Care and Knowledge
Care and Knowledge
Help your Foal Grow with Proper Nutrition
A healthy foal will grow rapidly, gaining in height, weight and strength almost before
your eyes. From birth to age two, a young horse can achieve 90 percent or more of
its full adult size, sometimes putting on as many as three pounds per day. Feeding
young horses is a balancing act, as the nutritional start a foal gets can have a
profound affect on its health and soundness for the rest of its life.
At eight to
ten weeks of age, mare's milk alone may not adequately meet the foal's nutritional
needs, depending on the desired growth rate and owner wants for a foal. As the foal's
dietary requirements shift from milk to feed and forage, your role in providing the
proper nutrition gains in importance. Following are guidelines from the American
Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) to help you meet the young horse's nutritional
needs:
1. Provide high quality roughage (hay and pasture) free choice.
2. Supplement
with a high quality, properly balanced grain concentrate at weaning, or earlier if
more rapid rates of gain are desired.
3. Start by feeding one percent on a foal's
body weight per day (i.e., one pound of feed for each 100 pounds of body weight),
or one pound of feed per month of age.
4. Weigh and adjust the feed ration based on
growth and fitness. A weight tape can help you approximate a foal's size.
5. Foals
have small stomachs so divide the daily ration into two to three feedings.
6. Make
sure feeds contain the proper balance of vitamins, minerals, energy and protein.
7.
Use a creep feeder or feed the foal separate from the mare so it can eat its own
ration. Try to avoid group creep feeding situations.
8. Remove uneaten portions between
feedings.
9. Do not overfeed. Overweight foals are more prone to developmental orthopedic
disease (DOD).
10. Provide unlimited fresh, clean water.
11. Provide opportunity for
abundant exercise.
The reward for providing excellent nutrition and conscientious
care will be a healthy foal that grows into a sound and useful horse.
For more information
about providing proper nutrition for your foal, talk with your equine veterinarian
and ask for the "Foal Growth" education brochure provided by the AAEP in conjunction
with Education Partners Bayer Animal Health and Purina Mills.
Additional information
about foal nutrition can also be found on the AAEP's horse health Web site, www.myHorseMatters.com.
Reprinted
with permission from the American Association of Equine Practitioners.
Little Hawk Farm All Rights Reserved 2012