Orphan foal, any special needs?

[ECarr]

![]( have been looking for a foal for a while with certain lines… This little girl is bred Doc Quixote and Poco Bueno on top and Doc’s Lynx on the bottom. She lost her mom the second day and has been an orphan… She is getting super care and I wondered if there was anything special I need to do for her when she gets here… She will be coming in the spring.

Here she is at 3 weeks old… She is cutting bred to the hilt and that is hopefully going to be her future!

[IMG]http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j312/dusty205/annie2_zps7674014e.jpg)

[Bluey]

The most important, other than her health, is that she be around horses that teach her horse socialization.

If she has not had that, you may have a handful there as she grows up and may end up not respecting humans in a dangerous way, horses being so much bigger than we are and can get flattened so easily if a horse was careless.

Being a filly, you get a pass on this somewhat, but also think that, if you ever want to keep her with other horses or breed her, she really needs to know how to be a horse and speak horse language, or the experience can be miserable for her if she then has to learn, once grown, if she ever learns it at all.

Here is one article on this:

http://www.usask.ca/wcvm/herdmed/applied-ethology/Bottle-raised%20males%20can%20be%20very%20dangerous.pdf

[ECarr]

Thank you… She is currently being pastured with some other foals that were born around the same time… She is almost 6 months now… The breeder is doing a wonderful job with her… She is going to be pastured with my two old mares… As she is smaller than her half siblings around the same age.

[ECarr]

I don’t think she was bottle feed by hand for long… They put up a huge bottle with nipple in her stall for her to nurse on herself. Out of the 3 foals, she is at the bottom of the pile…

[Bluey]

Good, the breeder was probably knowing how to handle such foals.

It is always good to be forewarned and go into this with a plan in mind and asking questions, as you are.

If she lost her mother at one day old, your vet will tell you how to handle her best as far as vaccinations, since she may not have had enough maternal immunity to help build her own immune system the easy way.
He may want to work on a different vaccination protocol than if it was a naturally raised foal in that respect.

We had one mare die and the foal was barely 3 weeks old, that we had to raise on a bottle and then transferred to nursing from a milk goat up on a bale of straw.
We kept her with an old mare and then at five months weaned her with the other foals.

Even then, she was a bit different than others as she was very, very quiet and secure, nothing bothered her, but if something did, unlike the others, she may plow right thru you like you were not there.

We had to work on that for a while, but she did come out of it and when we sold her as a two year old she was fine and went on to run like any other race horse, they told us.
She happen to be one of our last foals, before we quit breeding and running, decades ago now, that is why we didn’t go on to train and race her ourselves.

That was her, the bay in the upper left:

[Kyzteke]

You might get more info on the Breeding Forum…lots of posts about “orphan care” there. Meanwhile I’d like to mention that having an orphan should NOT mean a smaller size if the foal’s nutritional needs are met properly.

So this foal should match her genetics in terms of size.

One of my foundation broodies was orphaned at 3 wks and was over 17hh at 4.

[SuckerForHorses]

So are you not breeding your mare now?

[ECarr]

I haven’t decided… Most likely yes, but we will see… I have another incentive fund broodmare that I will be breeding…

[ECarr]

Where is the breeding forum?