Foal diarrhea & When to worm a foal?

[1keegan]

Our colt is 6 weeks old. He's had watery diarrhea for 2 weeks. However, he eats well, is spunky and growing. I was advised to give him Probios for 3 days, and during those days his stool became more like pudding, but 2 days later, it's back to being more watery.

If his diarrhea was due to his mama being in season, would it have lasted for 2 weeks?

Since he spends most of his time on dirt, and used to pick through and nibble on the mare's waste, could his diarrhea mean he needs to be wormed?

At what age have you found it safe to worm a foal, and would you worm one that currently has diarrhea?

Any suggestions on what to give the colt to ease the diarrhea?

thanks,

LG

 

[Miniv]

We tend to give our youngsters either "human" or horsey pepto bismal......Foal scours resulting from mom's foal heat should have happened already.

Some folks will have wormed their foals by 6 weeks. We tend to wait til they're at least 8 weeks. But that is always a consideration........

 

[backwoodsnanny]

We recently had a foal born out of a mare who was new to our farm. We wormed his mom the day he was born as is our custom but at two weeks he developed runny poop I assumed it was moms heat and gave him some probios and he seemed better as with your foal he wasnt nursing less or lathargic in anyway. Three days after the poops began I looked on camera and saw him rolling fairly violently and called the vet. The first thing she asked me was has he been wormed. Uh no he was two weeks old. She wormed him and apparently we caught him just in time because she said sometimes newborn foals have a load of worms and it will cause the poops but as you get that fixed they will go the other way and harden too quickly so this boy needed a deep enema to get things moving again. I would never have thought to give him an enema as he had had the poops up until two days before. Sorry for the long response but yes at that age they can have worms. She did say to worm with Strongid rather than safeguard which is what I probably would have used. Within 24 hours he was back to his snotty self. She had me give him bannamine for pain before she got here and a small dose of gastro guard to insure the bannamine didnt upset him further. Truthfully when I first saw him ulcer was what came to mind but he was too dry and probably was working on a colic all because of a load of worms that I wouldnt have thought would be there since we had done his mom.

 

[Carolyn R]

if it is foal scours related....One word, BIOSPONGE.

Paste or powder (powder lasts longer, can mix it with water when needed).

I started using this last year, I will never be without it in my foaling/vet kit, YES, IT ISTHAT GOOD.

You don't need a prescription,but your vet may be the quickestway to get it (if they have it on hand) occasionally a tack/feed store will carry it (if they are up to date with what is available/works ), otherwise order it over the internet.

 

[kaykay]

If its gone on that long I would suspect E coli. Maybe call your vet. We had that happen last year as we had tons of flooding when the foals were born so we put them on liquid smz's and it cleared it right up. Now we give foals the E coli antitoxen when they are born so they have immunity to it