Foal vs Colt: Difference and Comparison

The foal and colt are two different terminologies but are misunderstood. The term for horses evolves after ages. People overlook the significance of an animal’s age.

Key Takeaways

  1. A foal is a young horse of either gender, while a colt specifically refers to a young male horse.
  2. Foals are weaned from their mothers at around six months of age, while colts can be castrated at around one year of age.
  3. Foals and colts are trained for riding and other tasks, but colts may also be trained for breeding purposes.

Foal vs Colt

Foal is an equine up to a year old, but it is mostly used for horses and can be used to refer to donkeys. Male foals are called colts, while female foals are fillies. Colt is a young, uncastrated male horse that is less than four years old but becomes a stallion or a horse when it gets older.

Foal vs Colt

 The process is called suckling if the foal still has milk from her mother. The birth process of the foal is quite easy and takes only a few minutes on average.

It is called a female horse only if it has crossed the age of four years. Every colt is a foal because every male horse was once in a lifetime called a foal.

Comparison Table

Parameters of ComparisonFoalColt
AgeThe age of foal is less than one year of ageColt is less than four years of age
SexThe foal can either be male or femaleColt is a male horse
RelationshipNot all foals are coltsAll colt can be foals
Level of DevelopmentThe initial stage of birthColt is considered as a later stage of a foal
Different NamesNothing like this exists in the case of the foalThe young female horse is called a Filly, and the adult female horse is called a mare.
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What is Foal?

A foal is a type of horse that is less than one year of age. The foal can be male, or it can be female as well. The foal is used mainly for horses, but sometimes, this term is used for donkeys.

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The healthy foals grow very quickly from three pounds to over a kilo a day. That is why to maintain the healthy weight of the foal. It is important to include solid food.

Foal grows very fast, but still, these animals are too young to be driven or ridden. That’s the reason the foals are given proper training by humans.

foal

 What is Colt?

Colt is confused with foal, but the colt is described as the young male horse. Colt is less than one year of age. The young female horse is called a filly and called a mare once it matures.

Colts are used in the horse racing world and are defined as young male horses aged between two and five years. Stallions are the type of horses that are left intact if they are used for breeding purposes.

colt

 Main Differences Between Foal and Colt

  1. The foal grows very fast, while the colt does not grow very fast.
  2. All colts are foals, as all the young male horses were foals once. In contrast, all the foals are not colts because fifty percent of foals are male while the rest are females.
Difference Between Foal and Colt
References
  1. https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2042-3306.1977.tb03959.x
  2. https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2042-3306.1988.tb01492.x

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Piyush Yadav
Piyush Yadav

Piyush Yadav has spent the past 25 years working as a physicist in the local community. He is a physicist passionate about making science more accessible to our readers. He holds a BSc in Natural Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science. You can read more about him on his bio page.

12 Comments

  1. Yes, Amy. Perhaps the age-old term ‘colt’ is just so much more ingrained in our language and culture than ‘foal’.

  2. I think it’s important to look at the foal and colt as stages of development rather than just as divisons of gender.

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