, we can’t ignore them. And they clearly show that that chronic stress of weaning can actually lead to stereotypical behaviours. But other aggressive behaviours like biting, kicking and avoidance behaviours. So, like abrupt weaning, especially when foals are separated singly and stables.
we can categorically say damages social development and it can have lifelong impacts on those foals and particular their trainability as like youngsters as well as adults later in life. And so my sort of standpoint is I think in light of all of this evidence, this is why I strongly advocate that
that continuing with traditional weaning is neither scientifically or ethically defensible. It just isn’t. There should be nobody performing traditional weaning any longer. And that’s actually why I developed my own foal-led fence weaning. It was to show people that there are other actually easier, like foal-led fence weaning is much easier.
than trying to coordinate where you’re gonna put a foal in a stable. Where are you going to take your mares to that are five miles away? You know, like how the kind of traditional thoughts go. Like foal led fence weaning, they can both stay on the same property. They’re just separated by a fence line. So like the ethical way of weaning foals is one, less stressful to the human. Two, it’s much easier to implement in practice, but more importantly,
it probably almost completely removes the stress of weaning entirely, both from the foal perspective and also the mare, because quite often the mares get forgotten about. You know, they are stressed too. So, like, the way I do it is essentially in practice, I’m essentially separating my foals and my mares using a fence line. It normally is around about 10 or 11 months of age.
And it’s normally at the point at which I can’t remember the last time that I have seen those foals suckle because they’re very rarely suckling around 10 to 11 months of age. So, and I simply, when I’ve sort of observed those behaviors and like in particular, you give a bit of hard feed to a foal, if it’s kind of ready for weaning, it won’t then go and suckle immediately after that little bit of hard feed from its mare again, it
It just won’t do that any longer. And so when I start to observe those sorts of things, I essentially just separate them over a fence line and they will stay apart for anywhere between like four and six weeks and then I will reintroduce them. So yeah, like the first step is obviously recognising that readiness. I’ve discussed a couple of those things like, you you can’t remember when you last saw the foal suckling.
It doesn’t suckle again after it’s had some hard feed. If there was like pigeons flying or there was some noise that frightened horses, like when foals are ready for weaning, what you tend to notice is they won’t, after a fright, they won’t immediately go and suckle from their mum as like a source of comfort. They just don’t bother. They tend to trot, canter around the field with their tail up over their backs and they’re not going back to that mare.
looking for that kind of level of support. And the other most important thing is that you tend to see that they spend hardly any time with their mums anymore. So they’re often out in the field, like, you know, if they’ve got other horses in the field with them, they spend most of their time, like with other youngsters or other horses, they’re not really following their mums around anymore. So like all those points I tend to look for, they’re a sign of maturity and independence.
I don’t follow a rigid timeline. Like I say, it’s normally sometime between 10 and 11 months old that you see these behaviors. And yeah, that’s how I do foal-led fence weaning. And that’s the reason why I developed it. I wanted to show people that actually it’s easier to do it in a kinder way than to follow traditional weaning, which is stressful for people as well as the foals and the dams.
Super important. I mean, in the equine industry, we’re just so stuck in our ways, aren’t we, all of us? know, we’ve all grew up at one point with someone telling us how it’s meant to be done and then that’s how it just is. And there’s no questions asked, but that’s how it happens. And it’s fine that they’re a bit stressed because everyone’s got to be stressed sometimes. But it’s so lovely that now we can actually use the science that we’ve got and the evidence that we’ve got to really put forward.
a better sort of just living for our animals and being so much better informed about that. And you know, can anyone do this sort of weaning approach? I mean, it sounds to me like actually you don’t really need any extra resources. Like you said, you’d have to drive them five miles down the road, take them away. You know, it really sounds like something that can
actually be
practical and that’s all we want to do in the equine industry.
Yeah. So, I’ve been helping people with this for coming up to two years now. I think I’ve got about 24 graduates. So this is, these are not my own foals. So excluding my own foals, these are people that I’ve helped and they literally are doing this in their own yard. So, and most of the time I prefer it if people have a solid fence.
because then it’s safer. However, people, I have helped people implement this using electric fencing, but of course, if you are gonna use electric fencing, though the mare and the foal needs to have been exposed to that long before you try foal-led fence weaning, right? So as long as they respect electric fencing, you put up enough lines, so you don’t put a single line down the field and then come back the next day and think, I wonder why the foal’s gone under that.
You like you’ve got to set it up, but I prefer solid fence lines. So as long as somebody has the capability to separate the mare and the foal on the same premise, either side of a form of fence, you can do this at home. So like I say, yeah, there’s about 20 odd foals graduates that I’ve got now, which is really nice because when I started doing this, I thought to myself,
If I can just save one foal from traditional weaning, then that’s a success. But this is kind of spiraling now into multiple foals and now we’re getting into multiple tens of foals. so, and those owners obviously will have the opportunity to discuss their experience with other owners. And so now we’ve got this kind of network of those owners that have gone through foal-led fence weaning, also talking to other owners that
are thinking about weaning. And this sort of season, like people are thinking about weaning now, they’re making plans for weaning. Well, those that are not doing the traditional type of weaning where the foals are already weaned, but those that don’t wanna do that and they wanna go down the ethical weaning route are already contacting me and we’re making plans. I do like personal consultations, they’re completely free. We look at the fields that are available.
you know, sometimes it’s on tracks. So sometimes these foals have been weaned in track systems. You know, we can make this fit anywhere as long as, because what you’re not, what you don’t need to do, which is this kind of common misconception is you do not need to remove that foal away from the mare in terms of sight, sound, smell, touch. All you need to do is to prevent that foal from suckling. That’s literally the only thing. And that is like,
The stress of weaning is not the removal of milk. It is the removal of the mare. So like, if you put those two things together, you see how like obvious this is. But we haven’t yet, or rather I haven’t yet come across a situation where we have been unsuccessful in being able to set this up in anybody’s field.
Anybody’s premises, like I say, sometimes this has been done on livery yards. So you don’t even need a private yard for this. Sometimes this has been done on track systems. So not necessarily a field, you know, like a grass field. We haven’t yet come across a situation where we haven’t been able to do ethical weaning over the fence. So that’s really nice. But there are some things that I will talk owners through. One is obviously the fence. We’ve talked about that.
Another thing that I find particularly important is the weather. like planning for a period of time that’s kind of two-ish weeks in length of time, because if you’re going to wean foals around 10 or 11 months of age, it’s normally kind of coming out the winter as opposed to now for traditional weaning. And so I try to encourage people to…
Well, horse owners are always looking at the weather, But I try to encourage them to find a couple of weeks. That’s the kind of opportunity where that weaning, you you’re just reducing the chances of any excitement in the first few minutes of a foal being put in a new paddock next to its mum. Like it’s going to run around, it’s going to have a great time for the first five, ten minutes. But what you don’t want is them flipping themselves up on the floor because the mum will still be very aware.
of where that foal is at that point. And you don’t want her then getting stressed that her foal has injured herself or is upside down on the floor or anything like that. So weather’s a really important thing, but it doesn’t matter who you are, where your yard is, you can find two weeks of decent weather. And it also helps from the perspective that, as long as it’s not pouring with rain and the wind isn’t blowing.
the the mare and the foals or the mares and the foals won’t try and seek shelter away from each other because there’s no reason to seek shelter so you tend to find in the first like three four five days they will actually come together on that fence line overnight and they will sleep you know close to each other which is really nice and actually
is one of the things that you can watch over the first week to know that the foal-led fence weaning is going to plan because they spend less and less time close to the fence line, more and more time away from the fence line and they start sleeping like completely apart elsewhere in the field. And then the last thing that is important, if you are doing it in a field setting, like I mean with grass, one thing that I find really useful is if
You obviously have to introduce the mares and the foals to whoever they’re going to be left with because you can do this with a single mare and a single foal over a fence line, we have done this, but in an ideal setting, you you want to leave that mare with at least one other and it would be ideal to be moving the foal into a new field with at least one other. They want to be, you want to introduce those a good sort of two or three weeks before you think about then separating them over the fence line just so that everybody knows who everybody is.
because if you suddenly put a foal into a paddock with a new horse that it’s never played with before, they’re going to run around, have a great time, but the mare will be like, my God, there is another horse in with my foal. I need to go and protect it. So if that mare is already familiar with the horse that’s running around with the foal, then she’s not bothered. And then the last thing is the lush grass. So if you can leave a paddock,
that you intend to wean your foal in so that it’s got some fresh grass. That foal is so motivated to eat the grass, it doesn’t even notice that its mum is the other side of the fence line. So that’s the last sort of piece of advice that I give people is that try to do the weaning in a paddock that you’ve been able to like save a little bit of over the winter, because it’s often like February, March time if you’re doing it around.
10 to 11 months of age and that works really well. So they tend to have a little run around for anywhere up to half an hour, tail up over the back. It’s excitement, not stress. As in, it’s not bad stress, it’s excitement stress, exercise stress, which is good stress, not psychological negative stress. So physiological stress, not psychological stress. And then they settle down and they’re scoffing their heads off so much that…
that they don’t even notice that they’re the other side from their mums.
Yeah. And I think what’s so nice is what we’ve also described in your method is actually that owner relationship with it as well. Cause I think, no one wants to see their horse being stressed, you know? And that I think is probably one of the hardest things is when people are telling you, yeah, but it’s normal, it’s fine. Horses get stressed, it’s fine.
but you know, or I don’t like it because my horse is really stressed and perhaps they’ve dropped condition or something, it’s nice to know that there’s actually people around you or people like you you can contact to actually have a bit of a network going on so that can constantly be monitored. And do you sort of teach your clients what to look for in their mares and foals as well?
Yeah, yeah, I do. And actually I tend to get daily videos, which is great, because then I can have a little bit of a look in on what’s happening and making sure that they didn’t start weaning too early, that there’s no hazards, because some people don’t see hazards in the field, like an ancient tractor that has been parked in that field for forever. And it’s never been a bother, but ideally you wouldn’t want that in a weaning setting.
Yeah, I tend to get videos updates on a daily basis. I support those owners from prior to weaning, so getting them ready. So at least a month up to the point at which they start weaning. Then we check that everything is in place, everything’s ready when they’re. So this is not this is on their timelines. They’re checking that they think that their foal is ready and then I’ll support them through the weaning and then normally up to about three weeks after. Some examples.
is obviously like first time breeders are, can be quite shocked that when you wean a foal, the mare, obviously they, even though they don’t look like they’re suckling very much and you can’t remember the last time that you’ve seen them feed, they are still in the nighttime taking, you know, two or three feeds and when you put a foal over the fence to a mother, or actually even if you did abrupt weaning, those mares will become very engorged.
And so like some reassuring things like whether the udders are engorged the next day, sometimes they will leak. And you know, for like first time owners that are just weaning for the first time, that can be quite a shock where they’re like, my goodness, my mare’s actually dripping milk from her udders. So it’s not always just support from a kind of how’s the foal, but I’m also looking after the mare as well and then making sure that
I’m supporting that owner and that mare’s not developing things like mastitis. So yeah, it’s normally a month before weaning starts and then we have the big weaning day and then it’s normally for sort of three, four weeks afterwards. But for the first week, it’s quite intensive. I’m checking in every day. They’re sending me videos. So far, so good. Nothing has gone wrong. know, okay, one example where we’ve had to modify and I do have this in my webinar, but
It’s important that in the first sort of week, the field size either side of that fence isn’t so large that a foal can get out of sight of the mare because the mare will be worried even if she can’t see that foal over the first few days. And so one of the initial consultations that I have done in the past, when I asked the owner, said,
are you sure that the foal cannot get out of sight of the mare? The answer was yeah, no they can’t, but they could. So the foal was able to just get slightly around the corner and then the mare, she didn’t actually do very much, but she started walking up and down the fence line and the owner said to me, my mare’s walking up and down the fence line and I said, can…
can your mare see the foal right now? And she said, no, he’s gone around the corner. And I said, okay, what you need to do is to put up, because luckily this foal and mare we had planned in advance and I had made sure that they were good with electric fencing. She ran an electric fence line just to make the foal’s paddock slightly smaller. And she left that up for a week and then took it down. So there are, that kind of,
touch base every day as weaning has happened, I continue to support the owners just to make sure that they don’t end up in a situation where they’re not supported and they don’t know what to do. So I actually say to horse owners, please make sure that the field, the foal can’t get out of the sight of the mare and the mare can’t get out of sight of the foal. But I’ve learned in this experience that some people’s perceptions of out of sight
isn’t the same as mine and so now I sort of give size estimations so that people can realize that the distance that they don’t really want that foal to be able to disappear to, like you don’t want to put a foal over the fence line in a 15 acre field for example because in there we’ll be like where are you, you have gone too far away so you know that’s one thing that we have added as part of this two-year journey and
Yeah, just an example of where we’re working, I’m working together with the owner to make sure that everything is going in hand. And she put that fence line up straight away and the mare went back to eating grass. So yeah, it was good. The foal didn’t care, of course, they had nice lush grass, but they were around the corner, slightly out of sight. And of course she was like, hang on a minute, where have you gone? So yeah.
And I think that’s what’s so funny is you sometimes get those really sort of like, well, that’s fine. They’re sort of quite blasé about the whole thing. [Wording unclear in supplied transcript.] Sometimes you can get so focused on, I don’t want to stress the foal, but actually the mare’s also like, hang on. But no, that’s really nice. was actually going to ask you before you said what happens kind of when things go wrong. And I think that was a really good example of, because…
Horses, and it’s never simple, and it never is what it’s meant to be. You can’t read a book and know what to do. So that’s really nice to hear an experience of when things can be adjusted.
Yeah, there are nearly always options. And that’s just one example of where the field was too big, really, and the foal could actually get out of sight. So she took advice, she very quickly corrected it, and then we were back on track. So that was nice.
That’s brilliant. So just to round off, I just want to ask you a little bit of sort of closing advice for our listeners. So I just want to know if you have sort of a top three pieces of practical advice for someone considering breeding or preparing to wean or anything along the lines of what we’ve spoken about today, but just three takeaway messages.
Yeah, I mean, I could probably think of 20, but I’ll try and stick to three. So what would they be? So I would say the first one is like breeding needs to start with a clear purpose. So ask yourself essentially, why are you breeding this particular foal? It shouldn’t be based on the fact that you just have the opportunity to do so. It should be why? What’s the purpose of this foal?
And then double check that you can’t achieve that foal by buying one. Because you know, there’s so many horses that are bred every single year. There’s like surplus horses out there. Could you achieve the same goal by buying rather than breeding? Yeah, and like on that note, like be really honest about why you want this particular foal and be really objective about whether the parents actually justify it.
So like, for example, having a, let’s say a difficolt, a horse, a mare, for example, that couldn’t be ridden is not justifiable to breed a foal from, just to breed a foal. Do you know what I mean? Like to give her a purpose. Like there’s plenty of other purposes a non-ridden horse can have other than being used as a broodmare. And that’s quite a common one. People will have, you know, mares that are no longer ridden. They think, it’d be nice to have a foal or…
they might have a mare that has, you know, what might be categorized as a quirky personality. And some people think that, you know, breeding from that mare is going to calm her down. You know, those are things that are just not justifiable. really breeding with a clear purpose, not just because you have the opportunity to do so. That would be my first one. The second one I’d probably say is,
like plan for that entire journey, you should be thinking about that foal’s entire life from before you even breed the foal. And that would also help with the first point, like why are you breeding this foal? But the second one being like, what does that foal’s entire journey look like from when it’s born to, you know, its expected end of life? If you are only breeding to sell on.
what does that journey look like? know, need to, people really do need to start spending more time and effort in the whole pre-breeding screening, like making sure that mares are scanned, removing twin pregnancies, preventing infectious disease deaths, like we’ve discussed a lot of foal abortions are due to infection, like preventable infectious diseases. And then obviously,
how are you going to wean that foal? Where, with who, how, using what methods? Because you need to be sure that you have those facilities before that foal is on the ground. Because if you don’t, then you may have to end up in a situation that is not like a very ethical situation for weaning that foal. And to talk all of that through with your vet. So have that early consultation with a vet. They’re there to help you.
And then I think the last one again comes back to the whole weaning and my passion for ethical weaning is that we really, really do need to put welfare in front of like traditional methods and like weaning that foal using an ethical method rather than tradition or what people are telling you to do, weaning it for its readiness and not by the calendar or by some
sales date or buy some show date. think, you know, that those on, as I said before, they’re not scientifically or ethically justifiable. And one of the ways that we can start to influence those discussions in the community is to essentially either not go to those sales and not buy those foals or not turn up to those shows. And, you know, there’s no reason why a foal show could not be in February.
Why are they in November? Why are these foal sales, why are they in October and November? There’s no reason why they couldn’t be in February or March. Do you see what I mean? And so they exist because people are still doing traditional weaning. And so there are foals that have been weaned that are ready to be sold. We can drive change by our own behaviors.
But the more that people are exposed to the fact that ethical weaning is easier, simpler, and it sets that foal up for life, the more that we can change and even show yards that use traditional weaning, sorry, that actually it’s easier not to do it the way that you are doing it. So that’s sort of my three main pieces of advice.
So start with a clear purpose, plan the entire journey and put welfare in front of tradition.
Yeah, I think that’s a brilliant takeaway message for our listeners. So just to finish off, I want to say thank you so much, Veronica, for your time today. It’s been really insightful. I just want to ask for our listeners, ask you where they can find more of your stuff. Obviously,
you’re part of one of the experts for the Animalweb website so under your name in the experts section all of the articles which you’ve written and webinars are all listed under there but anywhere else that they can then find some of your information.
Yeah, they can. So people generally contact me through my Facebook page which is [Facebook page name unclear in supplied transcript], feel free to personally message me on there I tend to come back within 24 hours.
So feel free to reach out that way.
Lovely. And yeah, thank you so, so much. And any extra questions or information you want on Veronica, that will be on our website, AskAnimalweb. So thank you so much for listening to the Animalweb podcast and we’ll see you all next time.
Thank you.
