Horse Nutritional Tip: Lactating mares
After approximately 2 months of lactation, mare’s milk is no longer adequate to fully meet the baby’s requirements. At this point it is important that the foal is receiving an additional source of nutrients. Creep feeding the foal separately helps to ensure that the young horse is receiving adequate feed to meet all its nutritional needs. Creep feeding involves feeding the young horse a specialized growth feed (such as Ultium Growth, Omolene 300 or Strategy) either with the dam or separate from the dam (in a specialized foal feeder) to start providing concentrated calories and nutrients to the growing foal, and can start as early as a few days after birth. Further, the practice of creep feeding can be helpful when it is time to wean the foal. Weaning can be a very stressful event for young horses, and it can be made easier by nutritionally managing the weanling through creep feeding before the baby is weaned. If the young horse is accustomed to eating its own feed before weaning, this can make the transition of separation from the dam a little easier.
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