Foal
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- For the English indie band see Foals
A foal is a young horse of either gender. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal. When foals reach breeding age (typically age 2-4), the terms change: a filly is called a mare and a colt is called a stallion. A castrated male horse is called a gelding. (There is no specific term for a spayed female horse, but this is rarely done to horses.)
Healthy foals grow fast and can put on three pounds or over a kilo a day. A sound diet improves growth and leads to a healthier adult animal though genetics also plays a part. In the first weeks of life the foal gets everything it needs from the mare’s milk. It gets nourishment and also antibodies from Colostrum. The mare needs plenty of water to help her produce milk for the foal and may benefit from a supplementary feed.
A foal may start to eat solids from ten days of age, after eight to ten weeks it will need more nutrition than the mare's milk can supply; supplementary feeding is required by then.
Foals develop rapidly; normally a foal will stand up and nurse within the first hour after it is born, and most can gallop by the next day.
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