Colostrum

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Charlotte

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How many mls of colostrum does a foal have to be fed if the dam has none?

I'm really getting concerned that Dinah is going to foal with no milk. She's at 324 today and has a miniscule bag......almost NOTHING! She carried 313 last time and has been "bagging up" if you can call it that for over 3 weeks now. She is 18 and with each foal has had a smaller and smaller bag.

I had planned to retire her from breeding, but she has a FIT over the other mare's foals and will steal them if she thinks she can. She loves having a baby of her own.

Any help appreciated

Charlotte
 
Charlotte,

If you are planning on getting something like Seramune, you can use a minimum of 75 ml. for a mini foal and more sure doesn't hurt. OR - if your mare doesn't develop milk like you are afraid of, I'd just invest in some colostrum from the vet and feed the foal every hour or two for its first 48 hours of life before gradually changing over to milk replacer.

It doesn't hurt to be prepared, but I hope your mare kicks in at the last minute........
 
Well, I'm TRYING to be prepared!
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I got a bottle of Seramune but will only use it as a last resort since it's not 100% 'safe'. What I would prefer is to use saved colostrum from other mares here on our farm, but I lost all of my saved colostrum during the December power outage. And dumb me! I forgot to save any from my first 3 mares! :DOH! Old age you know?

I just need to know how much to think I might need!

Charlotte
 
Any luck on finding colostrum? I am thinking I should be stocking up on some frozen, as my mare is due any time. So, just curious if you found a 'supplier', of sorts.

Peggy
 
Charlotte,

I can't swear to this, but I thought I'd always heard that you want to get a min of 60ml (not all at once) of good colostrum in a mini foal. I don't think more can hurt.

Good luck. I hope your mare produces and you don't need to step in, but you're doing the right thing by being prepared.
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I just posted on another thread about this, regarding Seramune.

We gave it to the two foals born here and it did seem to energize them, HOWEVER, our filly only tested about 200 on the IgG test and required two plasma transfusions. We gave her about 80ML of seramune w/in the first few hours of life. SO, I know first hand that you CANNOT count on the Seramune to cover immunity passive transfer. If it did what it says it does, my filly would not have needed two plasma transfusions.

The stuff sounded great to me when I read about it, but going forward, it's not something I plan to have on hand at foaling. I will instead use some of the tube colostrum supplements for the "boost" of energy but I saw no medical benefit from the seramune I gave my filly.
 
Parmela, I was thinking 60ml too, but was reading in The Complete Foaling Manual that a big horse foal should have 16 to 32 OUNCES! Aren't there 29 or 30 ml's in an ounce? So if I divide the ounces by...say 5 that gets me down to 3.2 to 6.4 OUNCES, then at 30 ml per ounce the minimum would be 90ml for a mini foal? Have I figured that right?

Jill, thank you for the info on Seramune. I figure it's here as a last ditch effort. If I can get enough saved colostrum I think that's the best route to go.

Charlotte
 
Charlotte, my mare foaled and when we took them up to the vet clinic to have the foal's IgG levels tested, it showed that the foal didn't get any colostrum. The vet tubed the foal with Seramune.......and used 3/4 of the bottle. I brought the rest of it home with me to keep on hand. The filly is now over 4 weeks old and doing great!

Good luck with your mare and foal!

Pam C.
 
Don't panic. I know we are talking apples and oranges here, but my maiden had no milk at all, not even clear milk, then monday morning she had water, three hours later it was white, by 6:45 p.m. she foaled.

The IgG levels were 600-800 (not quite where they needed to be, but they went up in 24 hours). Anyhow, if you can get your hands on some frozen colostrum, give at bare min. of 60cc. You can always use oxytocin after she foals. But if your mare has no milk at all, you will have to go with domperidone(sp).

Do you have any farms nearby that you can offer to buy some colostrum from? Better yet, call you vet and see if they have any clients that have mares in labor or are VERY close. See if they will relay your name and number to the client, since they are not allowed to release the info to you. I am sure if you go through your vet, they can help you out or point you in the right direction.

Carolyn
 

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