(Going to switch to gender neutral language for the birthing parent for trans and intersex purposes. For animals it doesn’t matter - while intersex animals do exist and I have personally cared for one that was internally female, animals don’t give as many shits)
This begs the question, how long does the centaur foal nurse? In my experience with lactating cattle and goats, the babies (both sexes can have horns, its breed and punnet square related) get too big and horned around 5-6 months that the mother starts chasing them off. I know of one goat mother daughter pair where the daughter will still occasionally drink from her mother, but she doesn’t have horns and was her only child for a very long time. I haven’t worked with lactating horses but I would think it’s roughly the same
However, with centaurs there’s 1. The expectation of sentience and perhaps embarrassment for long nursing* 2. No horns and 3. A longer infancy when you consider the human half.
*I don’t care but it seems like most cultures definitely have it done by 5, and many before 2.
I think out of necessity you have to assume the infant foal would be able to support its own neck and back (I’ve seen a post floating around on here where the baby is getting thrown back by its legs running fast lol) otherwise there’s just. So much more that could go wrong and I think defeats the purpose of having horse legs and thus the baby horse defense system of being able to Run Away. So centaur foals probably have abs within their baby bellies lol.
Anyway, horse foals are generally not that shorter much than their mothers. As centaurs are traditionally depicted to have the human part attach above the butt on the back and right above the groin in the front, usually hips inclusive, I think the centaurs proportions are roughly equal. Horse necks are *generally* about the same length or shorter than the above mentioned part of the human body. So the height ratios would be roughly equal.
Horse foals are notoriously tall in comparison to calves and kids, and even that bunch generally have to duck their heads to reach their mother’s nipples. This is also a digestive thing that ungulates* generally have to do to actually digest well and not get too much air (gravity helps). So the milk goes angled down into the mouth, then angled a bit up from the bottom arch of their neck to their body, and then down into the stomach. They pull their mother’s nipples a bit to the side.
This also lowkey allows the mom to kick them if they’re being annoying, or only knock them to the side a bit if the mother suddenly needs to run due to a predator. Generally, this is when the babies get groomed, as they are relatively still and the mother can reach around to lick them. This especially important post birth, as the mother has to clean their butts to help facilitate their first ever feces.
*it’s either ungulate (hooved animal) or ruminant (multi-stomach chambered animal, generally hooved, kind of a subset) for which this is true. Horses aren’t ruminants but cows and goats are. In any case, they nurse the same.
However, human and centaur faces are shorter than horses and such. Generally human babies, especially really young ones, are fed face up, body slightly angled down and the nipple of the bottle or lactating parent is down towards them. Or the nipple is facing out, and the baby attaches but is still lightly angled in such a way so that gravity helps.
It would be difficult to really feed a centaur foal underneath. While *if* they could get under there, the baby would be in the right gravity position to get the milk, the baby would have to crane its neck back, be in risk of its parent’s legs way more, and be a tripping hazard for a running parent. Additionally, the baby would have to lay down or at least crouch a LOT to nurse, which I can tell you unless they’re hot or tired for another reason, baby ungulates are WAYYY more inclined to do that after they had milk. Big fat milk bellies make for sleepy kids.
(Lowkey I used to teach the kids to just get down on their knees to nurse from their moms because they were. Just so bad at it. Like yes nature they were going to figure out a good method anyway but the knee method was better and worked when they weren’t just newborns but large little month olds too. I was obnoxious.)
So while I like your idea that it switches, because it’s fun and points to a very interesting reproductive and lactation system that would be a lot on the lactating parent to do hormonally, I propose that it solely be top only. That way, the lactating parent can bend over their torso to nurse the standing baby while they groom it. They likely wouldn’t even have to bend too far for long, as the baby’s mouth would likely reach nipple height fairly quickly. While the human part and brain may take longer to develop, horses are notorious for getting tall fast, and just filling out with muscles and fat later. I imagine the horse half of the centaur is the same.
In any case, the centaur parent then could run pretty quickly as needed, as well as the baby, and when the baby was very little, they could reach and grab it off the ground in that position when they needed to run.
This WOULD be a lot of mammary and milk weight for the lactating parent to carry on their human half, but I think this would make the most sense. And as centaurs developed tools and defenses, perhaps harnesses that distributed the weight could be developed, and the lactating parent would feel safe enough to lay their horse half down on the ground to rest while they nurse.
(Also by my logic I don’t think it would make sense for centaurs to keep their horse nipples? But I guess it depends on how they developed, and it doesn’t hurt to have an extra pair if one plans to have children and nurse them I guess. I do think the fetus should grow in the horse half, that thangs going to be too big to do otherwise)
(Unrelated but also since estrogen for HRT was historically, but not anymore, made from pregnant mare urine, if the inseminating partner wanted to help feed the baby and/or hormonally transition, that would likely help! I don’t know if the pee also helps with lactation, I forgot which hormone that is + idk if it’s in the pee)
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