I made the decision today to wean our male cria. He's just a few days shy of 5 months and weighs 70.2lbs. I was going to wait longer to wean him, but his mother has been dropping weight, despite extra feed. The vet is going to do a fecal on her tomorrow. She's gone from 185.2lbs at the beginning of the month, to 179.4lbs today. Behaviorally, I think they're both ready. He had been trying to mount the other adult females (who are pregnant) and our 2 month old cria. One day he got in with our yearling females by accident and was able to bring one down and was orgling (though he mounted the wrong end). So we got him out of there. His mom has been refusing to nurse him at times. When we separated them this morning, he was concerned (running around, trying to crawl through the fence, calling for his mother), and she calmly kept eating. When she finished, she did call out to him a few times, but she didn't show any interest in him once she was in the pasture (they share a common fenceline). Tonight, he wasn't interested in eating his grain at all, but he has been eating hay & grass today. Since I'm new at this, and this is the first cria I've weaned, I have a few questions. Is his not wanting to eat grain tonight normal? How long does it take, on average, for a cria to get used to being weaned? Should he keep gaining weight, or would it be normal if he looses a little? Should I change how often I weigh him? I had been weighing him every week.
