What Is a Foal

What is a baby horse called? It’s called a foal. A foal is a baby horse, donkey, mule, zebra or pony under one year old. If you need to specify what species the foal is of, you can describe a baby zebra as a zebra foal, a baby donkey as a donkey foal or a baby mule as a mule foal. Specific foal genders are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal. So you might hear someone talk about a filly foal or a colt foal, or they will use the term colt or filly on their own.

How the Word Foal Is Used

The terms colt and filly may be used until a horse is about two to three years old, after which it will be referred to as a mare, stallion, or gelding. In the racehorse world, the terms colt and filly may be used until the horse is in its fourth year. Occasionally, a very young stallion may be called a stud colt.

A mare is said to be ‘in foal’ if she is pregnant. The gestation period of horses is about eleven months and the time of birth may be called foaling, or foaling out. The date the mare is expected to give birth is called the foaling date. The horse’s birthday is when it foaled.

Pony Foals

Foals are not ponies. Ponies are diminutive like foals, but they stay small throughout their lives. A baby pony is called a pony foal. A full-grown pony may be the same size as many horse foals, but they are adults and the offspring of other similarly sized ponies.