First of all, Welcome to Avalon Equine! We are thrilled that you have come to visit us and check out all we have available. As many of you know, we also own Equine-Reproduction.com, LLC and are big on educating breeders, horse people and health professionals in the equine industry! We have been asked repeatedly, to start a blog here on the website but for one reason or another, haven't been able to sit down and get to it. We've finally started one, but have decided we’re going to do things a bit differently! While we will definitely be blogging, there will be three of us doing the blogging here. Me - Kathy St.Martin; my husband and partner in the business, Jos Mottershead; and our wonderful farm manager and right hand man, Josh Milledge. We thought it might be fun and interesting to see what we do here from different perspectives. Hopefully, you will find these informational, helpful, insightful, entertaining, funny, and as is sometimes the case when dealing with animals, sad.
So today’s blog will start with pulling blood for IgG tests on foals!
One of the things that we always do with our foals at 9 to 12 hours after birth, is an IgG test. Foals are born with a functioning immune system, but it has not developed any antibodies. The main immunoglobulin (antibody) produced in the colostrum is gamma globulin (IgG) and the foal must receive that within the first 24 hours of life. But if the foal is slow to nurse, the mare has poor quality colostrum or has streamed milk for days prior to foaling, or if the foal is unable to absorb those antibodies, you may have a foal that has failed passive transfer. In order to be proactive, rather than reactive, one can easily pull an IgG test. If you know that a foal is low or has failed passive transfer at 9 to 12 hours post foaling, you still have approximately a 12 hour window to address the problem orally with another mare’s colostrum that is known to be good quality, or with a commercial product such as Seramune. We will then test again at 24 hours to insure that we have sufficient immune coverage. If at 24 hours, the reading is still low or passive transfer has failed, one can then address the problem with a transfusion.
There are several stall side tests available that cost as low as about $10. They can be purchased singly or in kits of 10 – obviously the more you buy, the lower the cost. Two of the most common are the Idexx Snap test and the Immuno-Chek G. The tests come with complete instructions, so I’m not going to go into detail on the entire process. But, both do require being able to pull blood a small amount of blood from the foal and is where many become a bit uncomfortable – attaining that sample of blood. Our goal here is to show you just how easy it really is to do! Indeed, I often end up doing it by myself – so the photos that accompany this Blog will show me doing exactly that!
The first thing is to either catch the foal when it is lying down as in the photo below, or you will have to lay the foal down. You "can" pull blood with the foal standing, but we have just found it much easier to do with the foal lying down and definitely easier to do if you are having to do this procedure by yourself!
So today’s blog will start with pulling blood for IgG tests on foals!
One of the things that we always do with our foals at 9 to 12 hours after birth, is an IgG test. Foals are born with a functioning immune system, but it has not developed any antibodies. The main immunoglobulin (antibody) produced in the colostrum is gamma globulin (IgG) and the foal must receive that within the first 24 hours of life. But if the foal is slow to nurse, the mare has poor quality colostrum or has streamed milk for days prior to foaling, or if the foal is unable to absorb those antibodies, you may have a foal that has failed passive transfer. In order to be proactive, rather than reactive, one can easily pull an IgG test. If you know that a foal is low or has failed passive transfer at 9 to 12 hours post foaling, you still have approximately a 12 hour window to address the problem orally with another mare’s colostrum that is known to be good quality, or with a commercial product such as Seramune. We will then test again at 24 hours to insure that we have sufficient immune coverage. If at 24 hours, the reading is still low or passive transfer has failed, one can then address the problem with a transfusion.
There are several stall side tests available that cost as low as about $10. They can be purchased singly or in kits of 10 – obviously the more you buy, the lower the cost. Two of the most common are the Idexx Snap test and the Immuno-Chek G. The tests come with complete instructions, so I’m not going to go into detail on the entire process. But, both do require being able to pull blood a small amount of blood from the foal and is where many become a bit uncomfortable – attaining that sample of blood. Our goal here is to show you just how easy it really is to do! Indeed, I often end up doing it by myself – so the photos that accompany this Blog will show me doing exactly that!
The first thing is to either catch the foal when it is lying down as in the photo below, or you will have to lay the foal down. You "can" pull blood with the foal standing, but we have just found it much easier to do with the foal lying down and definitely easier to do if you are having to do this procedure by yourself!
A resting newborn foal, by Cremello Thoroughbred Stallion Goldmaker
Not all foals will be so cooperative and be lying down when you are ready to pull blood. With those that are standing, the easiest way we have found, is to wrap our arms around the foal as seen in the first picture below. Slide your hands down the legs opposite to your body - in this case, the foals left front and back legs - and gently lift the foal up while "rotating" it sideways, and gently laying it down, as in the second picture below.
Wrap your arms around the foals chest and rear, grabbing a hind leg.
Gently lay the foal down.
Next, straddle the foal and apply pressure to keep it lying down. They might initially struggle, but usually stop fairly quickly. You "will" have to hold them down somewhat with your body, but as you can see in these photos, you don't need to put much, if any, weight on them. Straighten the neck out as shown in the first photo below, and raise the jugular vein as you would for any other blood draw. Please note that I am using a 1cc Insulin syringe with a 28 gauge 1/2 inch needle. The needle is very, very fine and indeed, we use them for as many applications when giving injections as possible, in order to inflict as little discomfort as is possible.
Straddle the foal, be sure not to put too much weight on them. Straighten their neck to gain access to the jugular.
We use a 1cc Insulin syringe with a 28 gauge 1/2 inch needle to make the process as pain free as possible.
You need very little blood for this test - typically we pull around 2/10ths cc. We then decant that blood into the needle cap.
Next, using the 10 µL (ten microliter) pipettor pull up the blood and decant it into the dilution solution as per the kit instructions. Mix well and follow the rest of the test's instructions according to the one you will use. In this particular test, we were using the Immuno-Chek G.
And of course, when you are done taking the blood, make sure you give the foal lots of scratches!
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