New Orphaned Foal

Hello! I am new here, and I joined this forum specifically to seek advice. Down the road from me a mare was charged by a pack of wild dogs (coyotes). She ran into a fence and subsequently passed away while trying to protect her 8 week old foal. Word quickly spread this morning that the owner intended to kill the foal because he "didn't have time for an orphan".

I rushed over and he eagerly gave the foal to me. The foal seems to be skinny, but is grazing very well. I've noticed he has diarrhea, and I watched him to make sure he's drinking water and thankfully he is. The original owner said that he was given all of his regular shots as a newborn.

I am going to go to the feedstore, and I just need a helping hand in what I should purchase for him in terms of feed and supplements. I am thinking that I should get him a pelleted milk replacer and some creep feed of some sort - not to mention some Probios for the diarrhea. Am I on the right track? I've owned horses for years - just never an orphan.

I have no foal knowledge, but I googled it and I found this article
http://www.horsetackreview.com/article-display/279.html

Where ever you go, I would see if there is someone knowledgeable there that can help you pick out the correct things. But I would also go to the store with a list of things that is either said here, or you found in an article (just incase the person helping you has never dealt with this before)

I wish you and the foal lots of luck!

Last year me and a friend had three two week old orphaned foals. We feed them milk replacer pellets and gave the one stud colt Peptobismal for his runs. They turned out to be very nice horses who were very healthy. I would deworm them as soon as you can as well.

Thank you appylover - that article was very informative :) Fehrground - I've heard of using pepto, and if the diarrhea doesn't clear up by tonight I think I'm going to have to give the little guy some of it. Thank you for the suggestion!

I went ahead and put him on foal feed (Omolene 300) and I am supplementing it with Calf Manna. I gave him 10 grams of Probios as well. I offered him soaked alfalfa, but he really didn't want anything to do with it so I gave it to my other horses instead.

Here are some pictures of him that I took today:

http://i34.tinypic.com/241v9zs.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/1zvfhpj.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/20r4v81.jpg

Don't know if this should be done, but I would leave him soaked alfalfa or hay or something for him to munch on if he gets hungry.
Since he still is young he's probably not going to be as interested in it as older horses, but I would leave it there for him so he can experiment with it.
Like I said, I don't know if that should be done, i'm just going off of what I would do.

I don't know anything at all about foals, but I just had to say he's really really cute/handsome. I want him!

Congrats! Aw, he's adorable, it's nice you're taking care of him. :)

Yes, a foal should be testing grass and feed--whatever he sees momma eating-but his digestive tract is just not ready for those things as a major source of nutrition. At 2 months, you should be feeding him with a milk replacer made specifically for foals or milk replacer pellets. Grains are hard to digest to begin with even for adult horse with good teeth, so they are a very poor choice for foals who have grinding teeth.

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=608

Thank you for your kind replies :) I looked at Foal-Lac powder as a milk replacer - but it said that at 8 weeks they should be weaned to the Foal-Lac pellets. Since he's more like 10 weeks he's definitely past the bottle-feeding age thank goodness. Wouldn't you know though - that the feed store did not have any Foal Lac Pellets, only the powder. Would the Calf Manna work okay until I can locate some milk replacer pellets?

He is a real stunner! I hope he pulls thru for you, I'm sure he will.

What kind of feed stores do you have? Alot of the time my feed store will special order feed in for me.

How long ago did his mom die? He does look rather skinny for a ten week old colt. It's nice to see that he is eating grass though.