Managing Nutrition for Safe Growth in Young Horses - For any horse owner, the birth of a foal is always an eagerly awaited event. That baby, the product of the carefully planned mating of two superior parents, can elicit a range of emotions for the owner, including excitement and awe, but often anxiety and worry as well. One of the concerns the owner of a newborn foal may have involves the risk of the foal developing developmental orthopedic disease (DOD), which is a name applied to a group of conditions that can affect the growing foal, including physitis, acquired angular limb deformities, flexural deformities, cervical vertebral malformations, acquired vertebral deformities, and finally, osteochondrosis (OC).

The morning grass is glittering with light. Moisture drops in crystals from bushes and trembles in the trees. The air is still and cool. After an early lesson, I invite my dressage coach in for coffee and pull my riding boots. He removes his shoes and stands looking out the window. “Are those both stallions?” he asks.

If you have a pregnant mare in your barn, plan ahead to collect and freeze some of her colostrum — that all-important first milk — so you have it on hand if a foal is born without access to this essential liquid.

Flexural limb deformity occurs in two forms. The first form, also known as contracted tendons, clubfoot, or knuckling, is the inability to extend a limb fully. The condition may be present at birth (congenital) due to improper positioning in the uterus (which can lead to dystocia in the mare), abnormal fetal development, disease or malnutrition in the dam; or acquired as the result of nutrition (abrupt changes in amount or quality of feed leading to rapid growth), polyarthritis, trauma, or disease. It is a common condition in foals, usually occurring anytime from birth to 14 months of age.