With Spring Wild Horse Foaling Season, Caution and Awareness Recommended

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A wild horse advocacy group in Olds is asking people to be alert in the coming months as spring is the best time for foals.

“What happens a lot of times is people go out on quads and motorcycles and things like that, roaring down trails, having fun, which is what everyone does, and unfortunately, sometimes it spooks a gang of horses.” said Darrell Glover, president and co-founder of the Help Alberta Wildies Society.

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In fact, those horses may have one or two foals lying in the bushes or in the pasture, Glover said. “And if the horses run away or become separated, very often the result is an abandoned foal.”

Anytime between now and mid-July, HAWS runs into situations where people call to say they’ve found a foal on their own. Glover and his team do everything they can to rescue the abandoned foals, but once they are taken from the wild, they remain out of the wild.

“Two years ago, we had two on the same day: one was near Ram Falls and the other was west of Sundre; “They were 64 kilometers (40 miles) away.”

Glover said that in one of the two cases, a girl was out with her father and friends on quad bikes when they discovered a small foal abandoned in the pasture. It took the group two and a half hours to carry the colt down the mountain.

HAWS rescued the colt, brought him back to his ranch and raised him to a yearling, along with the other colt that was rescued; They were both eventually adopted when they were one year old.

“Normally, with a wild horse, it seems a little unreasonable, but after a 15-minute separation, wild horses consider life back to normal and don’t come back,” Glover said.

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He explained that foals, like other young animals, are still nursing at that young age and have not learned to survive by grazing. “In fact, they don’t even have teeth.”

“So when we pick them up in a situation like that, we take them home and bottle-feed them. In fact, we slept in the barn with them until we found a nurse mare,” she said.

When HAWS brings an abandoned foal to the ranch, the first thing the organization does is post an ad on social media looking for a suckler mare. “And it has always been a success finding one; “We send that foal to wherever the mare is and leave it for another five months.”

Unfortunately, not all abandoned foals are found, Glover said, and if they are separated from their mother, they will likely die within a day or two.

The organization typically receives one to three calls each spring about foals that need help; sometimes it has no bearing on the fact that his mother and her home band have left them behind.

“Last spring, we were tipped off where a stallion was going to kill the colt; We rescued him in time. “If a stallion has a mare that gives birth to a foal that is not his, unfortunately it is often killed.”

Glover said that, in general, spring is a difficult time of year for foals: With the emergence of predators like bears, they are extremely susceptible. “They have the human recreation factor; “They have all kinds of different things that make things difficult for new foals.”

“We estimate that only 10% of foals born annually survive, so it is essential that as many foals as possible reach adulthood.”

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