An unfortunate side effect for mares with foaling dates that occur unnaturally early in the year is longer gestations by an average of 10 days and foals born on average 10lbs lighter. Environmental light influences the development of the foal in utero and regulates when a mare will foal.
Nature intended that foals be born during the longer days of late spring and summer – and nature tends to have her way. Stimulating the longer day lengths associated with the natural breeding season by fitting pregnant mares with Equilume Light Masks or Stable Lights has been shown in clinical trials to eliminate these side effects in most mares, instead helping the mare deliver her foal on-time and with an optimum birth weight.
We recommended that Long Day light therapy be initiated for pregnant mares 90 days prior to their foaling due date for best breeding outcomes and optimum foal health.
In their recently published paper in the leading animal reproduction journal, Theriogenology, Dr Murphy tested the hypothesis that extended day length administered to pregnant mares using Equilume Light Masks in the three months pre-foaling could reduce gestation lengths and improve foal birth weight.
They also examined whether extended day length to the pre-partum mare could influence the physiology of the foal. Excitingly their hypotheses were proven correct – mares wearing Equilume Light masks in their final months of gestation produced heavier foals (by 8.4lbs) had shorter gestations (by 11 days) and foals clearly looked more mature and had shorter hair coats than foals from mares not exposed to light.
Find Equilume in our section Farm Equipment, in Breeding - Thoroughbred and in our section on Health & Education - Therapy.
