RH type problem in horses

[bevann]

I have a friend who is having difficulty with a large horse foal.Vet told her to put it down, but foal is not ready to cross over yet.She thinks it may be from problem with mare's milk.I rember reading on here something about mixing a few drops of cord blood with colostrum or milk to test.Can't remember all the details.I need help so my friend can use this info in the future.She is a vet tech and foals out my Minis for me and does lots of full size horse foals in this area.She has saved many horses that the vets were going to put down.She is a real die hard.This much needed info could save the life of a future Mini, pony or big horse.Thanks for your help.This forum is such a great sourch of info and sharing .

 

[littlesteppers]

Its right here on ML's INFO page

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Testing RH factor in new born foals - "I would say that you have about a 50/50 chance of survival. That has been about the results of the ones that we have had with the same problem. I try to do a simple test, which you might want to do in the future....take a drop of blood from the foal (I get it when the umbilical chord breaks) and mix with a drop of colostrum from the mare. If it mixes and stays mixed, everything is okay. If it separates and appears to curdle, which it will do very quickly, do NOT LET THE FOAL NURSE but get the vet there IMMEDIATELY to give the foal IGG, or an artificial colostrum or colostrum from another mare. Then keep the foal with the mare, but muzzled for 48 hours and bottle feed with another milk source. Milk the mare so that she won't stop making milk. After the colostrum is gone the foal can start nursing without danger. It is only the antibodies in the colostrum that fights the foals immune system." (re-printed from L'il Beginnings Miniature Horse Forum)

 

[Miniv]

If the foal is an RH factor baby, the best way to find out is immediately after birth using the test that littlesteppers posted.

Symptoms include a jaundiced (yellow in the white) eye, no fever but a high heartrate, will want to sleep after ever nursing until it totally crashes.

If the test has not been done within a few hours of birth using the blood from the placenta, the best thing to do is have a blood plasma transfer and then hope for the best.

MA

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

You can also do pre-foaling tests... ask your vet for info! Its very managable if you are aware of the problem in advance

 

[vvf]

You can also do pre-foaling tests... ask your vet for info! Its very managable if you are aware of the problem in advance

What pre-foaling tests exactly, would you ask your vet about?

I have a mare that has had this problem many times.

This mare is 19 years old this year, and she had this problem when bred to 2 different stallions in earlier years.

Then the past 2 years i bred her to another stallion. She had no problems.

This year she is bred to a totally different stallion. She isn't due for a month or so.

It would sure be nice to know in advance if she will have this problem.

 

[Miniv]

Nathan,

Would like to know more info about this test. I have a good friend with a 17 year old mare who just had her first RH factor foal after years of textbook deliveries. She bred this mare to a new stallion and - boom.

Any more info would be appreciated to pass along.

MA

 

[CheyAut]

How common is this in horses?

Jessi

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

Its pretty rare... out of several hundred mares that I've foaled only two had RH, and one was suspected and never tested for (history of it in the past, so we just assumed it would happen).

I don't know exactly what the test is or where its run... I want to say University of Kentucky. Let me send an email and see if I can't figure it out more percisely.

 

[Minimor]

Once you know a mare has this problem it is simple to avoid in the future--simply make sure that you breed her only to stallions that have the same blood type as herself. That way the resulting foal is going to have the same bloodtype as his dam, and will not be affected by the antibodies she has to "foreign" bloodtypes.

 

[Little Wee Horse Farm]

After maybe putting 100 foals on the ground, we only came across this problem with one mare & that was when she was bred to a certain stallion. She didn't have the problem when bred to other boys.

I haven't seen this elsewhere here, so just a little info: You can do this test easily BEFORE you let the baby nurse. Just take a little blood from the umbical cord & mix it with some milk you've expressed out. You can do it in a cap from a film canister or any little thing you can mix in. You can use a toothpick to mix it. If the mixture gets smooth, you're ok. If it's chunky, don't let the baby nurse.

Get it some colostrum from another source. After the colostrum is completely GONE from the mom, usually about 4 days to be safe, the baby can nurse safely from its own mom. It's that first milk that is dangerous from the mare, not ALL milk from the mare. Just my 2 cents -- I'm not a vet.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

I got a responce to my questions from my ex-boss...

"The assay is performed at many labs in the US. We use the Gluck Center at UK [university of Kentucky]. They screen mare serum (or colostrum) for antibodies against red blood cell antigens. A positive test against any RBC antigen indicates that the newborn foal may at risk of neonatal isoerythrolisis, if it’s red cells carry that antigen."

Note that if the mare tests positive there is a CHANCE that the foal will react. If the test is negative, there is nothing to fear, if the test is positive, there is a good chance it'll be a problem. We did not find the test to throw a lot of false positives, and like I mentioned they run the test with every mare that comes in to foal, and out of the ones I was there for, only one tested positive. We didn't go any farther and figure out if indeed the foal DID have the problem, we just assumed that it did and treated it likewise.

 

[CheyAut]

Thanks for the info, Nathan!

Jessi