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A foal is an equine, particularly a horse, that is one year old or younger. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal, but these terms are used until the horse is age three or four. When the foal is nursing from its dam (mother), it may also be called a ''suckling''. After the young horse has been weaned from its dam, it may be called a ''weanling''. When a mare is pregnant, she is said to be "in foal." When the mare gives birth, she is "foaling" and the impending birth is usually stated as "to foal." A newborn horse is "foaled". After a horse is one year old, it is no longer a foal, and is a ''yearling''. There are no special age-related terms for young horses older than yearlings. When young horses reach breeding maturity, the terms change: a filly over the age of three (four in horse racing) is called a mare and a colt over the age of three is called a stallion. A castrated male horse is called a gelding, regardless of age, though colloquially the term "gelding colt" is sometimes used until a young gelding is three or four years old. (There is no specific term for a spayed female horse, they are simply "spayed mares".) Horses that mature at a small size are called ponies and are occasionally confused with foals. However, body proportions are very different. An adult pony can be ridden and put to work, while a foal, regardless of size, is too young to be ridden or used as a working animal. Foals, whether they grow up to be horse or pony-sized, can be distinguished from adult horses by their extremely long legs and small, slim bodies. Their heads and eyes also exhibit juvenile characteristics. Although ponies exhibit some neoteny with the wide foreheads and small size, their body proportions are similar to that of an adult horse. Pony foals are proportionally smaller than adults, but like horse foals, are slimmer and proportionally longer-legged than their adult parents. ==Early development== Foals are born after a gestation period of approximately 11 months. Birth takes place quickly, consistent with the status of a horse as a prey animal, and more often at night than during the day. Foals are born with an ability to quickly escape from predators; normally a foal will stand up and nurse within the first hour after it is born, can trot and canter within hours, and most can gallop by the next day. A newborn foal's legs are almost as long (90%) as those of an adult horse. Healthy foals grow quickly and can put on up to three pounds or over a kilo a day. A sound diet improves growth and leads to a healthier adult animal, although genetics also plays a part. In the first weeks of life the foal gets everything it needs from the mare's milk. Like a human infant, it receives nourishment and antibodies from the colostrum in milk that is produced within the first few hours or days following parturition. The mare needs additional water to help her produce milk for the foal and may benefit from supplementary nutrition. 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. It is important when adding solid food to the foal's diet to not feed the foal excessively or feed an improperly balanced diet. This can trigger one of several possible growth disorders that can cause lifelong soundness problems. On the other hand, insufficient nutrition to mare or foal can cause stunted growth and other health problems for the foal as it gets older. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「foal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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