Here is our little boy at 48 hours old. It looks like his inverted lower lid did not resolve on its own, so we'll have the vet out tomorrow to take the next step.
Other than the eye--he seems to be doing great! He's trying to figure out those legs and how to run and buck.
He's trying to figure out how to eat his mother's hay and grain.
He's trying to figure out what it is to be a horse--a really big horse!
Mom's eating her food and Trident is gumming the bucket:
Meeting the extended family:
The sure fire source of food:
I hope you enjoy sharing my baby as much as I enjoy sharing him with you!
A draft mare (any mare really) that wants the food in a foal feeder will find a way to get it out. Don't waste your $$ buying one. If the mare does become interested in his bucket, than just hang another bucket. The other thing to do (if she will share) is to raise her feed pan 2 feet off the ground so it's a comfortable height for him and just let them eat together. He'll get plenty since she's not a chow hound.
Again...thank you! Kinsey kind of is a chow hound, but she's not against sharing with her foal. I do have extra buckets that I can hang for him if the need arises.
I'll have to think of a viable way to raise her bucket that won't be dangerous for either or easily knocked over. Even though he has his hanging bucket he still spend plenty of time bending down to get her food.
The only difference between her food and his is that hers has oil in it and his doesn't--of course the proportions are much smaller in his bucket...
If you have a second feed pan like that just flip it over and place the other one on top of it. He can't hurt himself on it like he can if you build a stand for it.
We had a fence foal feeder when we were younger, similar to the one below and my mare just gave up trying to steal from it. My dad bolted it down to the fence though, so it couldn't be dumped out or moved around. He seems to be doing fine so far though and I'm sure you'll figure something out if Kinsey decides to be a hog. Love his little beard!
The general rule is a foal should be able to eat the same number of pounds in feed that he is old. A one month old should eat 1#, a 2 month old should eat 2#... You don't need to be told that a draft colt will eat more.
depends on the feed type that you are using, however you must look out that neither the foal or the mare get more than 1 gram of starch per 100 kg of live weight per meal. all cereals are full of starch and too much starch in horse diet can cause problems. The basic idea that our nutrition course taught was that for a 500 kg horse you can only feed 1.2 kg of oats ( aprox 3 pounds) in one meal as oats are 40% starch and in 1.2 kg of oats there are 0.48 kg of starch - just about right for the horse to digest it well. for mares and foals its better to feel a lot of fibre - as I see you have alfalfa cubes and pellets etc and oil, cereal grain doesn't have to be there
Just wanted to share as I love that wee colt, he is so pretty and I wish all the best for him
We were gifted with 5 bags of Purina Ultium Mare and Foal--which we are feeding to them at a rate much lower than the suggested rate of almost 20lbs a day (15.75lbs for a 1400lb lactating mare). Our mare is 2000lb! She is currently getting 4.5lbs 2/day.
After that is gone, we will switch them to a ration balancer. I already have it on hand--TC 30%. I'll keep the alfalfa/timothy pellets/cubes (I buy whatever I can get on sale); oil; free choice coastal hay; and replace the Purina Ultium with the Triple Crown. I'll probably up the cubes/pellets and/or oil to make up the caloric difference since the TC 30 will be fed at a much lower rate. I haven't calculated how much they'll need daily, but I'm thinking that the mare will need about 2-3lbs daily of the ration balancer.
Thanks for all of the nutrition advice! I do appreciate it!
Oil does not have a place in feeding foals (really any young and growing horse). If you think about it oil is nothing more than fat. It does not provide any building blocks (protein, CHO) that promote solid growth and development. Save the oil for the mare.
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