Mare Foaling

Last night was a fun night for us. I got a call from a fellow horseback rider yesterday evening. She does some odd jobs around and floats from farm to farm and had a proposition. One of the local breeding farms was foaling out this week and needed some extra help watching the mares.

Generally, work at a horse farm is very seasonal, so you usually have a couple "full-time" helpers and then add-ons as you need.

So, that led us to last night. One of the mares at a local warm blooded breeding farm was set to give birth last night. The other girls had been up all night with the other mares and needed a break.

These are expensive mares and they need to be watched during foaling to make sure there is no dystocia (birthing problems) and that the foal is up and nursing.

This basically leaves us staying up most of the night checking on the mare about every 20 mins. At about 2 am, the camera in the stall went out, so that meant checking on her in the stall. She was an experience mama, this being her 5th foal, so once she went into labor, at about 3:45 this morning, the filly came out pretty quickly. I busted the sack on the foal so that she could breath and then we waited. The foal was completely out in about 20 minutes and up and walking in about an hour and a half.

A couple things you want to do with a new foal is;

Make sure they nurse! They need that first milk, called colostrum, because of the antibodies that will be their immunity for the first couple of weeks.

Dip the umbilicus in idoine/betadine. This will keep it clean and prevent infection from traveling up the stalk.

Check the colostrum levels in mama's milk. Sometimes the foals will need an IV infusion to help ensure that they have a good immunity. Producers will keep an eye on their immunity levels and call the vet if needed.

The above picture is of me doing a plasma transfusion on a foal for the immunity.

The above pictures are not the foal from last night. Being a production farm, i am unable to post pictures of the foal from last night.

Overall, a fun and exhausting night!