Rejected foal- UPDATE 1/10

[Sunrise Valley]

From the Foalac topic-

At first the mare seemed just scared of the baby not being in front of her, and only got agitated when he tried to nurse. Now she is beginning to charge him, and swinging around as if to kick. I have her tied for now. Advice on what to do now.

The colt is thriving on his Ultra24 milk replacer. I have another mare that loves foals that may be willing to stay with him for company.

I need some help from those of you who have dealt with rejected foals, please.

Lisa

 

[kaykay]

have you sedated her? We had to sedate our mare and give her oxytocin just to reflood her with hormones. It finally worked. I did continue tying her to let the foal nurse until I was sure she would not hurt her.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

You obviously decided not to sedate?

OK you need to call it a day now and get the foal out of there and just accept you have an orphan foal.

Tied up the mare will get worse, not better as she cannot run away form what is scaring her. If you are going to go on trying, (and I would, I have to say) you have to get the foal behind a strong partition that the mare can see over but not reach the foal. Without sedating her, and you would now need to have her virtually unable to stand, I do not think you are going to get this foal back on her, but then I would think her milk is pretty much dried up by now, anyway??

I think what you need now is to think of this as damage control- you are not likely to succeed with this foal but for the sake of future foals it would be better to get her settled down.

I also have to say that I have known this happen with first foals, and mares have no trouble at all, ever again.

But get the foal away form her.

Now.

 

[kaykay]

I just went and read your other thread. Please get this mare sedated asap it will not hurt the foal.

Also dont rely on a snap test. We found out with our rejected foal a couple days later that she did not get the passive transfer that the snap test showed. She had to ultimately get several plasma transfers from going septic.

Jane I have to disagree. I also thought that Tease would never accept Annie and she did. It took a ton of work and several shots but it finally happened.

But yes she needs to get the mare sedated. The first time we sedated Tease it was a lot. She was half asleep and let Annie finally start nursing.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

We're not actually disagreeing, Kay, I remember all the drama with Tease well, but if this mare is not sedated she is not going to take the foal, she is reacting instinctively and she will hurt it. Sedated, yes, there is still a good chance. It took me ten days to get Disney really on his Mama and bonded, maybe a little more. It is flipping hard work, as you well know, and I was an absolute zombie, but Pagan is a perfect Mum now, no bother at all. She was sedated for nearly two weeks, no problem for the foal, the sedative does not pass on.

 

[kaykay]

I gotcha Jane. I have the flu so not thinking as well as I might normally.

Please please get this mare sedated asap. We only had to sedate Tease for about 24 hours.

Feel free to call me if you need to 740-323-4341

And please do the better test for passive immunity. Do not rely on that snap test!

 

[Sunrise Valley]

My regular horse vets will be in this AM, and I will be in contact with them ASAP. I would definitely like to go the sedation route if at all possible.

Please keep the advice coming, and I will update.

Thank you all

Lisa

 

[Sunrise Valley]

Oh, and Kay, I may be calling the IGg test by the wrong name. The test he had is the one administered by a vet where blood is drawn and diluted and droped in a sample well. Then the result is compared to the 400 and 800 spots. Is there another test?

Lisa

 

[kaykay]

Yes that is the snap test which we did on Annie and thought all was good because her number was so high. When we got to OSU the head vet told us that he was doing the lab test as he feels the snap test is not accurate. A snap test does not give the real immunity level. It only shows above or below. You need to see the actual number. Sure enough the lab test came back that she was not sufficient and we started plasma transfers.

If the test was done in your barn its a snap test. The longer test has to be done by a lab.

The head vet also said she could have had good numbers at the time of the snap test but then due to stress of the mare rejecting her etc she used it all up.

Because your foal was early he is at higher risk. Add in the mare not nursing him and hes even higher.

For sure I cannot tell you what to do but I was told (and I think its very good advice but ask your vet) that any foal born early or late or foals that had a dystocia birth should be started on antibiotics asap as they very easily go septic.

Take his temp every couple hours so that if he starts running a fever you are on top of it. I was shocked when they took Annies and it was so high as she was initially acting totally normal even though she had a high fever.

 

[Jill]

I had to raise a foal after sedating and trying for several days to get his dam to accept him with no success. It is do-able, and if you have to do it, you will have the most people friendly horse you can imagine. At first, it is very draining as you have to feed the baby every 1.5 - 2 hours around the clock, but rapidily you are able to stretch this time out as the foal grows. We used large dog bowls that are the non-tip kind and we took a milk crate and turned it upside down, filled it with blocks of wood to about 2" below the top so the bowl could sit on the blocks of wood and not be swept off the top. Raised up for the foal, but not able to knock it on the ground. A bucket is too deep for a foal to want to drink from. What we did is have several of these dog bowls so that through the night, we could just mix up the warm milk and take it out, pour it into a fresh bowl, and bring the old one in to be washed in the morning so that we could go back to sleep.

If you search for "Trooper" on the best of forum, you can read about how we raised Trooper and the tips we learned along the way.

Best of luck!!!

 

[drmatthewtaylor]

The Snap IgG foal test may not be as accurate as we'd like, but it is the fastest, easiest and most transportable test available.

Another thing to remember is the the disease of sepsis has a multifactorial cause. Failure of Passive Transfer is but 1 of the factors, others include, stress, dystocia, environment, and virulence of the bacteria. When doing any FPT test, all of those factors should be taken into account when thinking about if your foal is at risk for sepsis.

I very much sympathize with a mother not owning it's foal, but I also think its something frequently over looked by the smaller breeder. Although mothering isn't likely inherited, it is probably learned. Poor mothers tend to produce poor mothers and maiden mares are more frequently poor mothers, especially if they are older. I would encourage owners to make mothering characteristics an important criteria when making breeding decisions.

Dr Taylor

 

[Molly's Run Minis]

i dont have any advice, but i found this video and its pretty awesome! i honestly think all breeders should watch this video!

 

[valshingle]

Sedate, sedate, sedate.

I had this happen to a maiden mare and I think there was a correlation to the fact that she initially had very little milk and it hurt when the foal tried to nurse. She wasn't aggressive to the foal, just didn't want much to do with it and was a little anxious about the whole thing. She did try to kick the foal every time it nursed. But I'm pretty sure that was due to pain. Her back would hunch up every time the foal nursed and she appeared to be in visible pain. We used a combination of domperidone (for milk), banamine (for the mare's pain) and a long acting sedative (can't remember the name, but would recognize it if I heard it). I also supplemented the foal by using a syringe and getting Foal Lac in her that way. You have to do this carefully to avoid aspiration. The foal didn't want anything to do with a pan or bottle. We also added Foal Lac to the mare's grain. We never tied the mare and it took about a week for everything to greatly improve. Her next foal, I watched her bag and was ready to start domperidone BEFORE she foaled, but her bag developed fine and subsequent foals have had no problems.

Good luck - it's very stressful to go through this

 

[cretahillsgal]

We used a combination of domperidone (for milk), banamine (for the mare's pain) and a long acting sedative (can't remember the name,

I've never dealt with a mare rejecting a foal. But wanted to comment on this statement.

If you are using domperidone to bring milk in, banamine will counteract the dom and will defeat the purpose. Have a friend who learned this the hard way. Was using dom to bring in milk on a mare who had no bag and was due, She went ahead and gave banamine when the mare foaled. The mare was making a good bag before the banamine was given, and then immediately dried up once the banamine was given. The vet didn't let her know not to give the banamine with the dom, but said that was the cause.

Edited to add... once the banamine wore off the mare's milk did come back like before. I think it was in 24 hours or so.

 

[Becky]

I've never dealt with a mare rejecting a foal. But wanted to comment on this statement. If you are using domperidone to bring milk in, banamine will counteract the dom and will defeat the purpose. Have a friend who learned this the hard way. Was using dom to bring in milk on a mare who had no bag and was due, She went ahead and gave banamine when the mare foaled. The mare was making a good bag before the banamine was given, and then immediately dried up once the banamine was given. The vet didn't let her know not to give the banamine with the dom, but said that was the cause.

Edited to add... once the banamine wore off the mare's milk did come back like before. I think it was in 24 hours or so.

That's really interesting, Julie. I've used Domperidone on several mares prior to foaling (those without udders) and gave Banamine immediately after foaling as I always do. None dried up or had any decrease in udder size. I wonder if there was something else involved.

 

[valshingle]

In my situation, the mare was on Domperidone longer that she was on the Banamine. We didn't have much choice in this situation, the mare was in pain (we didn't want to use bute) and she needed the Domperidone. I think we alternated the meds, but it's been a few years and I don't remember exactly how we did it.

 

[Sunrise Valley]

Hi, all!

Sorry for such a delay in updating on "Marvin" (as in starvin')!

I got with our regular vet Monday AM. Right or wrong, she didn't want to sedate either. I have had a great relationship with this group of veterinarians for over 16 years, so I will go with her advice.

The mare is in the next stall, that has an 18" knee wall with bars above, so they can see each other.

Marvin is doing great! He is a real piggy, and has filled out. He is as healthy and playful as

any full term foal I've had. I swore I would not fall in love with a foal with such an iffy future. Yeah, right!! I am smitten! I believe we are going to be fine.

Jill, your Trooper story is such a help, thank you!!

Again, as always, forum friends have rushed in to help. This is a great group of folks, and I don't know what we all did before Lil Beginnings!

Thank you all, and I will post pictures soon.

Lisa

 

[Eagle]

we need pics of Marvin.

Just love that name

I am so glad he is doing well

 

[kaykay]

I was just checking in. I really feel for you as feeding a foal is a full time exhausting job. I wish you only the best! Please be sure and take his temp off and on just to be sure he doesnt start running a fever.

 

[Jill]

I cannot wait to see your little man! I think you and him will do fine. It's hard work but it's doable and i hope some of the tips Trooper taught me will help make it easier