Miniature Horse Care - Newborn Foals

Right after newborn foals are born, we take a 6cc syringe and fill it several times with the mares milk

and give it to them right away. This gives the foal a boost to stand up and start sucking. It is usually

a half hour or so before the mare passes her afterbirth and she is up and down during this time.

The day after the foal is born we worm the mare and the day after that we worm the foal. Most foals

are born at night and one of their favorite hours are 10 pm to 3 am. We have a maternity watch lot

with light on it within 30 feet of the house where we can sit in a chair and watch the mares. Once

they start going into labor we then take them to the barn to deliver the foal. We have several extra large

stalls made in the middle of our barn that we use to foal out the mares. The next day we take and

move them to a regular size stall.

We keep the mares with foals in the barn for 30 days with turnout each day. It takes a few days

before the foal can see well enough to know what is what. They go mostly by sound. After they

are around 10 days old, we put a halter on them and lead them with their mothers for turnout and

also lead them back to the barn. This gets them use to being caught and having a halter put on

and being halter broke. Within this 30 day time period, they have had their feet trimmed and

had their fetlocks, chin hairs and ears trimmed out with the body clippers.

At the 30 day mark, they have their strength and stamina to be turned back out with the

breeding stallion and other mares and foals. We also worm both the mare and foal again before

turning them back out.