Caring for your yearling

Dr Michelle Logan takes a look at the health care needs of weanlings and yearlings during their important first year of their life away from their dam

Whether you have bred your own foal, bought one as a weanling or even chosen one as a foal and had to wait until it was weaned to bring it home, since August 1 you now have a yearling in your paddock, and undoubtably want to do your very best to look after it! 

These first few years lay the foundations of your horse of the future, and are very important. There are some veterinary and health management tasks that should be taken care of to ensure the best start possible for your future star.

What does your yearling need? From a veterinary point of view, a yearling needs:

  • Handling
  • Vaccinations
  • Worming
  • Feet done 
  • Correct feed
  • And, if a colt, it is likely to need gelding

Handling

In my experience, there is a huge contrast in the level of handling among the yearlings that I see. Some of them have obviously been well and regularly handled as foals, and this continues as they grow. Others have not had much handling at all; it depends on the breeding situation, the mare and the environment they started out in. 

If your yearling hasn’t had much in the way of handling, now is a good time to put some effort into this. It will make life a lot easier for routine things, and in case of emergency, if you invest the time now before your yearling becomes a bigger, stronger and more unruly two-year-old.

Yearlings are great at exploring, they are lively and inquisitive, and this can mean that they sometimes get into trouble and injure themselves. Ideally, they would all be kept with horse-safe fences, but this is not always possible and even then, some will still find a way to injure themselves. 

If you have put some time into handling, this will make a bad situation a bit better. A well-handled yearling will be calmer while you are untangling them from a fence, for example, and better able to tolerated being treated. Even if your yearling escapes even a minor injury, being well-handled gives him or her a head start when it comes to getting vaccinations, worming pastes, hoof care and, eventually, when they are started under saddle. 

Vaccinations

Although it may seem a bit mean having to have your precious yearling injected, the consequences of not vaccinating can be horrendous (and the vaccination needle is actually a lovely thin one, so a lot won’t even notice it being done). To make this a better experience they need to be used to both a halter and to other people. Talking, stroking and generally distracting them will help, and it will all soon be over (the opposite is when everyone around the youngster goes quiet and watches the vet intently – then of course they get a bit suspicious about what is going to happen!)

Tetanus is the most important disease to make sure your yearling has been vaccinated against. If they haven’t had the initial course, then they will need two injections about four weeks apart with a booster after a year. Tetanus is a life-threatening disease caused by a toxin produced by the bacteria Clostridium Tetani, which is present everywhere in the environment. The vaccination is very effective provided they are up-to-date and, as always, prevention is much better than cure 

There are other horse vaccinations available and it really depends on your yearling’s individual situation as to whether these are recommended. Talk to your veterinarian, as some of these can be combined. Ones to discuss include strangles, herpes and salmonella.

Worming

Yearlings are still more susceptible to worms when compared to adult horses, although they do usually build up immunity to ascarids (large roundworms) by about 15 months of age. 

A worm faecal egg count will give the level of egg-laying adult worms present, and distinguish between two of the major groups of worms, ascarids and strongyles. The egg count will not be able to detect any worms in the larval stages (as they do not lay eggs) including any encysted cyathostomes (worms hibernating in cysts in the gut wall) and it is not accurate for detecting tapeworms. 

Depending on your yearling’s actual month of birth (as compared to their official birthday of August 1) and the results of the faecal egg count, your veterinarian will develop a suitable worming programme for your yearling.

Feet 

Your yearling may have had some experience of having their feet handled and a trim/rasp if needed as a foal but if not, now is the time to start. Correct handling of the legs and feet beforehand will make this a simple, pleasant experience for them. 

Yearlings are still fast-growing and any abnormal hoof conformation can put strain on developing joints, tendons and ligament so it is important to keep everything balanced. 

Feed

A well-balanced diet is vital for your yearling’s health. Good quality fibre should be the main part of the diet and a vitamin and mineral balancer can be added to this (or a small amount of hard feed if necessary). 

It may be that this is all your yearling needs, as it is not advisable to feed a diet high in excess energy. A diet too high in dietary energy with a high glycaemic index may be linked with some developmental orthopaedic diseases (DOD). These are problems such as OCD (osteochondritis dissecans) where there are detrimental changes in the bone and cartilage of a joint, with some requiring surgery. OCD is thought to occur as a result of a combination of several different factors with no clear single cause but to try and avoid it, it is better to avoid too rapid growth and to ensure a balanced diet is fed where possible.

Gelding

Colts can be gelded at a range of ages, so your yearling may already be castrated but, if not, this will be something you will be thinking about doing soon unless you are keeping him as a stallion and/or have facilities to keep your young colt away from any mares. 

Gelding is often done at the colt’s home, but can be done at a veterinary clinic (and this will be recommended in certain circumstances). Usually in New Zealand, gelding will be performed under a short general anaesthetic so the colt will be laid down, and there needs to be a clean, dry area of ground (and reasonable weather) for this to happen. It can also be performed under a standing sedation, but this is less commonly done. 

Your colt will usually need to be handled enough to allow your veterinarian to give an injection into the vein of the neck (jugular vein). If a colt really needs castrating and it hasn’t had a suitable level of handling, please talk to your vet first to let them know, and discuss it with them, as there are sometimes other options that can be used especially if there are good facilities available.

The procedure may seem dramatic to owners watching for the first time, but usually the young geldings recover well and are up and about quickly, and back eating grass. They do need monitoring for a couple of weeks after the surgery, and we typically advise rest for the first 24 hours and then a programme of getting them to trot for a certain amount of time every day (either on a lunge if they are trained, or just making them trot in their paddock). This movement is really important to allow the incision to drain and reduce post-operative swelling. Your veterinarian will give you an individual programme for your gelding, and it is important to follow; they often won’t get enough active exercise if just left alone in the paddock.

Summary

Foals officially turned into yearlings on August 1 and a new stage of life begins for them. A lot of the management follows on from that they received as foals, they are young and fast-growing so need careful handling and good health care with worming, vaccination, feed and feet being of especial importance. Time and effort put in now will pay off with a healthy horse of the future. 

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