On Assateague, I witnessed a remarkable scene. I crouched in the grass at dawn, watching a filly about four months old cavorting madly around the campground. After a while, she returned to her dam, a young-looking but fully mature chestnut standing some distance from the herd. The filly suckled lustily, then went bounding off to find new adventures.
Her mother picked up her head and sighted the herd, breaking into a lively trot to rejoin her family.
As long as a foal continues to nurse, a mare will continue to produce milk.
In contrast to domesticated horses, who are traditionally weaned at about six months of age, wild horses continue to nurse for a year or two, sometimes even three years, or until the mare delivers another foal. Other times, the enormous caloric drain of lactation suppresses ovulation. 
She made a beeline for an old chestnut mare, and playfully shouldered her in greeting. Amazingly, the old mare assumed the stance of a mare preparing to feed her youngster, and the foal's mother actually began to suckle the old mare! "Neat!" I thought. "If they all lined up there could be three generations suckling from each other!"
This web site is an online companion to the book Hoofprints in the Sand: Wild Horses of the Atlantic Coast, serving as a scrapbook of information, observations, and photographs, and providing links to related sites.
Hoofprints in the Sand is published by Eclipse Press. You may order your copy at www.eclipsepress.com or from Amazon.com
