drying up a mare

Question
At 4 mths i put my mare and foal in separate paddocks side by side. a month later she still had milk but she was on feed and hay. i then took her to my bosses house where she spent 15 days on just grass. i brought her hime two days ago still in a seperate paddock and she is fullof milk again. i had to put her back on feed she had dropped a lot of weight. what can i do,

Answer
Hi Valerie,
            The average time that it takes a mre to dry up is 6-8 weeks. That being said, there are some mares who take up to 4 months to dry up. There are some mares who will come back into milk if they hear their foal calling to them. The best way to dry her up is to remove her from all grain. If she is a hard keeper, then you can give her a good grass hay along with pasture and feed her several lbs of beet pulp This way she will dry up and keep the weight on. If the situation is that you want to put the foal back in the same pasture with the mare then you can get a weaning bra for her. The bra keeps the foal from being able to nurse.

Lisa