Early foaling - no milk

[Bats79]

Mare presented mid day today (Sunday 18th, Jan) with what I thought was the foal “moving around” - absolutely no mammary development. Mare service date was Feb 28

Two hours later she was on the ground and delivered a red bag.

Foal didn’t breath but my brother was able to resuscitate (he has powerful lungs) - don’t know if it was a good thing or not because the foal isn’t well.

So everyone will do what they can for the foal but i"m interested in people’s experience with a mare starting to produce milk. In 40 years and 160 foals this is the first time I’ve had a mare with no milk at all.

Would anyone be recommending domperidone or had any experiences with it. I’ve used it once but it wasn’t to try and bring on colostrum (although I realise we only have 36-48 hours for that to be of value and the foal will get plasma anyway).

Edited to add - foal died after 5 hours without ever standing and sucking. He was on antibiotics and a few other things but his temperature wouldn’t lift above 35.5 C (95.9 F) which is way below viable.

However, after 4 hours the mare started to produce quality colostrum - the vet tested it out of interests sake.

[AKB]

Has the vet seen the foal? If the foal has any kind of infection, the foal needs immediate care. Do you have frozen colostrum that you can give and milk powder that you can mix up and bottle feed? If you have a good vet hospital nearby, taking the mare and foal there right now may be your best option. Newborn foals get very sick, very fast, if everything isn’t just right.

[Bats79]

[QUOTE=AKB;7963479]
Has the vet seen the foal? If the foal has any kind of infection, the foal needs immediate care. Do you have frozen colostrum that you can give and milk powder that you can mix up and bottle feed? If you have a good vet hospital nearby, taking the mare and foal there right now may be your best option. Newborn foals get very sick, very fast, if everything isn’t just right.[/QUOTE]

Please which part of 160 foals over 40 years didn’t you get ? I said the foal was being cared for (and yes it is very sick) - I am asking about the fact that the mare has no milk. If we are lucky enough that the foal makes it is the mare going to have milk - in anyone elses experience has their mare gone on to produce milk or not? The vet says in their experience either way.

This, strange though it seems, is the first time I’ve had a mare with no milk.

[Texarkana]

I find it amazing you’ve never seen this happen in 40 years… sometimes it’s a result of early foaling, but in the US, it’s quite commonly it’s related to fescue toxicity.

Your vet is right-- it can go either way. But definitely start on the domperidone; it usually works in these instances. It is highly unlikely you will “bring on” colostrum, I wouldn’t even be hoping for that. Find frozen colostrum or do plasma. Personally, I’ve never seen a mare would couldn’t be stimulated to at least make some milk. Occasionally you have some who never make enough milk, though.

Also-- is the foal well enough to nurse? If not, you definitely want to milk the mare several times a day, even if you’re getting little to nothing. You can refrigerate/freeze and safe anything you get. If nothing else, warm compress her teats using a wash rag a few times a day to stimulate a foal nursing.

Well wishes for your foal!

[Bats79]

Thank you Texarkana. We don’t have fescue in my part of Australia as anything other than a lawn grass and I’ve only ever read about fescue toxicity on forums/info sheets. But I will look into it to see if it could have contributed. This mare has never had a milk problem before.

The mare answered the question herself and was able to give 100ml colostrum after 4 hours and was producing fully by 12 hours.

Unfortunately the foal only lived 5 hours and was never in a position to suck from her but I now have a litre of colostrum for the beginning of next season (touch wood not needed).

[Texarkana]

So sorry for your loss.

[cyriz_s_mom]

Sorry for your loss. Sometimes, foaling season sucks…I don’t care how long you’ve been doing it. Hope the mare is okay. I’m sure you will be watching her closely for a few days after such a stressful delivery.

[Daventry]

Sorry for your loss. As a side not, we had a maiden mare last year that had no milk after foaling. We gave her a shot of oxytocin and she finally let her milk down.

Edit: Oops, just noticed that you stated mare had no mammary development at all. Our mare did. Her bag was just hard and we were unable to express any milk.

[Bats79]

Breeding is such a rewarding and scary thing. Only 9 days early the mother of this mare produced her 8th foal in 12 years.

For the first time she foaled at 5pm in the afternoon while the myotherapist was treating a horse. So we abandoned the gelding to watch that “happy foaling” only to experience one of those “Oh No” moments.

For a moment during the delivery I thought she had placenta previa but quickly realised she didn’t and that some of the vulva wall was protruding. After the foal was successfully delivered the protrusion kept developing into a grapefruit sized haematoma which proceeded to rupture in my hands and bleed like an artery.

https://scontent-a-nrt.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10933842_10203501161942733_8768817821685207733_n.jpg?oh=099ee186ec6ebadad025f45a1c425add&oe=55269949

I think because the mare was still have contractions the blood was really spurting - so we took it in turns (3 of us) to pinch off the heamatoma of a mare with a newborn foal to worry about while we tried to get the emergency vet.

Touch screen phone and hands covered in blood do not work together! The vet was very doubtful that he would arrive in time and said to me later he was waiting for the call to say that it was all over before he got there.

So we swapped hands as each person cramped up and hoped the vet would get there before dark because we couldn’t move the mare without triggering more bleeding and then it just stopped. The vet refused to touch it because the clot was holding and he didn’t want to risk dislodging it. Thankfully it has held and she healed up extremely quickly.

I wouldn’t say that I was happy at the idea of trading the mare’s health for her grandson’s but I do know which horse it would have hurt more to lose - talking from the friendship point of view.

[2enduraceriders]

So glad you saved her. I would love to see mom and baby pics.

[Bats79]

Here they are 10 days post foaling - actually this picture is about 4 days but she is now 10 days.

https://scontent-a-nrt.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10926430_10203501820119187_5448653555375673020_n.jpg?oh=da29d905d5071ee51198cec4f22fb457&oe=552B735B