foal advice needed

Miniature Horse Talk Forums

Help Support Miniature Horse Talk Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tricetta

Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Location
Stamford NY
Hi all, I need some advice/help. I have a mare who foaled a cute little filly. This mare is 6 yo. and her first live foal. She had a red bag last year. My problem is, this little filly if i counted right is about a month early and she has a will to live, but mom has no interest in mothering her. She dances around the stall til we hold her, and than she will let the little one eat. I put her out in the paddak and she will let the little one nurse, but not for long. Mom simply doesn't want to be a mom. I am thinking of bottle feeding her as she is not gaining any weight. Is there a milk supplement that i can get or make up to give her?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. thank you Judi
 
I would contiune to hold mom for baby to nurse as much as possible and give mom more time to get use to her new foal. Sometimes it takes a new mother some time to realize what they have. I would wait on the bottle unless the baby starts looking even a bit weak and then just milk the mare and feed her that, it would be better than a supplemental foal milk. The more you milk the mare the more milk she will produce. She might as well be the milk factory even if she never shows interest in the foal.
 
most mares after foaling need some banamine to calm them down from the pain and let the foal nurse. remember when the foal nurses it causes the mares uterus to contract to shrink it back down which is very painful. I have found that giving some banamine makes them much more likely to mother the foal

How old is the foal??
 
With a mare like that, I would keep them stalled a little longer than others to encourage the bonding. And if necessary, I would tie the mom a few times a day for short periods to allow the foal to nurse.......Don't leave her. Keep a watch on the process.

Bottle feeding would be a total last resort, in my opinion.
 
If you are going to milk the mare a simple milking tool that I have found makes things sooo much easier is made from a syringe. Pull the plunger and cut the end where the needle would attach off. Then slide the plunger in from that end. Sometimes it helps to put a tiny bit of corn oil on the rubber end of the plunger so it will slide. Place the open end of the syringe on the mares nipple and draw back slowly on the plunger. When the syringe is full empty it into a bottle or jar and repeat. Hope that amde some sense, Good luck.
 
I had this happen with a maiden mare this year.

It took ten days of hard work, up every two hours to hold the mare, and I also sedated the mare quite heavily.

Apparently the TB studs are having a rash of "three day rejections" this year so my Vet was well schooled in it and had little sympathy for me!!!

I can give you the whole routine, if you want it, it worked and it worked well, and the mare and foal are now totally normal.

In my experience a month "early" for these tinies is nothing.

I have had a foal nine weeks early, by the book, only once breeding, and not premature at all, not one bit.

I have had a mare, again with "solid" dates, go almost to time and have a foal so immature she did not survive birth!!

No rhyme or reason to it.

Good Luck, PM me if you want the info.
 
Hi all, I need some advice/help. I have a mare who foaled a cute little filly. This mare is 6 yo. and her first live foal. She had a red bag last year. My problem is, this little filly if i counted right is about a month early and she has a will to live, but mom has no interest in mothering her. She dances around the stall til we hold her, and than she will let the little one eat. I put her out in the paddak and she will let the little one nurse, but not for long. Mom simply doesn't want to be a mom. I am thinking of bottle feeding her as she is not gaining any weight. Is there a milk supplement that i can get or make up to give her?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. thank you Judi
Hi, thank you for responding to my plea. The mare has settled down a little, and will let the foal nurse, but on her terms. We go in there as often as we can, but isn't easy. I did notice that the little one eats very little b/c of her size, which doesn't surprise me, but the mother when i checked isn't producing very much milk, therefore, i think i should supplement the baby somehow also.

She is tiny, but such a strong will to live. She actually kicked at my aussie for her smelling her tail.
default_biggrin.png
Do you know of a milk supplement that i can give her also, as i don't want to loose her now, if mom does not produce enough.

I look forward to hearing from you, thanks Judi
 
I was just about to post & comment that it's all fine and dandy to have the foal only on mom's milk IF mom has enough milk. If the mare isn't making enough milk then definitely I would supplement the foal--I had that exact thing happen 2 years ago. For whatever reason the mare just didn't make much milk. The foal got enough to keep him going, but not enough to thrive on. We did wait and see for a bit, but when the milk didn't come and the foal was looking kind of scrawny, I started bottle feeding him with goats milk. Goat's milk with a little bit of corn syrup--my colt really went to town on that, and after just a few feeds he perked up so much.

I fed him all he would eat every 2 hours to start with. After 2 weeks he got a front tooth kicked out--I have no idea if one of the other foals kicked him, or if he had tried to nurse off the wrong mare & got kicked for his efforts, but that tooth was loose, then ended up falling out. When the tooth was still there but badly loosened he was unable to nurse on the bottle, so I switched him to drinking his goats milk from a bowl.
 
If the mare isn't producing enough milk, I'd get with the vet pronto and look to put her on Domperidone ("Equidone") or something else that will quickly increase her milk production. That beats the heck out of bottle feeding.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I only have one comment to add to all the advise you have received.

We keep Udder Balm in the foaling barn right by the stalls. When the mares are 12-24 hours post foaling their nipples are getting very sore.

Putting this GENTLY on their nipples helps them through the pain and they are more likely to accept the foals aggressive nursing.

If you can put this on consistently for a day of two it can REALLY help the mares.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top