INFLUENCE OF PREWEANING HANDLING METHODS ON POST-WEANING LEARNING-ABILITY AND MANAGEABILITY OF FOALS

Twenty-three foals were used to determine if different amounts of hand ling between birth and weaning affected their later learning ability a nd manageability. Foals were assigned to one of three treatments: non- handled (NH) foals were not handled except for necessary maintenance p rocedures; intermediately handled (IH) foals were handled daily in two 10-min sessions for 7 days after birth and then not handled except fo r necessary maintenance procedures; extensively handled (EH) foals wer e handled daily for 7 days as were IH foals and then handled for 10 mi n once weekly until weaning. Foals were weaned at 120 +/- 10 days of a ge. On Days 1, 3, and 15 after weaning, foals were subjected to a one- trial learning test. The learning test consisted of placing the foal i n a familiar pen with an apparatus of 1.5 m x 0.6 m containing 40 comp artments of 15 cm X 15 cm. Number of visits to the apparatus and compa rtment visited were recorded for 5 min. A small amount of concentrate feed then was placed in a target compartment, and visits were recorded for an additional 5 min. On Day 16 after weaning, foals were subjecte d to a manageability test in which flight distance from an unfamiliar handler and reaction to a novel stimulus were recorded. Split-plot ana lysis of variance revealed no treatment differences in performance on the learning test (P>0.05). Foal performance on the test was improved on Day 15 compared with Day 1 or Day 3 (P<0.01). Analysis of variance indicated handling treatment had no effect (P>0.05) on foal performanc e during the manageability test. Results indicate that this preweaning handling regimen has no effect on foal learning ability or manageabil ity as measured by these procedures.