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Discussion on Teaching a foal to drink from a bucket
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Member:
Jonander
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Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 4:37 pm:
I remember reading a post on this website a couple of years ago about how to teach a foal to drink from a shallow pan. I now cannot locate the posting or the article. I believe it had something to do with putting a ball or other object in the pan, but I am not sure. Does anyone remember this tip or know an easy way to teach a foal to drink? Thanks.
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Member:
Gipetto
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Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 5:03 pm:
With clean hands, dip a finger into the milk and get the foal to suck the milk off your finger. Then lure the foal to stay with your finger as you place your hand into the milk. It may take a few tries, but pretty quickly it will get the idea to follow the finger to the milk, suck the milk off the finger and very soon will get a few swallows without sucking on your finger.
Be sure the container is fairly shallow, as foals are reluctant to put their heads into buckets that come above their eye level.
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Member:
Ryle
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Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 9:09 pm:
The other option is a nursing bucket that has a nipple on the side. It can be hung on the fence and the foal can learn to nurse from it so you don't have to stand their and hold a bucket. Plus they don't walk in it or poop in it.
You use the same trick of getting the milk on your fingers and luring the foal to the nipple and getting them to suck on the nipple instead of your fingers.
An important thing to remember is not to try to pull the foals head to whatever you want him to drink from. All the babies I've tried to bottle feed got very resistant when the least amount of pressure was applied to point them towards the nipple. You just have to coax them over on thier own.
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Member:
Srobert
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Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 6:53 am:
Hello: Our baby was rejected by her mom after 3 days of nursing (long story). My dad, who was a retired dairy farmer and happened to be visiting during the ordeal, just laughed as we struggled with nipples, bottles, etc. He marched out to the barn, walked over to the hungry baby with a bucket of formula, held it under her head, and dipped her nose in it. It took the baby exactly 30 seconds to figure out how to drink. From then on, it was a piece of cake. My husband was so impressed by this that the next time he saw a parent bottle feeding a young baby he leaned over to me and whispered "why don't they just dunk his nose in it and be done with it!"
Anyway, it was really not hard to teach (the baby was hungry - which I think was a big motivator!) and the "baby" is now 9 years old and about to become a mom herself. It worked for us - perhaps it will for you as well.
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Member:
Traveler
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Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 12:55 pm:
Hello: I have done the exact same thing with orphans that Shari described. It was not difficult at all. If the foal is resistant at first just gently keep trying. We named our last orphan Mr. Hoover because he was like a vacumn. He could suck up a lot of foal lac in no time at all. Now he is a very nice, very large three year old (Quarter Horse)doing quite well in training.
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Member:
Jonander
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Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 9:17 am:
Thank you very much, everyone!
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