Tinks81
Well-Known Member
I am so sorry xx hope little Silver does you and her brother proud - you have done amazing xx
Oh goodness me! I'm so sorry! RIP little man I hate to say this, but is there any risk to Silver re.the same problem? It's just that I know that often once a mare has been haemolytic once, she often is again. You've been through enough without me throwing a curve ball like this into the mix, but I had to say it I really hope that Silver continues to do well and that the mare is OK too.
Could it be the lack of colostrum? Almost certainly not. Colostrum deficiency shows its effects, generally, but not until a few weeks after birth, when the recipient begins to show the effects of inadequate protection.
All those lambs, calves and foals, who receive an inadequate supply, will generally go down with joint ill, or a similar, and horrible complaint.
I'm so sorry that you've lost your foal. I was amazed at your levels of, determination and common sense. I would suggest that there was nothing which you could have done which would have saved your foal. The problems which the poor chap faced, were before birth, and not after.
Go and sleep, you've earned it!!
Alec.
Please don't apologise! The main reason for starting this thread was to see if anyone else had any ideas or experiences we could draw on, so suggestions are always welcome.
It is a question we asked ourselves. The vet didn't seem concerned and she's showing absolutely no signs - I've just been and taken some video of her having a little canter in the barn (both she an Mum are looking just fine and Mum's coped very well). They weren't identical, so it's likely that they had different blood types, clearly fortunate under the circumstances.
One thing - they both received colostrum which we had in store from two other mares. Neither of those mares have had foals with haemolytic anaemia, but I'm not sure if the antibodies can be present anyway, or if it's specifically a reaction to the foal's blood which causes the antibodies to be produced. What I'm wondering is whether it could have been that colostrum which was the contributary factor. I know that NI (if that was the cause of his haemolytic anaemia) is more prevalent in TBs and one of the donor mares is a TB.
Does anyone have any ideas?
I used to work on a stud and we used to actually milk the mare when she first has the foal after its had the first drink and then freeze some off the colostrum and label it with the mares name, we had a collection in the freezer from each mare so if any problems occured again there was some colostrum and milk from each mare saved.Thank you, Alec. The question I have is more about whether it could have been antibodies in the donor mares' colostrum rather than the mother's, which caused the reaction.
If not, then I definitely wouldn't consider using that stallion again, and the mare has definitely produced a haemolytic response, which is something we need to be aware of in the future.
It's a moot point really, but given that we have a small mare herd and might be in a situation where we have to give donor colostrum in the future, it would be useful to know if there's more chance that using colostrum from certain mares in certain foals could produce that reaction. If we know we have this problem, then in future it might be best to cut straight to plasma transfer rather than running the risk.
I am pretty sure that foals can get NI from donated colostrum
IME that's never been the case, so if it is, it must be quite rare.
I could be wrong, but the reason I say this is because the NICU in the USA where I was in April had a case a few years ago in an orphan foal. It only came up in conversation with the staff there because of a discussion about properly labelling stored colostrum - the orphan foal received colostrum from a pot that wasn't labelled, and the staff did not know which mare it had come from, so they had to throw away the entire stock of frozen colostrum in case they caused more NI in other foals.
I would be really interested to find out more about this, just don't have time to do the research myself at the moment! After finals I will try to send an email to the neonatology professor who taught me, he will know the answer (he knows the answer to everything about foals!)
One is up, almost unaided now, and we're hoping for the best. The other is hanging in there, taking a bottle and responsive, but not keen to get on her feet just yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRfSJD1ygZU