Emergency Care for Orphan Foals
Karen E. Davison, Ph.D., Manager – Equine Tech Service, Land O’Lakes Purina Feed

A mare’s death is a tragedy that will be compounded if her foal isn’t quickly placed on an effective feeding and care program.

To help orphans through the tough early stages of life without momma, LOL Purina Feeds developed an emergency feeding program through work at Longview Animal Research Center.

Mares can produce 35 pints or more of milk/day and foals nurse as often as every half hour. An emergency diet consisting of Kid Milk Replacer, Pro Nurse or Mare’s Match products and Omolene 300 or Strategy can carry orphan foals through the first three months of life. Make sure the Pro Nurse or Kid Milk Replacer is non-medicated.

Starting at birth, here are the five steps of an emergency feeding program:

• Day1 : The first and most important step is getting colostrum into newborn foals within the first 24 hours of life. This “first milk” gives foals the antibodies they need to temporarily build up their immune systems to fight disease. Check with your veterinarian right away to see if foals should receive medication of any kind.
• Days 2 – 7 : After getting that initial colostrum in the foals, the next step is to get them to accept milk replacer and gradually increase daily intake. Mix Kid Milk Replacer, Pro Nurse or Mare’s Match according to label directions. Start foals at 4 – 6 pints per day and progressively increase intake up to 4 quarts a day. Feed 4 – 6 times daily.
• Days 7 – 28: Continue feeding the milk replacer at the rate of 4 quarts a day, 4-6 feedings daily. Foals this age will probably start nibbling at dry feed, so make Omolene 300 or Strategy available throughout the day. They should be eating a minimum of 1 lb of dry feed per month of age per day.
• Days 28 – 42: When foals reach one month, start weaning them off milk replacer and put more emphasis on dry feed. Gradually reduce foal intake and feeding frequency of milk replacer and eventually drop it out of the diet completely. Keep feeding the dry feed throughout the day, increasing it gradually as the foal will eat it, up to a maximum of 5 lbs per day.
• Days 42 – 90: Maintain a 5 lb per day feeding of Omolene 300 or Strategy, fed in several small meals per day. Later during this period, begin feeding Equine Jr or high quality hay at 1% of body weight. After 90 days of age, follow a recommended feeding program for weanling foals.

Throughout the first three months, keep a sharp eye out for health problems in orphan foals and, unless your veterinarian recommends otherwise, follow a normal health and immunization program.

This emergency orphan feeding program can’t totally mimic the nutrition and feeding behavior a suckling foal would have by nursing their mom. Since it takes some time for the foals’ digestive tracts to fully adapt to infrequent feedings and early feeding of dry feed, growth may be slowed, hair coat may become a little rough and some foals may develop a “hay belly”. But, the research proven bottom line is this program helps orphans survive the trauma of loosing their mother early in life. Foals should not be “stunted” when reared on this program and should catch up with their peers by the time they are a year old.

It is important to understand that this program was developed under the assumption that mares are lost very early. Foals can be switched to this program at any time, but the switch will require considerable effort and foals may be stressed more after being with mares longer.