turns into an aggressive and dangerous adult. I have come across a few badly raised orphans, one of which would charge anyone who came into the pasture, running across the field at a full gallop as soon as she spied the intruder, only to come to a sliding stop in front of the person, peeing and wheeling around and kicking and squealing. She was
unacceptable even as an embryo transfer recipient and had thus lost her last option as a productive equine. This kind of developed behavior can be avoided if the orphan is managed properly. With a little understanding
A Breeder Struggles with a New Orphan
of the need for proper socialization and of course proper nutrition, it is not difficult to raise an orphan that grows up to be indistinguishable from other horses, both in looks and in attitude. I believe that the ideal is to find your orphan a replacement mother, and if that fails, raise it as close to normal as possible.
ABOUTTHE AUTHOR: Dr. Carolin Von Rosenberg was born in Hamburg, Germany but has lived in the United States since she was a teenager. She graduated from the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1989 and has worked exclusively with horses since she moved to Ocala, Florida in 1991. Her own practice at Buena Vista Farm focuses on equine reproduction and specializes in providing the smaller horse breeder with professional breeding management services. Her farm receives on average one orphan foal per year to manage and care for. Dr. Von Rosenberg can be reached by email at
cavoro@aol.com.
by Liz Cornell Photos courtesy Kathy St. Martin
A BREEDER FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS, Kathy St. Martin at Avalon Equine in Wynnewood, Oklahoma has had her share of orphans to raise. At the end of May this year, Espion d’Avalon was born—a fancy, leggy, bay colt by Edelweiss de Bonce out of her mare Aiyana (by Arrian). Espion, the largest foal she’s ever bred, tragically lost his mother at about five weeks old. “One morning Aiyana appeared to have had some kind of neurological injury. Her
head was cocked funny and she was spinning in circles,” Kathy describes. “We tried everything to save her, but after a week her condition worsened and she became just too dangerous to be around for both people and her foal.” She was sadly euthanized on June thirtieth. Suddenly Espion needed a new mother. “We fortunately had an older PMU mare, a Percheron, that we were using as a ‘recip’ mare (a.k.a. surrogate) for embryo
transfer clients,” she continues. “Since she wasn’t pregnant and was just hanging out, we immediately moved her in with Espion to start the nurse mare adoption process.” Unfortunately, due to the July Fourth holiday weekend, they could not get an order of domperidone to arrive quickly, which meant little Espion needed to live on milk replacer until her milk was producing at capacity. This is where the difficulties began. “This guy just refused every type of milk replacer, no matter what we tried—and we tried everything—commercial
products, homemade replacer, replacer pellets, combinations of them all. Other breeders speculated that due to his age he was too familiar with the taste of the real thing, and he likely would not adapt to the replacement. We resorted to using a syringe and catheter to try to get the milk replacer down his throat, but it left more of it on us rather than in him! Every feeding was leaving a mess, it was over 100 degrees and the flies were terrible. It was discouraging. But the worst part was that every day the pounds were melting off of him. I was scared for his health,” she remarks. Although Espion would eat a tiny bit of feed and hay, it was not nearly enough to sustain his system. In that first week without his mother, Espion lost an estimated 50 pounds. After three days of the nurse mare being with Espion, fortunately she began to produce a little bit of milk and allowed him to nurse. Kathy knew the quality of her milk wasn’t up to par, however. A few days later the domperidone finally arrived. Starting July sixth, the mare began her ten day dosage of the drug. As of this writing, Espion is almost four months old and is still by the side of his giant
Percheron mother. It’s fortunately a happy ending since she accepted him easily and he’s growing up like a normal young horse. But given his size, it has taken months for him to get his weight back. “Not every orphan experience is ‘text book perfect,’” Kathy notes. “But today Espion is a sweet, friendly colt, and will be a wonderful sport horse for someone some day.” She also mentions that she is a big believer in NOT raising orphans by humans if at all possible and shares that the PMU mare turned nurse mare has a forever home at Avalon. v
46 November/December 2012
Dr. Carolin Von Rosenberg
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