Your Foal Has Arrived ... Is it OK?
You have been "patiently" awaiting the arrival of your new foal for 11 long months. You've given your mare the best possible care and while you expect a normal, healthy baby; as will occur in the vast majority of cases. If you are like most of us you will wonder, "Is everything OK"?

Standing and nursing within two hours are still the best signs of a healthy foal. Usual physical exam parameters like temperature, pulse and respiration are so variable in a newborn foal as to be almost useless for diagnosis. That does not mean a physical exam is not important. Recording these parameters and then watching them to see that they move toward more normal numbers for young foals can be an early clue of problems. The foal also needs to be checked for congenital problems that may cause problems later. The first step in evaluating a foal's condition is knowing what is normal:

• Gestational length should be, on average, 340 days, although healthy foals have been delivered as late as 365 days.
• Normal, uneventful, "easy" delivery, with active labor of about 20 minutes.
• Stabilizes respiration and heart rate, which start out rapid, within the first few hours that move toward these values:
  • Respiration: less than 40 breaths/min.
  • Heart rate less than 80 beats/min. The rhythm should rapidly become regular. Low grade flow murmurs are common in new born foals and have little significance. For the first three or four days a louder murmur, found on the left side around the aortic spot is also within the range of normal. It is due to a patent ductus arteriosis, the hole in the middle of the heart, that closes at or shortly after birth. If the murmur persists longer than this, echocardiography may be needed to evaluate the significance.tpraate should
• The mare becomes rapidly attached to the foal.
• The foal becomes attached to the mare and the "following" instinct strongly developes soon after birth.
• Passes meconium within about the first 2-4 hours. Some straining is normal but it should produce a dark sticky stool.
• Colts should be watched closely for urinating.

Once nursing the foal will follow a regular cycle: nurse, rest, explore. The order and amount of time the foal spends doing each of these activities varies, but trends are important to watch. If a foal is getting adequate milk, his time spent nursing is less than five minutes a cycle and frequently less than a minute. Then he will rest deeply for as long as 30 minutes or begin to explore. Within the first few hours he becomes very bright and aware of his surroundings. He may be a little clumsy but will be getting around amazingly well. As his strength grows he may even buck and kick up his heels a little. As the hours and days go by a foal spends less time resting and more playing.