How much to worm foal???

[suen]

Going to worm my two month old filly along with my other two mares today. Bought SafeGuard for the filly, does anyone know how much to give her? I don't know her weight, she's average. Don't want to give her too much.

Another question: She is starting to eat grain from my hand, and wants to eat with mama out of her bucket but mama has other ideas. When can I start graining her and how much do I start with????

 

[Riverrose28]

My vet told me to put as much wormer on my finger as the tip of a Q tip. Insert it into the foals mouth by finger, not to use the wormer as I might put in too much.

As for feeding grain, I start giving my babies their own grain when they are around a week old or when they start to eat with Mom. I give them their own dish and one cup of grain, if they don't eat it all then mom cleans it up and it won't hurt her since she is lactating. Most of the foals eat most of it and walk away so mom doesn't really get too much since she is feed more grain it takes her longer to eat, although some mares will walk over and switch dishes, but then baby eats out of moms, then walks away when satisfied.

 

[kaykay]

Safeguard is very safe even if you overdose. Remember you dont want to under dose or it will not do any good. I usually squeeze out 100lbs and divide it in half and then stick it in their mouth.

Our foals start eating from moms at about a week and by 3 weeks we bring them in the barn to eat their own serving. I think this helps make weaning easier too and they are used to eating without their mom.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

You cannot hurt your foal with Fenbendazole (Guard) but be warned that it will only get the big white worms that foals all have, not all the rest, for that you need Ivermectin and at eight weeks the foal should be old enough to have this- I worm at ten days with Fenbendazole then again at six weeks with Ivermectin then every two months til weaning.

My foals are first offered grain at ten days and, by the time they are eight weeks old would be eating a good amount of feed- on their own NOT with their mothers!

So yes, you should worm and yes you should be offering grain to the foal- in fact you should really be offering a good feed by now, but better late than never!

 

[rubyviewminis]

I follow what rabbitsfizz does, but I use mini measurement charts or the vets dog scale to determine weight, then I fill a 3cc syringe with the wormer for 250 lbs since that is what most of the markings are for, and evenly divide the amount that is in the syringe with a tape measure and mark with black lines. Then I know almost exactly how much to dose. My caprine vet in AZ showed me how to do it to guage accurate amounts for little Nigerian goats. I hope that made sense, I may have left out a step. I haven't had any problems with this as far as injecting too much orally, and yes Fenbendazole and some other worming agents have a wide margin of safety. Much better to get an overdose than to underdose and be ineffective.

 

[suen]

She's never shown a desire to try to eat grain before. We let them out on grass for 2-3 hours a day, plus the mama's get a cup of grain once a day and brome/paraire hay twice. She seemed to be perfectly happy with the grass up until this week when she finally decided to eat some grain from my hand. Now she seems to really want it. Tried up to now to get her to eat some, wouldn't do it.

You cannot hurt your foal with Fenbendazole (Guard) but be warned that it will only get the big white worms that foals all have, not all the rest, for that you need Ivermectin and at eight weeks the foal should be old enough to have this- I worm at ten days with Fenbendazole then again at six weeks with Ivermectin then every two months til weaning.

My foals are first offered grain at ten days and, by the time they are eight weeks old would be eating a good amount of feed- on their own NOT with their mothers!

So yes, you should worm and yes you should be offering grain to the foal- in fact you should really be offering a good feed by now, but better late than never!

 

[Matt73]

My foals are offered Foal Starter (a milk-based pellet) from as little as a few days old. Both my foals loved it and started eating it right away. At weaning (4+ months) we start them on regular Gro 'n Win (ration balancer).

 

[Michelle@wescofarms]

Good to know on the Ivermectin Jane. I've always been leary of giving it to foals. I dose the dam at foaling with Ivermectin, but foals I give Safeguard the first few months, and switch to Ivermectin about 4-5 old.

Dosing is easy 100lb for foals, as Safeguard does have a wide margin for error and less than the recommended weight is worse than a double dose.