Now some fun stuff, foal diarrhea.
That hind end, you're gonna see it a lot if you do a lot of foals, and
it's normal for them to have bouts of diarrhea, or what we call foal scowers
by around day ten, and the research isn't too clear what causes this.
Mom's starting to come into heat, so she's cycling her estrogen's a little bit high,
some people think there's a link with that, but
they haven't really identified it yet.
Basically, this is a normal thing.
You just want to make sure they're not gonna get dehydrated,
especially places like here in Florida.
Like today, really hot, and nasty and so, babies make sure they're getting enough
fluids, and you wanna clean their hind end and scrub them so, clean that off,
because it will burn the hair off their hind ends and but it's normal.
Now this patent urachus we talked about in the last lecture,
that if you rip that umbilical cord or
sometimes it happens on it's own, it gets cut too close to the umbilical stump.
They get this patent urachus, which the urachus is part of the umbilical
cord right here, and that's where they urinate while they're gestating.
So, and then after birth it closes.
Well, what happens is, is that doesn't close properly.
So you get urine dribbling out of that right there, and
so it can be highly irritating and then can get infected.
So you want a veterinarian to come and treat that to make sure that,
that isn't let go.
Now this last one, I debated not including this, but I think it's important
enough to include, is this thing called Neonatal Isoerythrolysis,
NI, and this is a pretty terrible thing that happens.
And basically what happens is during pregnancy there was some sort of tear and
a little bit of that foal blood circulated in mom.
So mom develops antibodies to that.
Foal's born, and then foal will consume
colostrum that has these antibodies that attacks it's own red blood cells.
That's what the immune system does, it recognizes something that's not self, and
it attacks, and so mom passes that in her colostrum.
So, it actually can result in the death of the foal and it's pretty tragic.
So you generally don't know if your mare has this until it's too late, but
the good news is if you have an NI mare, or you purchase an NI mare.
You just are aware of that, and the next time she has a foal,
you strip her colostrum, so you have to completely milk her out, and
put on a muzzle on the foal, don't let them nurse that mare's colostrum.
You want to tube them with another mare's colostrum, and after 24 hours,
you can start allowing that foal to nurse on that mom and they'll be fine.
It's just that colostrum, remember those first 12 to 24 hours
where that stomach lining absorbs those molecules.
So, it's something to be aware of and it's not fun to deal with, but
it is out there so, you should know about that.
Now if your foal does have it, or your jenny has it and
you find your foal really ill or listless.
Check those gums for color and if they're pale or yellow then you have this problem.
Get a veterinarian, try to get them some supportive care and
see if you can save that foal.
Now, I didn't want to end that lecture on that note, so
overall foals are born healthy and happy, and they are wonderful.
This is a baby on one of my projects and, we're working on mama there,
and they're the best.
They are just so fun.
I highly encourage any of you if you have an opportunity to watch a foal be born,
play with them, have fun with them, they're amazing.
It's just [SOUND], it's the best time of year for
the horse industry is when those babies start hitting the ground, and this is it.
So that's the end.
There's a picture of Secretariat in the winner circle, and if you made it this far
thank you, thank you for sticking with us, for this past six weeks.
I am really excited to be offering this class, and I really,
my goal at the beginning of this when I applied for this months ago to
do this course, was to make the world a better place for the equids, for
the horses and donkeys out there, and then in turn making their owners' lives better.
So I hope you've learned something that you can carry on in your day to day life.
So just some reminders.
Take Quiz 6 the end of the week.
Please finish your peer evals from last week,
and then if you can finish out the course surveys that would be a great help to us
the next time we offer this class.
We'll be able to change thing up possibly based on your recommendations, and
last but not least,
I have to thank my team that have helped me put this course together.
We've been working on this for going on five months now and
Angie Nicholson, who has been huge in developing this course.
She's the one really behind the scenes, putting this together, building
the website and all that stuff, and then Carson and Andrea who are behind there.
Recording every day, laughing at me, making me laugh,
and Joe and Greg who have been tremendous in putting together
the promotional videos, and then all the staff here at UF.
Just so you know it's not me by myself,
it's a huge team putting this together to bring you this information and
I appreciate their help and all their feedback.
So thank you.
I will hopefully run into some of you and let me know on the discussion board,
what you liked about the class, and the interactivity and stuff that we've done,
and good luck and take care of your animals.