Marvellous milk

“A healthy newborn foal will suckle four to seven times per hour”

FOR the first couple of months of his life, a foal will rely principally on the mare’s milk to fuel his rapid growth. His intake begins with colostrum, the thick, sticky, yellow “first milk” produced by the mare over the last three to four weeks of pregnancy.

Good-quality colostrum is rich in antibodies and other immune factors that help to protect the new-born foal from infection, as his own naive immune system continues to develop. Due to the structure of the equine placenta, there is no transfer of antibodies from