Two Very Different Foals and Weaning
- September 13, 2026
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Horse Care, Ranch Life
With fall approaching, many people are weaning their foals. I was visiting with a friend who was doing that and she spoke of how upset the foals and mares sometimes get. It made me think of an old mare who had several foals and how she reacted to weaning them.
Penny was a sweet mare who had spent her early years raising me, being the standby horse for everyone in the family and the designated “dude” horse for any visitors to the ranch. She excelled at being gentle and reliable but, in spite of being hauled to several different studs in her mid-teens, she never settled so hadn’t been able to raise a foal. That was a disappointment, but she still excelled at babysitting the yearling and two year old horses when they were turned out on grass. Her steady influence kept them
out of trouble for the most part.
One year she was babysitting a yearling stud colt. He was undersized for his age and had had a rough
post-weaning wreck in the wire, so Dad decided he’d wait and geld him just before he turned two years
old. He and Penny were lead up to the school section and turned out for the summer. That fall they were
brought back, both fat and shiny and the colt was gelded after the hard frost.
The next spring, along about late April, I told Dad that I thought Penny was pregnant. He snorted with
doubt and said she was just old and fat. I’d been out riding one day and when I rode up to the north corral, Penny had just finished foaling a stud colt. I was delighted and so was Penny. He was a strapping colt and she was an exceptionally good mother who was both attentive and milked like a Jersey cow. We called him Sailor and by early fall, he was big and stout and ready to wean. Dad had me put Penny and Sailor in with the night horse for a few days. After Sailor was used to the other horse I was told to put Penny out in the Horse Pasture to wean him. Sailor was liking the grain and hay and fussed a little bit, but the weaning was absolutely a nightmare for poor Penny. She stood out at the gate for days, whinnying and worrying about her colt. After nearly two weeks she finally gave up and joined the saddle horses in the pasture. It was a sad process!
A couple years later, the deal with a yearling stud colt and Penny summering together was repeated. This time, when I suggested she was bred, Dad believed me. I got to watch her foal a sorrel filly one May morning and she was a doll. Penny was smitten with her and a great mother again. They were turned out
on to the hay meadows and they watered in the corrals. Her filly was named Snickers.
Where Sailor had been a mellow baby who didn’t try to boss his mother around, Snickers was a holy
terror! She bit, kicked, struck, climbed on and otherwise abused her sweet mother endlessly. Penny just
put up with it because she was tolerant and crazy about her foal who was a terrible little brat. An old
gelding called Lobo was really taken with the filly and while gazing longingly at her one day, fell over the
fence while trying to get closer to her and ended up in with Penny and Snickers. He wasn’t hurt at all and
wasn’t being ridden, so we left him with them. Penny was delighted. Snickers would hang out with Lobo,
picking on him, instead of her. Lobo would stand over her while she napped and Penny got a break.
When weaning time came, I put the three in the corral overnight, then took Penny out to pasture, as I
had done with Sailor. Lobo was a comfort to Snickers and she didn’t raise too much cane over the weaning. Penny disappeared. When I turned her loose, she took off at a trot and never looked back. After
a few days of not seeing her I became concerned so I rode the pasture and finally found her on the north
end, as far as she could get from the corrals and her filly. Her tight bag was uncomfortable I’m sure, but
she was free from the torment and wanted nothing more to do with the naughty filly she had raised.
Having watched her on the receiving end of all the orneriness that filly had, I sure didn’t blame her for
hiding. Lobo was Snicker’s chew toy for a few more weeks, then he was relieved of his duty in the corral.
It was Lobo who stood out at the gate whinnying and worrying about his “little angel” filly.
Those were the only two that Penny ever had. Both turned out to be excellent saddle horses with sweet dispositions and all the orneriness Snickers displayed as a foal was gone by the time she was old enough to break to ride.
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Posted in: Featured, Horse Care, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....