constant dilemma....

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or possibly knows how to fix it?

After Merikle foaled, I separated her due to bad weather, and put her in a stall. The minute her and her filly were let out, the filly (Lexus) ran frantically away from her mother (even though no other horse was with them) and basically freaked out, nicked a fence (board), once I could catch her, i collected her and put her back in the stall with her mom. When finally put out in a different pen alone with her mother, she was doing the same thing, but has now settled down. We have never had this with a pasture born foal, who stayed in the pasture.

Then, our little houdini (Tristan), son of my TB is somehow gettin through fences without hurting himself etc etc... but I removed them from their temporary pen, and led him and his mother into the pen with merikle and lexus. Lexus was sleeping (thank god), while I held tristan. Because the TB is lower in ranking than merikle, they began to fight. Being worried about one of the foals being kicked, I moved merikle and lexus to a seperate pen.

Firstly, How can I introduce them so they will not harm one another and possibly the colts. I know the moms can duke it out, but the foals.... nuh uh, aint gonna risk that. Do I have to wait until tristan is weaned and then just put the TB back in the herd?

secondly, should I be letting the mares foal in the herd, outside so I can avoid these problems?

My head is spinning, and I am very frustrated with all of this, I am worried constantly about all of them, and do not want to keep them seperated until fall... but will if I absolutely have to.

any ideas? please?

I'm assuming these mares have been together before they foaled??? Mares are notorious for this. One reason why I put Cool up when I put Red up to foal, because with Cool being the alpha mare, I knew she'd try and steal Red's baby - sure 'nuf Cool dropped her milk when she'd hear the baby - she would've for sure stolen him.

If you have a ton of land where mares can foal outside, that's much better; however, there's always something that could happen. If a mare stays off by herself away from the herd with her baby, she's usually okay; however, if she's not the alpha, you may have some problems.

Once my mares have their babies, I have them in separate pens but beside each other. That way everybody knows what's up, and usually in about a week, I'll let them back out. Now, when you start getting a bunch of mares, this can get kind of weird... better to pair them up rather than sticking one out at a time. When you feed, you have them WAY far away from each other... that's usually when all the broohah starts is when they're up by the barn waiting to be fed or during feeding. Alpha mare gets fed first, then the next guy, then the next guy, etc.

As far as babies flipping under fences ... some I can understand how they do it, others, I haven't a clue, but they do it. If there's 3 inch hole anywhere, they'll find it. And any time you put mares and babies beside each other, make gosh-danged sure, that no little legs can get in the opposite pen and get stepped on - that's my worst fear!

I know I have a friend that raises minis and she has a bugger with that, so she started cutting up plyboard and putting it all along the bottom, about a foot up - makes sure shavings, dirt or whatever is sort of hilled up so there can't be any openings whatsoever. This system works great if you have to use panels.

And, no, I haven't seen a filly quite act like that, unless she was just romping and playing glad to be out .... they'll run like a turkey and then all of a sudden start screaming for their mom - act like they're confused. Mom screams back and all is well with the world.

I put mine together when they are about a week old. But the pasture is big enough that they both have their own space. Now the moms stand over each others babies. Its funny cause the moms don't allow the babies to play together right away. They keep trying to sneak but always get caught. Mine are a month old now so the moms dont care where they go.