The Feed Room

December 18, 2020December 18, 2020

Signs of a Healthy Foal

Chances are your foal will sail through the baby stage with flying colors, especially if it’s normal at birth and good management practices are in place at your farm. However, even under the best circumstances, it’s possible that your youngster could fall prey to one or more problems that can affect foals. How does a healthy newborn foal appear?

Healthy newborn foals should:

Assume a sternal position (be able to sit up on his chest) within minutes of delivery.
Breathe easily, slowing from an initial high of about 70 breaths per minute to 40 to 60 minutes within 15 minutes of birth.
Have red or at least pink mucous membranes, indicating adequate oxygen is reaching the tissues.
Display a strong suckle reflex within two to 20 minutes of birth.
Appear alert and display an affinity for the dam.
Be able to stand within two hours and nurse within three hours.

If your foal fails to meet these criteria, he may already be suffering from a serious condition and needs the prompt attention of a veterinarian. Good observation coupled with prompt action gives you the best opportunity to help your foal avoid a setback.

Make every effort to maximize the chances of your foal’s continued good health. These good management practices can make the difference between a healthy foal and a sick one:

A well-ventilated, clean foaling environment.
Good farm and stable hygiene and parasite control.
Sound nutrition, current vaccinations and regular deworming of all equine residents.
Plenty of fresh air and room to exercise for the foal as well as commencement of a regular vaccination and deworming program.

Our Foal Health Watch Guide describes signs of a variety of common ailments that can occur during the first 6 months of a foal’s life. In most cases, even if the problem is not life-threatening, you will still want your veterinarian to confirm the diagnosis and direct you in the most effective treatment. Please keep in mind this guide lists signs that are frequently observed with certain foal disorders, but not all foals display the same signs or to the same degree. A foal’s condition can deteriorate very rapidly, so don’t wait until your sick baby shows all the signs before acting and calling your veterinarian.

Foal Health Watch Guide

FIRST SYMPTOM	OTHER SYMPTOMS	PROBABLE DIAGNOSIS	ACTIONS
Labored, suppressed or noisy breathing	Soreness, reluctance to move	Broken ribs due to severe compression from delivery	Stall rest, gentle handling
	Reluctance to move or nurse, extended abdomen	Ruptured diaphragm, often due to birth trauma	Immediate corrective surgery
	Yellow-stained amniotic fluid with delivery	Meconium-aspiration pneumonia	Antibiotics
	Depression, coughing, intermittent fever	Foal pneumonia	Antibiotic treatment based on bacterial culture
Loose stools	Mild diarrhea at time of dam’s foal heat	Transient, “9-day scours”	Gently clean foal’s tail and buttocks with soapy water to prevent scalding of skin
	Dehydration, scalding of skin on buttocks, matting of tail	Noninfectious diarrhea (from overeating, eating manure, etc.)	Fluids, decreased rations, clean tail and buttocks as above
	Rapid dehydration, scalding, matting, fever, depression	Infectious diarrhea	Antibiotics, fluids, clean tail and buttocks regularly
Colicky	Colic after ingesting first milk, enema ineffective	Closed colon or rectum – development error causes gut to end in blind pouch	Surgery, success depends on length of missing part
	Rolling, thrashing, lying on back, fecal matter not passed	Severe constipation, fecal mass too large or too far forward for enema to be successful	Laxatives, fluids
	Lethargy, appetite loss, diarrhea, teeth grinding, lying on ground with feet in air	Ulcer	Confirm with endoscopy, treat with anti-ulcer medication
Profuse watery discharge from eyes	Blinking, avoidance of light, scratched cornea	Inversion of eyelid (entropion), dehydration, if uncorrected can lead to blindness	Fluids, lubricate eye and lids gently, pull out eyelid as often as necessary, surgery may be needed
Navel stump dripping urine	Wet, soiled, warm, swollen navel stump	“Leaky navel” (pervious urachus), umbilicus fails to close	Daily cauterization with silver nitrate or iodine, possible surgery
Straining	Tail switching, meconium (first feces) not passed	Simple constipation, meconium not passed	Enema, fluids
	Distended abdomen, little or no urine produced, toxicity, fever, jaundiced membranes, progressive weakness	Ruptured bladder due to birth trauma or jerk on umbilical cord after delivery	Surgery to repair hole in bladder, drain urine from bladder, fluids
Low immunoglobulin (IgG) count	Less than 400 mg/dl	Failure of passive transfer, foal did not receive adequate colostrum or was unable to absorb IgG	Provide colostrum if foal less than 24 hours old, otherwise administer plasma IgG transfusion
	Greater than 400 mg/dl, low risk environment	Partial failure of passive transfer	Foal probably adequately protected, but watch closely
	Less than 800 mg/dl, high risk environment	Partial failure of passive transfer	Administer plasma IgG transfusion, monitor IgG level
Weakness, incoordination	Delivery between 300 and 320 days of gestation, low birthweight, little or no suckle strength, weak fetlocks and lax pasterns	Premature birth	Oxygen, humidity and temperature control, tube feeding, fluids
	Intolerance to exercise	Congenital heart defect	Cardiovascular exam, surgery
	Will not nurse, severe diarrhea, dehydration, subnormal temperature, bluish-white third eyelid	“Sleeper foal” caused by Actinobacillus equii bacteria	Antibiotics, fluids
	Inflammation of umbilical vein, fever, depression	“Navel ill” (septicemia), systemic bloodstream infection	Antibiotics, fluids, intensive nursing care
Swollen joints	Lameness, fever, depression, joints are hot and painful	Joint ill (septic arthritis) or bone infection (osteomyelitis)	Antibiotics, surgical draining
Mare cannot nurse	Mare dies, does not allow foal to nurse, or is unable to provide milk (agalactiae)	Orphan or rejected foal, agalactic mare, early weaning	Supply colostrum is newborn, provide foal milk replacer or nurse mare

September 19, 2017April 19, 2019

Feeding Foals During Weaning and Post Weaning – An Important Time Period for an Equine Athlete

Properly preparing the foals to be weaned can make the process much easier for everyone!

Keep in mind that weaning can be a high stress period for the foal. With that in mind, other high stress events should probably not take place at the same time as weaning.

The following management practices should be in place before the foal is weaned:

Make certain that the foal is consuming at least 1 pound of a feed per month of age of a feed designed for foals and weanlings. If a foal is 4 months of age, it should be consuming at least 4 pounds of feed per day. If a foal is 6 months of age, it should be consuming at least 6 pounds of feed per day. Appropriate feeds will be 14-16% protein with controlled starch and sugar along with amino acid, mineral and vitamin fortification. Keep in mind that past 2 months of age, the milk produced by the dam is not sufficient to maintain adequate growth, so the foal should be creep fed if possible as not all mares allow the foal to eat with them. The day you wean the foal is NOT the day to change feeds! The foal should also have access to high quality forage, loose salt and fresh, clean water.
Make certain that the foal has been vaccinated for appropriate diseases according to your health care plan. Vaccination is a stress on the animal, so you do not want to do this at the same time you wean the foal if that can be avoided.
The foal should also be de-wormed prior to weaning.
The foal should have been handled, taught to lead and have had its feet trimmed.

There are a number of ways to separate the foals from their mothers and many farms manage in different ways.

Monitor the new weanlings fairly closely and increase feed intake to maintain growth and body condition, feeding according to both weight and Body Condition Score. Some weanlings become a bit pot-bellied and look a little rough following weaning. This is frequently due to inadequate feed intake and too much forage.

The cecum is not fully developed in the weanling, so it cannot digest forage as efficiently as an older horse. This limits nutrient availability and may limit growth and development.

Proper preparation can minimize the stress of weaning for foals and help maintain uniform growth and body condition. Uniform growth and maintaining target body condition is essential to reduce risk of certain types of Developmental Orthopedic Disease.

One of the things we want to avoid is letting the weanling get off normal growth rate, then deciding to push for rapid growth as a yearling to hit target for show or for scheduled sales.

February 13, 2012February 13, 2012

Creep Feeding Foals

Ella Foal — Newborn Foal, Ella takes in the world next to mom, Serena

When was the last time you picked a mare out for breeding based solely on the fact that she was a good milker? If you are like most horse owners, that thought probably didn’t even cross your mind when it came to mare selection. Most of us look at things like conformation, color, attitude and athletic ability as traits to breed for before we ever consider things like milk production.

The fact is that mares need to provide milk – and a lot of it – to feed and nourish the foal at their side. But even the best milking mare will start to decline in milk production a few months after the birth of her foal. By week 13-24 her milk production will shrink from 3% of her body weight to about 2%. This is a peak time for growth in the foal and nutrient needs are increasing just as the nutrition provded by mom is decreasing. A good way to address this issue and make sure that your foal gets all the nutrition that they require is to implement a creep feeding program. Creep feeding is simply a method of feeding foals so that they have access to feed that the mare doesn’t.

A simple creep feeder can be made of a small pen that allows the foal an entry that the mare can’t fit through. Height of the opening is a great way to keep mares out of the creep feeder. Keep your opening at least a couple of inches higher than the foal’s withers – this will be low enough to keep the mares out and still let the foals in. Remember, those foals are growing so you may have to periodically adjust the height of the entry.

If you feed the foal in a stall alongside his dam, there are small feeders on the market that have evenly spaced bars in place over the opening that prevent the mare’s larger muzzle from reaching in to snack on the creep feed.

The ration you provide as your creep feed should be designed specifically for growing foals with the primary intention of providing balance in the diet. It needs to have a few key features:

Good palatability to ensure intakes
High quality protein
Amino acids (particularly lysine) for sound growth
Balanced levels of vitamins and minerals – having too much, too little, or the wrong ratio of certain vitamins and minerals at this stage can be detrimental. Of particular importance is calcium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, selenium and vitamin E.

Creep feed can be offered free choice; the foal will nibble at it throughout the day. To make sure that your foal is getting enough of the feed, place your feeder in a place that the mare frequents or spends a large part of her time. Keep feed fresh and feeders clean so that the foals will be encouraged to eat.

By providing a creep feeding program for your foals you will be giving them the nutrition they require and helping them in their journey to becoming strong and sound adults.