Hi, I am in shock. Just lost one of our best mares, no warning and very sudden.
Colt is two months old. He is quiet right now out with other moms and foals. Looking for hints, ideas etc.
Picked up both the powder and pellet milk replacer. He was eating some with his mom. I feel like I am in a fog, so any suggestions on what has worked for you would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Oh no! I’m so sorry!!! That is just the worst.
Here is my experience with something similar: Several years ago we had an 8 week old foal become separated from his mother while we were out of town for a few days. When we came back and discovered the problem, she would not take him back.
We put him with a “nanny mare” during the day, and at night he would come in for Equine Junior, Foal Lac pellets and tons of probiotics. He would stay in overnight, have breakfast of the same Jr/Foal Lac/probiotics mixture, then go out for the day onto pasture with the mare.
He absolutely thrived. You would have never known he’d had such a setback. He grew into a beautiful, big, healthy boy, and never had a moment’s trouble - no potbelly, no unthriftiness, etc.
Thanks Gretchen. I am hoping the tests yield some answers. It won’t make it better, just a little easier to understand.
Did you make the mixture into a “mash” kind of thing? The colt seems pretty happy out with his friends and their moms now, but I am worried about tonight.
I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. We experienced the exact same situation 3 1/2 weeks ago when one of our broodmares coliced and was dead 2 hours later. Our foal was just 1 month old at the time.
The poor little guy was just so lost, it broke my heart as this broodmare was the extremely overprotective one. She was just beginning to loosen up a little bit but he was still not interacting with our other foals. I was extremely concerned with his lack of “social skills” but he has been doing very well.
We could not get him to drink any milk replacer so started out by sprinkling it on his pelleted feed. We were able to get some milk replacer pellets several days later and have been supplementing him with that. Surprisingly we spotted him last week nursing from another source. He has discovered that while his 1/2 sister nurses from her mother, he can also nurse through the mare’s back legs! He is turned out with the other broodmares and foals throughout the day and brought into his own stall at night.
My daughter slept in his stall with him for the first two nights. He curled up beside her like a big puppy. I’m not sure how many people would go that far but I think it made both of them feel better!
We’re keeping a close eye on him and so far so good.
If you can keep him with his contemporaries, the herd he already knows, he will be SO much better off than if you isolate him.
He will, however, need a lot of extra nutrition now that he has no mama to nurse. At two months, he might be OK to forgo the whole learn-to-nurse-from-a-bottle routine. I hope so, because bottle feeding is another behavioral can of worms. It can be circumvented by using an igloo cooler with an attached nipple. I have raised calves from 6 weeks with no bottle, but nutrition for a ruminating calf is not the same as for a foal. I simply fed very nutritional-density feed that also contributed to the health of the GI trace. For a calf, that was calf manna, sweet COB, alfalfa pellets, rice bran and beet pulp, with free choice very high quality orchardgrass and/or alfalfa hay. Hopefully you can have your vet help you with, or possibly provide you with a referral to, design a feed program that will work well.
Anyway, I would get the vet’s help with nutrition questions, and perhaps your little guy will need to be brought in twice a day, or overnight, to get his special foal chow. But for best results, I would have him out with the other mares and foals as much as possible.
Thanks for all the suggestions. The little guy spent the remainer of the day in his regular pasture with the other mares and foals. He did pretty well, a little calling, etc, but otherwise not too bad.
He is in for the night and not happy of course. Expected, but still heartwrenching. I will be checking on him throughout the night. Hopefully he will settle down a little and eat!
I am so so sorry as well … 
A friend of mine a few years back had to emergency wean their 2 1/2 month old due to the mare’s ill health and the medications she was on and since he was already eating from Mom’s bucket with her each meal, they simply upped the rations of what he had been eating with her at the time and he did fine as well
Good luck with your baby …
I had a sort-of-orphan foal experience and wrote about it in this thread.
People suggested FoalAide and Immunall - I ordered both and fed them. No idea if they worked or not, but at least it made me feel better!
Our foal wouldn’t drink milk either from a bottle or a bucket, so we made a paste/mash out of the powder and soaked alfalfa cubes. Then we got the pellets which she hated, so I ground them in a coffee grinder and again mixed with the alfalfa mash.
Also, I fed her 5-6 times a day at first, as that is much more similar to how they eat from a mare. Then gradually reduced the number of feedings per day. Be careful that they eat it all, as the milk replacer will go bad very quickly between warm weather and flies.
Good luck and sorry to hear about your mare.
At 2 months, he could be getting pretty much free choice Foals First Starter and Creep from Progressive if you can get that. I think Buckeye has a similar product.
At this point he doesn’t NEED a milk replacer, though having a diet made up partially of that wouldn’t hurt.
I’m so sorry you are going through this, I cannot imagine
So sorry I just had to put one of my mares down Friday and her colt is two months old as well. My little guy was already eating grain, grass, and hay really well (stealing from his Mama) so I am just giving him his own bucket now. I only have one other foal this year and she is only 9 hours older then he is. Initially I had them three of them (both babies and Mama) out together but Mama was rather unkind to the orphan colt so today I went ahead and weaned the filly so both babies are together.
They are honestly doing great, ate dinner really well and are totally “leaning” on each other. I think the fact that my colt has been able to have his buddy with him has made this tremendously easier on him.
I lost a mare last year with a 45 day old foal. It was extremely sudden an expected as well. The foals whinny after we put the mare down still haunts me
Anyways, the first few days were rough. The filly was confused. I brought in a yearling and put them together (I tried the filly out with the others mares and foals, and she was a loner). I mixed Mare’s Match pellets with Equine Junior, and basically offered that free choice. I had plenty of high quality orchard grass hay available too, but only the yearling really touched that. She did get kind of that “orphan” look for a bit, but looked a lot better by 6 months old. I wish I would have done probiotics, I don’t know why I didn’t. I didn’t have any health problems with her at all. Today she is a BIG healthy yearling, and you’d never know there was anything different with her upbringing than there was with any of the others.
Well, it is 1:30 am and I just checked the little guy. He is ok, not really interested in the milk replacer yet. He is picking at his hay and drinking a little water. He is fairly quiet in the stall, just looks lost. The vet will be out in the morning to check on him.
I will turn him out in the morning with the other mare and foal. That went pretty well this afternoon, the other mare is really gentle and lets him tag along.
I second the person who said how terrible that whinny was after you put the mare down. I have been doing this a long time, but that was something I will never forget.
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and stories. Obviously I can’t sleep and having others who understand is a comfort.
I had a foal orphaned at 1 month. My vet said she did not need milk replacer, just regular pellets. However, after 5-6 weeks she was looking poor, and I consulted with a nutritionist who said to add the milk replacer - which I did until she was almost 4 months old.
Initially I put the filly out with a yearling gelding, from whom she tried to nurse (big disappointment for her, and a mystery to him). Eventually I put them in with the herd, and she managed (though scared at first).
Poor thing, I feel sorry for her still, though she had a basically brave and confident nature, which stood her well.
I’d definitely supplement with a milk replacer, and ulcer-gard or similar, for at least a few weeks. And the socialization is critical. I’m glad the other mare and foal are happy mates for her. And multiple small meals, as suggested previously - best for her digestion.
So sorry for your loss of the mare, and best wishes with the wee one.
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