Tennessee Walking Horse Supplies

First time breeding, Questions about foaling.?

We are breeding our Tennessee walking horse mare to a stallion tomorrow. We have had her ultrasounded earlier today and everything is going to be ready. We are new breeders and have a trainer to help us out with everything. My mother and myself were wondering, even though foaling will be in eleven months, what is the suggested bedding? We are nearly done building our foaling stall and ‘baby-proofing’ it so that no feet can get caught anywhere. My mother is considering going with straw then pine shaveings. Our local farm supply store carries straw bales and pine shaveings in large and in small sizes of shaveings. I have been doing constant reserch but some little details you just dont find in books or online, some have to come from those with experiance..
Thanks!

Broodmares who are foaling must always be bedded on STRAW, NOT SHAVINGS. The reason for this is that the shavings will cling to the foal’s wet coat after birth, and they can cause a serious infection if they work their way into the body through the navel stump ( what’s left of the umbilical cord after birth) which could prove fatal to the foal. The infection is called navel or joint ill, and it is a kind of septicemia, or blood poisoning. Straw does’t cling to the coat, and in fact, swatches of straw can actually be used to rub the foal down and help the coat to dry. When the foal comes, you will want to treat the navel stump immediately to prevent infection, because it is an open channel into the foal’s body. To do this, invert a shot glass (like you’d use for whiskey or a liqueur) filled with 10% iodine solution over the stump of the navel. The iodine will clean and cauterize the wound, allowing it to close and heal on its own. You can buy this solution at most farm and feed stores, and also at many drug stores. Just make sure that you read the label or ask someone to make sure that you get the right stuff. Betadine is NOT strong enough, and will NOT provide the kind of protection the foal needs. Dipping of the navel stump should be repeated at least once after birth- again, the important thing is that the wound must be kept clean so it can heal.

Once the baby is about a week to ten days old, you can start to bed the stall with shavings. Prior to this, however, you will want the bedding to be straw, and it needs to be very deep ( minimum 6-8 inches, with the walls banked to prevent either mare or foal from getting cast) and kept scrupulously clean. On the subject of cleanliness, the stall needs to be free of excessive dust and cobwebs, as well as free of obvious hazards such as nails in the walls. Hangers for buckets and feeders should be rounded with smooth edges, and they need to be placed above the height of the foal’s face. ( Foals can run into and lose an eye on things like screweyes and hooks, so it’s best if they aren’t even in the stall. At the breeding farm where I used to work, we fed the mares and new babies in flat rubber tubs on the floor of the stalls, and in a specially designed creep feeder outside. )

Once your mare is checked in foal, you will want to make sure that you keep her on her normal feeding and work schedule, at least for the first 8 months or so of her pregnancy. The foal will not start to really make major nutritional demands on the mare until she is about 9 months along, so you will really not need to increase her feed in a major way until then. Feeding mares a lot of grain too early in pregnancy only makes them fat, and this can cause problems for your mare at delivery, just like it would in a human. One other thing to remember with regard to feeding is that starting about a month before she foals, you will want to add a small amount of wet bran to her feed, and then increase this gradually so that by the time the baby is born, the mare’s diet is about one third bran. This will help prevent colic and digestive problems, which can be extremely dangerous in mares who are close to foaling. And as an addendum to this, make sure that the first meal the mare eats after she foals is a bran mash, and that you continue to feed her bran for at least the first week after foaling. ( You can go back to the regular amount of bran after the first day of the foal’s life.)

Otherwise, management of a pregnant mare is largely a matter of common sense. It goes without saying that your mare will need to be kept up to date on her worming and her vaccinations ( particularly those for rhinovirus and WNV, as well as the flu and tetanus) and that she will need regular farrier visits throughout her pregnancy. If she wears shoes, she will need to have those pulled about 3 weeks to a month before she foals, to reduce the chance of injury if she accidentally steps on the baby. Grooming is all important as well, especially the mare’s underside and the area around her udder. This serves a couple of purposes- one, it gets the mare used to having this area handled and touched before the foal makes its first clumsy attempts at nursing, and two, it allows YOU to see when the mare begins to bag up. Bagging up, or filling of the udder, starts about 3 weeks to a month before foaling in most mares. The udder will become firm to the touch, and the teats will enlarge. As she gets closer to delivery, your mare will start to produce some clear colostrum ( which is the first milk the foal will get when it is born) which will gradually turn cloudy. 36 to 24 hours before delivery, the colostrum will turn completely white or opaque, and become sticky, like honey or karo corn syrup. At that point, you will also be able to see little beads of it around the mare’s nipples- this is what is known as “waxing” and it is a sign that partuition isn’t far off. There will also be other signs, such as a relaxing of the mare’s muscles in her hindquarters ( this is most visible if you look at the mare’s flanks- you will notice a definite hollow in front of the hip that wasn’t there before) and what my old coach used to call the “starving dog look”, that occurs about 12 to 18 hours before foaling. This is caused by the foal dropping down into the mare’s belly. If you see this, it’s time to bring the mare inside, and keep a very close watch on her.

Make sure that you have your foaling kit handy at this point, for you will need it shortly. Foaling kits are easy to make. Basically, you will need the following:lots of old, clean towels, 2 or 3 large, clean sponges, plenty of hot and warm water, a roll of twine, scissors, a bottle of 10% tincture of iodine solution, a shot glass for treating the foal’s navel stump, the makings for a bran mash for the mare, standard stall cleaning equipment and tools, a stopwatch or timer for timing the mare’s labor stages ( your vet will want this information if something happens which shouldn’t) your vet’s phone numbers and contact information, a bucket or another suitable container to store the afterbirth in once the mare passes it, and plenty of new straw for rebedding the stall after the baby comes. You will also want to have a tail wrap or sheath for the mare’s tail- this will keep the tail clean and out of the way during the foaling, and will help prevent infection in the mare. Lastly, you may want to ask your vet about having some Banamine on hand to give to your mare after the birth in case she has after pains. After pains can be severe in some mares, and they cause symptoms that look like a case of colic. This can interfere with the mare’s acceptance of and bonding with her new foal, and it can also prevent the baby from nursing, which is very risky to the baby.

Two other notes on the subject of foaling, from my own experiences with it ( remember, I worked on a breeding farm for over 4 years, and during that time helped with the births of lots of foals) are: first, it’s extremely important that the foal nurse, and nurse frequently, during his or her first 12 hours of life. This is because the colostrum, which is what the mare’s first milk is called, contains live antibodies which will protect the baby from infection and disease until its immune system is developed enough to do the job. A foal who doesn’t get its full share of the colostrum is at serious and even life threatening risk for disease. After the foal is 12 hours old, the chemistry of the gut changes and the antibodies are not as easily absorbed, so nursing is crucial to the baby’s survival. If your foal seems to be unable to nurse, or is uninterested in nursing, you are dealing with a very SERIOUS MEDICAL EMERGENCY !!! YOU MUST get your vet out right away !!! This brings up my second note: nursing also has benefits for the mare as well- namely, it helps her pass the placenta. It’s also critical for her health that she pass the placenta in one complete piece- a mare that retains even part of it for any length of time is at serious risk of infections, and she can also develop founder as a result. ( Founder was what killed the racehorse, Barbaro, back in January of this year.)

This is the reason why your mare will need to be seen by the vet on the morning after the baby is born. The vet will examine them both to make sure they are healthy, and that the mare has, in fact, passed the placenta normally. He will also look at the baby to make sure it is healthy and nursing normally, and will probably give the foal a tetanus shot. The vet will give you information on what to expect as the foal grows- as well as setting up a time schedule for the foal’s shots, deworming, and farrier visits with you. Meanwhile, I want to say good luck to you, and congratulations on your decision to breed your mare !!!!

Beech Brook Farm

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