What is the youngest a horse can become in foal?

Question

how can you tell if a horse is in early pregnancy or how soon can you tell. how often do mares come into season

Answer 1

Think you have the answer from newmarketstats above, However, I know we live in very enlightened times and amongst the human population almost anything goes, but I didn't realise that Horses could become in foal !!!

(ok know you were speaking generically - just thought it was a bit amusing and having a dig at life today!!!)

Answer 2

i tinks its about 4!! a gorse in my yard b came preagant nd she was only 4?!? no1 nu how it happedin!!

she wasnt near the stallions?!?

wel thats wat we think!!

Answer 3

Jake,................OMG................... still my racing heart. If you are as good as your picture suggests (albeit a cartoon) then you are a wonder of wonders! HOWEVER.............Please don't spoil my illusion of you being a wholesome kinda gal.........

A HORSE BECOMES A FOAL AS SOON AS IT IS BORN!!

If your cartoon was a blonde, I could of sort of understood.....d**n it, we all have off days Jake..........Easy!

Answer 4

I've known of a couple of "long yearlings" (i.e., fillies that were almost 2 years of age) that became pregnant to the cover of colts that were turned out with them.  

The only way you could tell if a filly or mare was in the early stages of pregnancy would be to call a vet out to have her checked.  The vet would first do a rectal palpation of the uterus to check for tone and possibly feel the presence of a fetus, then possibly follow up with an ultrasound.  Visually there is no way you could tell early in the pregnancy if the filly is in foal.  If you have access to a teaser stallion, through daily teasing you might be able to verify if the filly was coming into heat, but with a young filly that's chancy, because she might come into heat but not show it-- young fillies and mares are sometimes intimidated by the teasing process and don't always reliably show heat to the teaser.  

In general, during the spring and summer, fillies and mares will come into heat about every 21-28 days, although there is a great deal of variation.  Some fillies and mares come into heat more frequently as the summer progresses (i.e., the interval between heat periods gets shorter) and don't show in heat at all during the late fall and winter.  

When a filly first reaches sexual maturity, her heat periods are most likely going to be irregular and she may come into heat without ovulating.  Conversely, she may ovulate without showing any obvious (to people) signs of heat.

Most people who breed horses start separating fillies from colts early in their yearling year, both to prevent the fillies from accidentally getting bred and to keep them from getting beaten up by the colts.  (Uncastrated colts tend to play rough with other horses and this can be tough on fillies.)

If you believe a "long yearling" or two-year-old filly has been accidentally bred and is in foal, you need to have a vet see her ASAP.  It's physically very hard on a young filly to have a pregnancy and then nurse a foal while she herself is still growing and maturing.  If the pregnancy isn't too far along, the vet can abort it by "pinching" the fetus;  if the filly is to carry the fetus to term, she's going to need some good care and regular vet checks to make sure she isn't harmed.

Answer 5

a horse becomes a foal at birth??????

if i am not mistaken lol

Answer 6

A filly can get in foal as young as about 18 months - 2 years.  It is not very common, but I have known of a few cases.

The most common way of discovering if a mare is in foal is to have the vet scan her.  This can be done as early as about 12 days after covering, although it is usually done at about 18-20 days.  Mares will then be scanned again at 40 days to confirm she is still holding the pregnancy.  After this the embryo becomes too big to positivly identify on a ultrasound scan so the vet will often palpate her (put his hand in through her r****m and feel for the swollen uterus).

If you don't have access to a vet with a scanner the next easiest way to diagnose pregnancy is to watch her seasons.  If she has not come back into season within about 25 days of the covering and is resistent to any male (horse) attention, then she is probably in foal.

Her belly will not start to swell until many months into the pregnancy so this is not a reliable method.

A filly/mare will come into season about once every 28 days or so thorughout the spring and summer.

Answer 7

you talking about Rosie O'Donnell  ?

Answer 8

Fillies normally come into season for the first time between the age of 12 to 15 months, or just after they are a year old. The other writers are correct when they point out that the average filly's first heat periods are usually erratic, just like a young girl's first menstrual cycles are erratic. It's very possible for a filly to come in and go out of esterus without ovulating, or to ovulate and yet not come into heat. Some mares are have what is called "silent heats" that is, they exhibit no behavior that would indicate that they are in heat. I currently own such a mare, and believe me, her tendency to do this is a real nusiance at times. Most mares normally come into season every 21, NOT 28, days, and the normal breeding season begins in March and runs through about November, with the peak of the season occuring around the time of the summer solstice in mid June. This gets reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, however- down there, the official birthdate for all registered Thoroughbreds is AUGUST first, NOT January first, like it is here in the States.  The timing of the breeding season is triggered by the amount of daylight- as the days lengthen in the spring, mares respond by coming into heat. As the days shorten in the fall, the mare's system begins to close down for the winter. Most mares do not cycle in the wintertime.

As far as the earliest age that a filly can be bred goes, she can become pregnant as a yearling, though this is rare on most horse farms. This is the reason why colts and fillies are seperated at weaning time on the big Thoroughbred farms in places like Kentucky and Maryland. Colts become fertile and can breed much earlier than fillies- puberty for them comes between 8 and 10 months of age, which is why colts are often weaned from their mothers a little earlier than a filly would be.  There is usually no obvious way to tell if a filly is in the early part of a pregnancy without doing an ultrasound, and this is a procedure that is normally done at 16 days from the date of the last cover ( which is NOT necessarily the date of conception) and can detect not only pregnancy, but also show whether or not there are any problems that the breeder needs to be aware of, such as twins. After a mare has been pregnant for a while, then blood tests can be done to determine pregnancy, and it is also possible that pregnancy hormones will show up in the spitbox urine tests which are done in racehorses.

Fillies and mares can have foals safely at age 3- in fact, this is a common thing in the Amish community. The Amish even have a saying about horse breeding that goes something like "a foal at 3, and the harness at 5' or words to that effect, which describes their philosophy towards horse breeding. They believe that if a mare is bred at a young age before she is asked to work, she will make a better riding and driving horse than if she were not bred. Breeding young fillies calms them down and allows them to concentrate on work when they finally do start it- which is why the Amish do what they do.  I think that their philosphy and methods make a lot of sense, and it's an example that the rest of the industry could benefit from by copying.

It's also worth remembering that fillies in the wild usually become pregnant for the first time as 2 year olds- generally right about the time that their brothers are driven out of the natal herd by their sire. A filly will normally stay with her native herd for life, unless the bunch stallion ( who is usually also her dad) dies of disease or is killed in some other way, and the band breaks apart and the mares are stolen by another stallion. With colts, this is not the case- they are ALWAYS attacked and driven off when they reach age 2 or so- this is nature's way of preventing inbreeding which can weaken horses and cause genetic problems.

I hope this answers some of your questions.