RH Factor and foaling

[KarenB]

First, I am very sorry to hear you lost a foal. It's always heartbreaking. I won't even try to guess what went wrong with your foal. I do know that I had a colt two years ago who was thought to be NI. He was born healthy and strong. His NI symptoms were late onset. He was the third foal for the stallion & mare. He was hospitalized for nearly two weeks, and received lots of supportive care, and he eventually recovered completely. The vets recommended this web site for more information on NI.

UC Davis NI Information

I rebred my mare and stallion last year, and we did the blood typing and NI screen. It all came back fine, and they saw no problems with her colostrum. She just foaled a beautiful buckskin filly 3 days ago, and based on all the test results, I did not withhold the foal from her colostrum. So far, the foal is doing great. I would have done the blood from the cord in the colostrum to check even further, but the mare was sneaky and had her filly when I wasn't watching.

We never had confirmation that the previous foal was NI. Perhaps he had something else going on that looked like NI. I hope this information will help you.

 

[Dairygirl]

Ok hang on a second...you're saying the vet put the foal's blood in a red top and waited for it to "settle"? Any blood will separate in a red top. It's called clotting and that what blood does when you don't mix it with anticoagulant (ie purple top). If you're sure that's what she did then she did not test for NI.

If all you have is that red top then you are limited in what you can test from it as it is now a clot with serum not blood.

Yes I am sure it was a red top because that is how I knew what to call it. She kept telling her daughter to hand her one. I didn't know that but I had asked my husband that if blood was to set, wouldn't it settle any way? He didn't know either.

Well then what I'll do is test Red and Blackie for both and see what I come up with on that end. Thanks

 

[Nancy G]

We had one foal with this factor. Our vet said to never breed these two again, so we didn`t. We did however breed her to other stallions and had no problems. Our vet didn`t suggest getting the other boys tested??? But, thankfully the foals were fine. I didn`t thing this was a big problem, guess I was wrong.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

ANY foal could react to its mother's milk. We suggest that every single mare get tested (we use the lab mentioned earlier) before foaling. Its not common, but when it happens you have almost no warning, and its fatal if missed. I've only seen it with two mares, and both had a history of it in the past. The care is pretty easy, you just use frozen colostrum and prevent the foal from nursing in the first 24 hours, bottle feeding every hour. After the first 24 hours the mare's colostrum is gone, and the foal can safely nurse. There is no reason to not breed back a mare as long as you moniter the foaling and know how to take care of things. Its just a higher maintance issue