Premature foals and Joint Ill

One year we had a premature foal. She was about 5 weeks early. Friesians are known for having their foals 2 weeks early but 5 weeks was very scary. The mare was healthy, there were no indications that the birth was complicated or that it was going to need to be early. But the foal came early.

We want to share our situation and some of the information that we found when we started trying to help our premature foal.

We noticed that the first day she spent most of the time on the ground “pushing” herself in circles. She was obviously very small but her behavior was very “fetal” she was moving around on the ground as if she was still in her mom. She was clearly mentally/behaviorally not ready to be born. With her not getting up we were giving colostrums and feeding her. It’s good that we didn’t force her getting up because we found out later that there was a HUGE chance that her joints were not ready for her to get up. There was a case where a foal was born early and they had to actually keep the foal strapped down so that he didn’t crush his joints that were all cartilage. Her x-rays came out healthy at a week and her follow up x-rays were very healthy so we got lucky. But now that we know more about the premature foals joints we thought that it was important to share so that you can prevent lifelong damage to the foals joints.

We also noticed that her skin was like tissue paper. It was delicate and would snag on everything. It was so sensitive that even the straw bedding was tearing her skin. She got open sours on all her joints. We dressed her in a spandex jacket and wrapped her fetlocks to protect her but even the skin around her eyes was very delicate. She was put on several antibiotics to protect her from infection but she was falling apart with every move. This situation can commonly be called Joint Ill. It’s an infection that affects foals and appears in the joints. She developed a bladder infection despite all the antibiotics. The signs of this was that the foal was peeing out her umbilical cord. She got special iodine treatments to her umbilical cord to treat this infection. She was under attack from the world.

Giving her colostrums orally and from her mom was not doing her much good. Her intestines were too premature to actually absorb the colostrums. We tested her levels and they were very low. She needed a plasma transfusion. The coolest thing happened after the transfusion. Within 2 hours of the transfusion her skin started reattaching to her body. The tissue paper affect stopped and healing started right before our eyes.

After seeing the greatest healing power of the transfusion we now have a post birth procedure in place for any foal. We get a snap test to test the IgG levels (colostrums in the blood) on any foal. If they are low we give them a plasma transfusion. A snap test is relatively cheap and well worth knowing the IgG levels of your foal. Insurance companies require and IgG level to insura a foal that is 24 hrs. old. We have found that mares that have a lot of milk can cause the foals to have low IgG levels also. It’s a test that will save you a lot of money on any infections or problems that your foal may have.

To heal all the wounds where her skin peeled back we used Doc Underwoods till they were sealed then to get the hair to grow back without having white hair grow in we used Dynamite’s Wound Balm. http://sableranch.net/woundbalm.html . Today she has NO WHITE hairs!!! Not one scar and that is AMAZING. Friesians are not allowed to have white markings and if they do get them from injury then you have to present a vet’s explanation of the injuries. That makes it very important that the Friesians not get white hair when they have an injury.

In short, check your foals IgG levels, take extra caution with the joints of a premature foal, and take care of your wounds so that you don’t get long term white hairs.

This filly at age 2.5 years old!

Entered into the studbook with the KFPS at 2.5 yo (normally 3yo) which is proof of soundness and confirmation quality! (photo Nadeen Davis)