Very young foals and grain

[avezan]

I know there is a similar thread, but I didn't want to hijack it. My 5 day old foal has discovered mom's grain tub and is eating out of it. I don't think she is getting much, but should I put the feed tub out of her reach? The mare gets lots of soaked, wet beet pulp, Progressive Nutrition growth and a Vit. E supp in corn oil. The feed pellets get pretty mushy pretty fast, but I'm still worried she might choke or her digestive system can't handle it at this point. The foal is probably not actually eating much. She is in a stage where she just puts everything in her mouth. I have seen her do this the last 2 feedings. What do you think? I feed in feed tubs on the ground. It takes the mare about 15 min to finish it.

[TKR]

That's pretty normal. They all show some mild interest in about a week. I doubt he'll eat much at all. I usually hang a bucket for mine at about 3 weeks and give them a handful. As they grow and mature, it's good for them to eat out of their own bucket and at a couple of months, it might take a little pressure off the mare's milk production. Then at weaning, they are used to eating out of their own bucket at feeding time. I wouldn't worry about it. Let him share with her and give him a bucket in a couple of weeks. Good luck!
PennyG

[ise@ssl]

Definitely move it higher so the foal can't eat the feed. Foals don't produce the enzymes to digest regular grain feeds (other than lactose type products just for foals) until they are 3 months old. If the mare is properly fed - she should be producing sufficient milk for the foal's proper growth and development. We keep our feeders very high - when the foals are old enough to reach them - usually around 6 months - they are ready to wean.

[not again]

Beet pulp can throw the minerals out of proportion so you may want to keep baby out of it.

[avezan]

Ok, I'm going to hang the feed tub and keep baby out for a while. However, I AM concerned that the mare may not be producing enough milk. The foal is active, but nurses constantly. Most of the time, she does not seem to be getting much. The mare's bag looks deflated. I would be more worried if the bag looked full... But, is there any way to tell if the foal is getting enough? The foal urinates regularly, clear and good amount. I have not seen her pass much manure, and the one I did catch last night was fairly hard and not very moist. She has filled out a little since birth, but not a lot. IgG was great at 12 hours. They had been on limited turnout because the foal was windswept. But it was very mild. Today I have them out quite a bit. I'm hoping the nice grass will help with the mare's milk production. The mare is getting 8lbs of PN Growth pellets, 1lb of rice bran pellets, 1lb of PN Envision fat supplement split in 2 meals. Free choice grass hay and now good pasture. She is not drinking a lot, though. Only about 2 5 gal. buckets a day. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[not again]

Steamed crimped oats, vegetable oil, and more salt and electrolytes might help. She is working hard growing that foal.

[TKR]

You might want to consult a nutrition specialist with one of the well known feed companies that have their products available in your area. You want to insure the mare gets the right combination of minerals so her foal develops properly. I have had great luck with a Purina nutritionist in my area and love their products. I have used Ultium with great success on hard keepers after trying beet pulp as well as other products. I used it for my foaling mares last year along with Strategy or their broodmare formula and their 12/12 minerals to keep the balance. If you mix products you could have the minerals out of whack. The good pasture should help alot, but maybe some alfalfa or alfalfa/timothy might help, too. I fed my broodies 3-4 times a day for the first month-6weeks and kept them in during the heat of the day under a fan, which helped their weight and the foal's development alot. I have been breeding for 30 years and have never had a problem with a foal having some of the mare's ration once they show an interest. It's perfectly natural and I always hang a bucket for them and they get a handful that is increased over time of good quality feed that is appropriate for foals. I've had good growth rates and no problems. I also start deworming at 2 weeks (with Strongid) and monthly thereafter, which I think is also a huge factor. Have you checked your mare's teeth and has she been dewormed regularly? Once the foal is eating some decent amounts of feed on a regular basis (2 months or so), it will help the mare's weight as their milk production and quality starts falling off some at that point, too. It has worked great for me! Good luck!
PennyG

[Ladybug Hill]

I never worry about the foal eating the little bit of grain. Seems like they increase their intake as is appropriate for age. They just don't take in enough to worry about too much at first. I want my mare to have her feed at a comfortable level especially if she is a hard keeper.

I believe your foal is very young? You should be seeing the foal really changing so much in the first 2 weeks. The first few days they unfold a bit and the belly "fills in". And then the butt and shoulder expand a bit and the belly gets fuller. And then the neck fills in a bit and adds topline and the narrow chest begins to expand. You just see this growth very well in the first two weeks. If your foal is changing like this and the belly appears to be filling in then I am sure he is getting enough. The mare SHOULD look "deflated" and the foal SHOULD be nursing all the time at this age. I know that Progessive does advocate testing the mare's milk in order to make sure the composition is adequate for the foal.

Doesn't beet pulp "leech" calcium? I heard this is not the best thing for a lactating broodmare. I think Ultium has a lot of beet pulp in it too, but it is a nice high fat feed. I just can't afford it! :-)

How is the windswept-ness coming along?

[Fairview Horse Center]

I always hang a small bucker for a foal when they are a week or 2 old. I just put a handful in it, so they can nibble. Mom cleans it up. It teaches them to eat at meal times, and weaning is very easy. If I begin to see any growth issues, I use a ration balancer like Grow N win, or Progressive.

[Waterwitch]

Doesn't beet pulp "leech" calcium? I heard this is not the best thing for a lactating broodmare.


Beet pulp is actually relatively high in calcium - I used to use it to balance the high phosphorus in rice bran before the calcium fortified rice brans came on the market.

I guess I would be more worried that a young foal might choke on the beet pulp.

[Valentina_32926]

I have always put my mares on Mare Plus (Farnam) in the last few months of pregnancy and when they're lactating - and I have NEVER had problems with milk production. Sounds like a call to your vet (just to give you peace of mind) may be in order.

[Altamont Sport Horses]

I second that you might want to give your mare electrolytes to make sure she is staying hydrated. Have you done a pinch test on her neck to see if she *is* dehyrdrated? My broodmares with a foal at side drink almost 3 large buckets of water each at night when it is warm outside and who knows how much during the day when they are outside. Two buckets a day doesn't sound like much. Does she go outside and have access to water troughs too? Keep buckets really clean and water fresh to also encourage drinking.

My foals start showing an interest in mom's grain around 2 weeks or earlier. When that happens I throw a handful in a separate bucket or ground feeder and they spend a lot of time messing with it but don't really eat much of that. The dam eats the rest of it when she is done with hers. I do that to keep them out of the mare's bucket because some mares get ugly or pushy about sharing their feed so it seems like a good idea to keep the little one occupied with his/her very own and keep the feeding-time tension down.

[fish]

As ise.. says, foals do not have the enzyme (maltase) to digest anything except milk until they are at least 3 months old. "Between three and four months of age is when the enzyme activity of Maltase equals that of Lactase [the enzyme for milk digestion]. So the foal less than three months of age SHOULD HAVE AVAILABLE A MILK BASED FOAL FEED TO OPTIMIZE ABSORPTION AND REDUCE THE CHANCE OF DIARRHEA FROM EATING TOO MUCH STARCH BEFORE THEY CAN DIGEST IT. [Emphasis mine] The milk based foal starter feed would be formulated to complement the mare's milk, not forage [which the foal also cannot digest until much later, when the hind gut is mature]. ... The only feed the foal can handle in large quantities without digestive upset is milk. The protein, calories and minerals in the foal's feed should complement the mares' milk analysis.... How much foal starter is consumed per day will be directly related to how much milk the mare is producing. .... When cross breeding a smaller mare to a larger stallion, the larger, faster growing foal will also have a larger appetite. Providing every foal a milk based foal starter feed formulated to complement the mineral density of mares' milk is critical to their health and quality of growth for the first three months." (Saunders, *Equine Internal Medicine,* appendix on Applied Nutrition by Don Kapper et. al.)

My mare's milk analysis showed deficiencies in Cu, Zn, Ca and Mg, so my foal receives both Rejuvenaide with Ca. (a new PN) product and free access to the milk-based creep feed, Foals First pellet, which he now (at 1 month, 230#) consumes at the rate of 1.5-2#/day. I do not allow my foals do share their mothers' rations, offering them their own creep bucket when they try to steal from mom.

Keep in mind that ration balancers are designed for adult horses for whom forage should be the dietary mainstay. They are therefore designed to complement forage, not milk. Foals need feeds to complement milk because milk, not forage (or grain) is the mainstay of their diet.

I hope this helps.

[Fairview Horse Center]

I hope no one goes around thinking they have to muzzle or dry lot their foal to stop them from eating mom's food, hay and GRASS. They eat a lot of that from the first week. My foals have nibbled, usually a 1/2 of a pound of sweet feed a day within a few weeks, and they don't get diarrhea.

They grow fine, have super placings at top breed shows, and sell sound to wonderful performance homes. The only foal I have had a diarrhea problem is my orphan that WAS on milk and a milk based pellet, and not sweet feed.

Minerals are important, but when I was dealing with the Buckeye program under Dan Kapper, I could not get the foals to eat the milk based pellets. I could get them to eat the Grow N Win, so at least they were getting the minerals. I also use the mineral drench.

[fish]

They will not eat the milk based pellets if they are getting enough milk from the mare. The colt I have now, though, is growing at an enormous pace and eats more of them than any foal I've had before. A small filly from the same mare wouldn't touch the pellets.

Yes, babies can and will put everything in their mouths and there is no need to "muzzle them" because they nibble on grass, etc. As with human babies, this is part of the way they learn. The point is, however, that most of what foals consume passes right through them as they discover what tastes good, what doesn't, etc. This is a good thing, too, because foals will eat toxic plants. e.g. buttercups, that they will have learned to avoid by the time their hindguts are mature enough to digest and be damaged by them. This learning process is not the same, however, as providing necessary nutrients in which a particular mare's milk may be deficient, and if a foal eats too much that is essentially indigestible to him/her, there are risks of (a) digestive upsets, and/or (b) failures to consume enough of what's best for him/her due to having filled up on other things that might taste good but have little nutritional value for a suckling.

[avezan]

Hi all, thanks for your replies! I did remove the mare's feed tub from the foal's reach. I am a little worried about her choking on some of the bigger beet pulp flakes, and she was really going after the feed. Mom wasn't too happy about it either.

After I posted about worrying that the foal wasn't getting enough milk, she spent the afternoon zipping around a new section of the pasture and playing king of the mountain on the manure pile. So, I think she is probably getting enough. The mare is Appendix QH with 75% TB blood and the sire is an Oldenburg. I did run into this problem with the first WB foal out of this same mare many years ago. The foal never seemed to get enough milk and was constantly nursing. I did supplement the foal with some milk replacer until I mentioned this to the stallion owner who told me to STOP that immediately. She explained that the WB foals on the non-WB mares tend to suck them dry, but the only way to get the mare to make more milk is to let the foal nurse. Now, of course, we can't let the foal be compromised, but that foal, and I think this foal, are getting enough, they just want more. I did talk with my repro vet on the phone this morning and she suggested giving the mare domperidone (sp?) to help with her milk production. Any thoughts on that? I'm having my farm vet out this afternoon for an IgG on a colt born last night (yay, now I can sleep!) so I will have her look at the filly and the mare and see what she thinks about the mare's milk production.

I also spoke with my Progressive Nutrition rep about starting the foal on the milk creep feed. I will also start her on Rejuvenade today. I've always had foals eat out of their mare's feed before, but never this young. I do believe that they may not be able to digest much of what they are eating (thanks fish for that reference) which makes what is in their stomach just filler and may stop them from nursing as much as they should. So, I'm going to make it more difficult for the filly to eat the mare's feed, but I'm not going to stop her if she nips a bite here or there.

The mare does appear slightly dehydrated from the neck test, but her manure is nice and moist and she is urinating well, although it is fairly dark, but not overly strong smelling. I also think 2 buckets per day is low, although mine don't stay in at all and I water with troughs. This could be part of the mare's hesitation to drink from the buckets. I do keep it clean and fresh, but I think I will start some electrolytes. She does have free choice loose salt and minerals (out of baby's reach!) Now she is out during the day with access to her (very large) stall with buckets and a trough outside.

The foal's windswept-ness has improved dramatically. Thanks for asking! Her right hind leg is almost perfect. Her left hind leg still tips to the right a little more than it should, but she is overall very stable.

Thanks again for all the replies.

[Ladybug Hill]

I am not a believer in adding drugs to fix a problem that is probably not there. I would not give the mare the domperidone.

[avezan]

Yes! That was my decision. The vet thought the foal looked great and thought the mare had enough milk. So I will leave it alone. I did add some electrolytes to the mare's feed. The mare is hydrated, so I think we are good to go!