How Long Is A Horse Pregnant?

While watching a film about horse racing the other day, one thing that really surprised me was learning that horses can be signed up for races before they’re actually born.

The horse racing industry moves quickly, and a horse’s racing career starts as early as possible and usually ends by the time they’re four or five.

I always assumed they didn’t race for long, but learning that horses would be signed up for races before they were even born got me thinking about one question in particular: how long are horses’ pregnancies?

I wasn’t sure, but I decided to look into it.

So, how long is a horse pregnant?

Horses are usually pregnant for 11-12 months. The gestation period can fluctuate a little, but the horse pregnancy is quite long comparatively speaking even if the term is shorter than usual. Horses are big animals, and a good rule of thumb is that animals generally have much longer pregnancy terms the bigger they are.

So, this helped me to understand why horses are signed up for races so early.

With such a long gestation period and the fact that all racehorses are assigned the same birthday no matter when they’re born in the year, horses can miss out on an entire year of their racing career if they aren’t signed up early enough.

So, let’s look at horse pregnancy in more detail.

How many months is a horse pregnant?

On average, a horse pregnancy lasts between 11 months and one year.

It may last longer or shorter depending on certain factors, but for the most part, a horse pregnancy lasts about a year.

This is what’s called the gestation period, and is similar for a lot of animals of that size and indeed similar ruminant animals.

The entire pregnancy, from the moment of conception, takes between 338 and 343 days, so generally, it falls under a year. 11 months is certainly the typical benchmark.

This is really important in racing, where all horses have the same birthday so that they can be more easily fit into the same category.

You must sign a horse up for a race well in advance, some races longer than others.

You might want to sign up a horse that you’re about to have foaled, for a race that will take place in a year’s time; thus, the 11-month period must be carefully monitored, and when you breed the horse is really important.

Why are horses pregnant for so long?

There’s really no simple answer to this, but there a few possibilities.

Horses do indeed have what’s called a long gestation, which means that they’re uniquely long in utero, even compared to similar animals of their size.

The simple answer, though, is their size.

Most big animals have a fairly long gestation period, and horses are no different.

Elephants are an even more extreme example, with female elephants sometimes being pregnant for two years.

How long a fetus gestates determines how developed it will be when it is born.

Primates generally give birth to very underdeveloped and vulnerable babies, who have to cling to their mother and father for the first few weeks of their lives.

This is fine for animals who are safe from predators up in the trees.

However, for horses, and most herd animals like that that roam open plains, it’s quite important for the babies to be reasonably developed as soon as they’re born.

They need to be able to be up and walking and strengthening their legs as soon as they can, so they can make their own escape from any danger.

There are some pathological conditions that do prolong gestation even further in some cases, such as fescue toxicosis or degeneration of the uterine lining.

These are quite common and can prolong the pregnancy to more than a year.

How can you tell if a horse is pregnant?

There are many signs that your horse might be pregnant.

Mood is the first one to look at for.

One thing you can do is to take the mare to a stallion, when you think it’s pregnant, and see how it behaves.

If it appears receptive, starts showing her rear and raising her tail, she likely hasn’t foaled.

It’s no guarantee that she is pregnant if she doesn’t want to interact with the horse, but it is a good indication.

You’ll need to know their heat cycle to be able to effectively breed them.

Physical signs include a swollen abdomen, and this is probably the most obvious sign.

Pregnant mares will not always have an overly large belly until later in the pregnancy, but this is still a very clear sign to look out for.

Other things include the shaking (the idea that mares will only shake their head, not their whole body, when pregnant) and simply taking her to the vet.

The vet is likely to be your best way to determine it!

The simple fact is that foals are born pretty well developed, at least compared to us.

Within an hour of being born, foals are able to get up and take their first tentative steps.

This is really important in the wild, since predators always prey on the weakest animals; they need to be born well developed because, unlike us, horse mothers can’t carry their babies once they’ve been born.