Foal Management

This article will discuss foal management during the preweaning period.  Before weaning, foals are rapidly growing and can gain 2.5 to 3 pounds per day with good management.  The foal is interacting more with its environment and is becoming independent.  Below are several management topics to optimize health and future productivity of the foal.

Gentling and Halter Breaking

There are several advantages to handling a foal while it is still with its mother.  Usually, successful methods work on the principle of rewarding the foal for submitting to human touch and yielding to pressure.  Things to remember are that younger foals are smaller and easier to control.  Gentling the foal before weaning should lessen trauma and decrease possible injuries at weaning.  University studies suggest that handling during preweaning period increases the foal’s manageability and learning ability.  Foals can be halter broken after they are at least 1 week old.

Creep Feeding

Mare’s milk may not be enough energy to meet the needs of a 4 month old or older foal, so consider creep feeding.  Providing a balanced feed after 2 months of age will increase preweaning growth and get the foal used to eating feed.  Use feed formulated for foals to provide the correct nutrition.  Introduce foals to small amounts (2-3 pounds/feeding) and then gradually increase the feed until available free-choice.  Use or build a creep feeder to keep the mare and other older animals out to allow the foals to get the feed. 

 

Health Care

A horse is at the highest risk of disease for the first year of life.  Their immune system is not adequate to produce antibodies until at least 2 months of age.  The foal is depending on colostrum (received at birth) from its mother to protect it from diseases.  Diarrhea and septicemia are the biggest disease risks the first week of life.  Diarrhea can cause dehydration of the foal.  Septicemia or joint/navel ill is caused by bacteria in the blood and can cause death.  It is usually seen 3-4 days after birth.  Signs include depression, decrease nursing, diarrhea and excessive sleeping.  Other health problems include respiratory infections and pneumonia. 

Proper management of the mare and foal will reduce disease potential in foals.  Place mares in foaling area 30 days prior to foaling to give time to develop antibodies to organisms in their environment.  Make sure mares have been vaccinated and dewormed and use your veterinarian to make recommendations on when is the best time for your horses.  It is best to foal outside on a clean, grassy pasture, but if you foal in a stall make sure it is clean and disinfected between mares. 

Consult your vet about vaccination and deworming programs for foals.  Also perform regular hoof care on foals.  Cuts, bruises, and scrapes are common health problems in foals less than 6 months of age.  If possible, keep mares and foals without halters so they do not get tangled up or caught on objects.  Maintain a safe pasture environment for the curious young foals.

You have a big investment in your mare and foal, so make sure you are protecting them both and working towards having a friendly, confident foal that will hopefully have less stress when it is time to wean them.  For more in-depth reading on this topic, check out the article Foal Management During the Preweaning Period  from Alabama Cooperative Extension and eXHorses.

Winterizing Your Barn and Horses

The temperatures are beginning to drop, telling us winter will soon be here. Start now to prepare for harsh weather by making sure your barn and horses will be ready when it hits.

Start with the barn by making sure there are no leaks or rust in the roof and windows. Make sure doors can be closed tightly to keep out strong winds but be sure windows can be easily opened and closed to provide proper ventilation if the horses have to stay in their stalls. Wrap and/or insulate pipes, spouts, and faucets to prevent water from freezing. Have a tool, like a hammer, that is easy to get to when checking water troughs and breaking ice. If your horses are outside all the time, provide them with an area to get out of the bad conditions, like a run-in shed. Stock up on feed and hay. Hay supplies could run out or prices may increase and bad driving conditions could prevent you from getting to the feed store. Clean the barn and get rid of cobwebs, dust, and other debris that could be a potential fire hazard. Check fences and gates to ensure they are in proper working order.

Be sure your horses are up-to-date on their fall shots to help prevent respiratory issues during the winter. Getting your horse to drink an adequate amount of water during the winter is a challenge. Encourage them to drink by providing warm water. Giving them salt or electrolytes can also help. When deciding whether or not to put a blanket on your horse it's better to wait for them to get a thick coat before putting a blanket on. Putting a blanket on too early will discourage hair from growing. If you keep your horses on pasture and there is bad weather, provide them with good quality, free-choice hay to help keep them warm. When they eat hay their digestive system works slower and generates a lot of heat keeping them warmer than if they were eating grain with limited access to hay. If your horses have to be locked in their stalls for an extended period of time, be sure to provide plenty of fresh air. If the footing allows, turn them out when you're picking their stalls to allow them to stretch their legs.

Don't forget about your farm equipment. Inspect hydraulic, fuel, and electrical systems on all equipment, along with the ignition, brakes, exhaust, heater, defroster, and windshield wipers. Make sure there is enough anti-freeze in the system. Have proper fuel additives for diesel tractors for when the temperatures get below zero. Try to always keep fuel tanks full. If you have a generator, check to make sure that is in working order. If your electricity does go out and you do not have a generator, keep some water stored in the barn so it doesn't freeze to ensure you can still get water to the horses.

If you have any more questions about how to winterize your barn and horse, contact your local Extension Agent.

Hay Supplies

Summer vacations and pool parties are over.  Fall is upon us and hopefully horse owners have already planned for winter feed supplies.  If not, you will need to do so as soon as possible.  Of course, if you have a winter grass, that is the most economical way to feed them.  If you don’t have enough grass to last all winter or don’t have the equipment to cut your own hay, you should have already purchased it to store during the summer months.  In most years, around January or February, our Extension offices are flooded with calls from livestock owners desperately seeking hay.  That time period is the unfortunate gap between where hay farmers are sold out and the summer grass has not come on yet.

Whether you have a way to store your hay on your farm, can store it with someone else, or just need to stack it in the field, it is best to get your supply now while hay is still available.  With the weather we’ve been having this year, we will probably have another shortage again next spring, so be prepared.  If you cannot find enough hay, you may need to reduce your number of horses.  You can locate hay providers at these websites:  http://www.ncagr.gov/hayalert/ or http://onslow.ces.ncsu.edu/files/library/67/HayDirectory.pdf.  The best way to estimate how much hay you will need is to keep record every year on how many horses you have fed for how many days with how many bales.  You can then adjust accordingly based off of shortages or surpluses.  If you don’t have a record or are raising horses for the first time, you can estimate how much hay you might need below.

You need to first figure out the number of days that hay is required.  This will vary from around 90 to 150 days, depending on the climate in your area and the amount of stockpiled forage available.  When estimating quantity of hay, it is best to obtain the average weight of several bales and then multiply this times the number of bales.  Remember that large bales stored outside may have substantial losses during storage and feeding, which must be taken into consideration.  Remember that estimating feed requirements is just that, only a quick estimate. To be more accurate you need to consider exact nutritional requirements for the size of animal and stage of reproduction or growth desired.  Also, feed supply can be more accurately estimated if you have a forage analysis to determine the exact nutrient content.

A good quick estimate for adult horses is that they need about half a square bale of hay per day.  So if you feed 2 horses for 150 days, you would need approximately 150 square bales or around 10 round bales.  This is considering the average weight of your square bales is 55 lbs and the average weight of your round bales is 825 lbs.     

We will be more than happy to help you with more in depth calculations and numbers specific to your farm to estimate hay needs for your horses.  However, we would much rather help you calculate hay supply needs now, then to struggle to help you find hay in the spring.  If you need help with hay estimations, please call your local Extension Agent for assistance.

Why Does My Horse Need A Dentistry?

Guest article from: Heidi Hart, DVM and Becky Scarlett, DVM

This is a common question we get from owners when we recommend doing annual dentistries.  Therefore, the focus of this article is to explain the basic anatomy of the horse’s mouth so you will know why your horse needs a dentistry, when a dentistry is needed, and how we check a horse’s mouth.

As we all know, horses eat grass.  They have front teeth (incisors) that you see when you part their lips, that are used for grasping and tearing grass, hay, and feed.  They also have canine teeth (usually only present in males, although some mares have them too) that are in the space behind the incisors, and are used for fighting. Most horses also have wolf teeth, which are tiny vestigial teeth on the upper jaw just in front of the large cheek teeth.  We don’t really know the purpose of the wolf teeth, and it is generally recommended to have them removed so that they do not interfere with the bit or bridle.  Lastly, they have cheek teeth that you cannot easily see, that extend all the way back to underneath your horse’s eyes.  These teeth do the heavy lifting, so to speak, and grind down the grass, hay and feed that the horse consumes to smaller, more easily digestible pieces.  The majority of dental issues occur with the cheek teeth, and therefore, cannot be seen without a thorough exam. 

The cheek teeth (or premolars and molars) get worn down by all of the hard work of grinding coarse forage.  For this reason, they grow continuously throughout the horse’s life.  In fact, some horses even manage to outlive their teeth, and will start losing their cheek teeth in their mid-twenties.  The lower jaw of the horse is narrower than the upper jaw.  Therefore, as the cheek teeth wear down, sharp points can develop on the outer edge of the upper jaw and inner (tongue) edge of the lower jaw.  Horses also tend to develop hooks or points on the back edge of the last lower cheek teeth and the front edge of the upper first cheek teeth.  These sharp points can cause ulcers in your horse’s mouth that are painful and lead to many of the symptoms you may see (dropping feed, resistance to the bit, head turning while eating, etc.).  However, horses, like us, have different pain thresholds and some can have severe ulcers in their mouths and never show any of the signs listed above.  This leads us to our second point…when does your horse need a dentistry?

Generally, we recommend your horse have their first dentistry around the age of 2 or 3 years when they are likely going to begin training.  This way we can see if their permanent teeth are erupting normally, remove wolf teeth, and remove sharp points so that the young horse is not in any oral pain as training starts.  We then recommend doing dentistries on an annual basis.  However, there are sensitive horses that need it more frequently and other horses that wear their teeth differently and need it less frequently.

Unfortunately, the only way to be thorough in checking a horse’s teeth is to use a full mouth speculum which keeps the mouth open and allows all of the teeth to be visualized. This is critical because often the back teeth have severe issues that cannot be determined by pulling the tongue out the side of the mouth and looking at the first cheek teeth.  Some horses allow the speculum to be placed, but others are resistant to it without sedation.  With that said, we will often look at the first cheek teeth to determine if there is an obvious need, but be aware that there are limitations to this sort of quick check.  Because of this, we recommend doing dentistries annually and if we realize after a year or two that your horse can go longer, then we can extend the interval between dentistries.

So what do we actually do when we perform a dentistry?  First, we sedate the horse so that we can do a thorough job and so the horse is relaxed and comfortable.  Then we put a full mouth speculum on the horse and examine the mouth using our hands so we can feel the points and detect other abnormalities.  We use a bright light to visualize the teeth, tongue and cheeks.  We use power dental floats, drill-looking pieces of equipment with rotary bits, to grind the sharp points smooth and to level any long teeth.  Next we address issues like large hooks in the front or back, wavemouths, or missing teeth.  Many owners are concerned that the floating might be painful or uncomfortable to their horse, however, the nerves in a horses cheek teeth do not extend above the gum line.  Therefore, horses don’t have the same sensitivity in their teeth that we have, and they are more concerned about the noise and vibration of the equipment.  After we are finished with the cheek teeth, the speculum is removed and the front incisors are inspected and reduced if needed and the tartar is removed from the canine teeth, if present.  Different veterinarians may perform these in different order, but all of these areas are addressed each time a dentistry is done.  This is a description of a routine dentistry.  Horses may have dental problems, such as cavities, diastemas, fractured teeth, etc., which are beyond the scope of this article.

Dental health is very important to the overall health of your horse.  Keeping your horse’s mouth in optimal condition will help improve feed efficiency, and can help in reducing the risk of choke or esophageal obstruction.  Discomfort and training problems may also be avoided by eliminating sharp points that can hurt the cheek and tongue, and hooks which can lock mobility of the jaw.  Having routine dentistries performed regularly can help prevent more serious dental problems and help your horse live a longer life.