Summary
Foals are anaesthetized for a variety of reasons. Anaesthesia is needed in healthy
foals for procedures as correction of angular limb deformities and congenital hernias
or in sick foals for abdominal surgery like colic surgery or repair of a ruptured
urinary bladder. According to the literature foals under age one week are 7 times
more likely to develop an anaesthesia-related fatality compared to adult horses.
Neonatal foals are physiologically different from mature horses. Therefore anaesthesia
management is difficult to extrapolate from adult horses or from other species. To
develop an anaesthetic plan, the anaesthetist must have profound knowledge of the
different physiology and different pharmacokinetic and -dynamic properties of the
equine neonate which are discussed in this article.
