Juniberry
Member
Over the last few weeks I have nearly lost my foal she became depressed, high fever and anorexia. My vet came out daily and treated with abx and NSAID with gastroguard. After 5 days of not feeding Mum had dried up so we weaned the foal. The fever went at day 4 weaned the same day. Day 6 my foal looked like she would just lie down and die so I started force feeding antriee replacment milk. Foal started to pick up a bit but day 8 she developed ventral odema. Blood test showed very low protein, high muscle enzyme and signs of gut damage. As foal was now eating and looking brighter I carried on feeding milk and foal creep. Follow up blood test a week later showed increased protein (still half normall levels) and other levels became more normal. Looking around on the net I found a thread about equine proliferative enteropathy and one poster mentioned Lawsonia Intracellularis and suddenly every thing fell in to place. Spoken to my vet he agrees it is a likely diagnosis awaiting some more information from the vet. Lawsonia Intracellularis causes massive damage to the small intestine and this leads to very low absobtion from the small intestine.
My lively bonny foal has gone from a thriving 5 month old to looking like a feble 2-3 month old foal. My understanding is the damaged gut wall needs to regenerate and this takes months. So my question is what do I feed to help my foal out over the winter.
Currently I am using D&H Foal Creep, alfa beet and alfa A all high in protein, the creep is high in lactose. Could I feed oil or as this is digested in the small intestine will this either be a waste or risk damaging the hind gut? Is starch a risk to the healing SI for example could I feed stud mix or is the starch to high? My foal is also on haylage and grass although as it is November the grass will not have a lot in it. Should she still be on gastroguard or other gut protection agent?
Do I just accept my foal will look poor all winter and spring grass is the only way to get her to pick up.
If it is relevant she is warmblood cross TB foaled early June. She and the other horses on the stud have ben wormed regularly and she was done again 2 weeks after the illness started. I am very grateful for all advise please
My lively bonny foal has gone from a thriving 5 month old to looking like a feble 2-3 month old foal. My understanding is the damaged gut wall needs to regenerate and this takes months. So my question is what do I feed to help my foal out over the winter.
Currently I am using D&H Foal Creep, alfa beet and alfa A all high in protein, the creep is high in lactose. Could I feed oil or as this is digested in the small intestine will this either be a waste or risk damaging the hind gut? Is starch a risk to the healing SI for example could I feed stud mix or is the starch to high? My foal is also on haylage and grass although as it is November the grass will not have a lot in it. Should she still be on gastroguard or other gut protection agent?
Do I just accept my foal will look poor all winter and spring grass is the only way to get her to pick up.
If it is relevant she is warmblood cross TB foaled early June. She and the other horses on the stud have ben wormed regularly and she was done again 2 weeks after the illness started. I am very grateful for all advise please
