Protecting Your Investment: Nutrition for the Foal

The American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN)’s circle of nutrition includes three components of a nutritional assessment: patient assessment, diet/ration assessment, and feeding management assessment. For this talk I will address the three components for the foal. The nutritional goals for the foal are to maximize health (i.e. promote moderate and even growth) and prevent disease (i.e. developmental orthopedic disease). Nutrition isn’t always to blame for developmental orthopedic disease; however, ensuring adequate nutrient intake may be an easier factor to manage than other developmental orthopedic disease factors like genetics or abnormal physical stress ...