Newborn Foals: Routine and Emergency Care

The best chance to improve the survival rate of a newborn foal, she said, is adequate advance disease prevention and planning. The disease prevention includes a comprehensive vaccination program, Zimmel told her listeners.
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Dana Zimmel, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ABVP, assistant professor of equine extension in the department of large animal clinical sciences at the University of Florida, discussed both routine and emergency care of the newborn foal at Horseman’s Day at the 50th annual American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Convention in Denver, Colo., Dec. 4-8, 2004. The best chance to improve the survival rate of a newborn foal, she said, is adequate advance disease prevention and planning. The disease prevention includes a comprehensive vaccination program, Zimmel told her listeners.

She offered these suggestions on vaccinations:

  • All pregnant mares should receive vaccination against rhinopneumonitis at the beginning of the fifth, seventh, and ninth months of pregnancy.
  • Thirty days prior to foaling, the mare should be vaccinated against the most important diseases, such as West Nile virus, Eastern and Western equine encephalitis, influenza, and tetanus. “This time frame is critical to allow the mare to generate a strong immune response that can then be passed into the colostrum. Foals are born completely naive to their environment and do not receive any immunity across the placenta. This means that all of the protective antibodies that the foal will possess are obtained from the colostrum,” she explained. “This protection will last until the foal is between four and six months of age, when the immune system is fully functional and can respond to vaccinations.”
  • The need for additional vaccinations for botulism, strangles, rabies, Potomac horse fever, and rotavirus should be discussed with the farm veterinarian.

Close observation of the mare prior to foaling is highly important, Zimmel advised. For example, if there is a vaginal discharge, it could mean that the mare has placentitis and immediate treatment might be called for to save the foal.

Still another signal that something could be going wrong, she said, is the dripping of milk in advance of foaling. Not only is this a danger signal, but it means that valuable colostrum, vital to the foal’s survival, is being lost. “That first milk is liquid gold,” she said. “If the mare is losing milk, it is wise to obtain some colostrum from another source before the foal is born.” The foal needs two liters of colostrum in the first 24 hours of its life, she said

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Les Sellnow was a prolific freelance writer based near Riverton, Wyoming. He specialized in articles on equine research, and operated a ranch where he raised horses and livestock. He authored several fiction and nonfiction books, including Understanding Equine Lameness and Understanding The Young Horse. He died in 2023.

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