The most important time for "extra" care is in the last trimester, IMO....as long as your mare is already in good health and weight. We don't feed the Mare & Foal feed, but I know others do. We just use a quality 14 percent pelleted grain that is manufactured here in our area, so it has a little extra selenium, which we need here, and of course supplement. Starting at 8 months is fine. We are also picky about hay quality. We feed locally grown pasture/orchard grass mix. (We also give the newborn a selenium shot immediately after birth...AND worm the mom with ivermectin.)
Vaccines are a sticky subject.... For us, we just make sure the mare is up to date with the basic 5-way, which is what is necessary for our area. And we make sure NOT to vaccinate in the last trimester, so we do it prior. We also no longer give the pneumabort shot. Our practice is not accepted by some people, but since we slowly changed our method we've had NO late term abortions.
The reason behind us not giving the pneumabort anymore is -- It seemed that when ever we did that last of a series of 3, the mare would abort about a day or two later over 50 percent of the time. So, we stopped doing the last shot. Our odds improved, but we still had a few throughout the pregnancies. And when we decided to totally stop, the abortions basically did too. Over these last 10 years now, we've had about 3 abortions......one was a still born which happened this year. (That one we suspect was a Red Bag birth, which we missed,) I can't tell you why, am just passing on our experience.....which spans over 25 years. Others can share their own.
Thank you so much.
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