[QUOTE=butiwantedapony;8652119]
Fwiw my maiden mare has been quite lax in her rump/tail for over a month, and we are only at day 333 today. She has a small bag, not much. I think your vet is over reacting.[/QUOTE]
So the wisdom of CoTH wasn’t that far off hey!! :lol: So how much money are these poor people out of on account of their fine veterinary services?
Glad the mare is fine!
I had a mare which used to go 12 months. Maybe thats the reason that the udder had not bagged up
well this vet charges $50 a day for the barn she is currently in which is the ICU. Im just glad I am not the one that will have this vet bill… My stallion is the daddy and this is his first foal so I am anxiously awaiting this foal’s arrival… I plan to have a foal or two of my own in the future so this is all a good learning experience for me. I will probably use a different vet… 
I promise to share a picture when the foal arrives… but… we are STILL waiting… she is well past 12 months now… may 29 was the breed date…
Equidone should have been given if fescue was at all suspected. Fescue suppresses milk production, milk production is a foaling trigger, foals can go 20-40 past due as a result and they keep GROWING which can lead to dystocia.
Jennifer
I wonder if the vet wants the mare at the clinic because he is concerned that the usual barn is not well set up for foaling. He may be using the colostrum as an excuse to have the mare at the clinic, where there should be 24 hour monitoring. If you don’t have experienced people at the barn, who are constantly monitoring the mare, the mare is best off at the clinic.
Has the mare had a transabdominal ultrasound recently to see if she’s actually in foal?
She had one at around 5 months and there was a very active foal in there! She has started to get a little puffy around her udders. I have not seen her in the past week or so but her owner tells me she has dropped a bit more recently. She is big bellied and you can see the foal kicking at times and feel it. She IS pregnant.
My farrier told me that he knew a mare who went 13 months before? Really hoping she doesn’t go that long!
I don’t know why the vet doesn’t give equidone until after they give birth but that is what they have told us. Something about it messing with the colostrum quality. I also do not understand their reasoning for NOT letting anyone have colostrum outside the clinic. It is their clinic policy. It is NOT something they told us due to inexperienced people at the barn. They just DONT let anyone have it outside the clinic at all. We were very prepared to be living in the barn watching her like a hawk and to call a vet when the time came. It is my understanding that this vet simply does not want to have to make an emergency farm call in the middle of the night so they convince owners to bring them to the clinic which is more convienient.
The reason she went to the clinic to begin with is we were told she was VERY close to foaling and the mare’s owner was scared about not having colostrum since her milk hadn’t come in yet and the vet would NOT let her have any outside the clinic which gave her a panic attack thinking we would have to trailer the mare and newborn foal immediately since she was so very close to going into labor. That afternoon after the vet had stopped by to check on her and telling us all of this, the mare started acting oddly - peeing every 10 minutes or so… swishing her tail and circling her stall. The owner and myself thought perhaps she was going into labor which scared her owner because -again- her milk was not there yet and the vet would not let us have colostrum outside the clinic. SO she decided to take her in before she really went into labor and then things stopped after that night and what was supposed to be just a few days has now turned into over a month stay.
so that is the gist of the situation.
But all of us here who didn’t have the luxury of laying eyes on this mare knew she was nowhere near ready to deliver, how the vet didn’t see that either is a mystery to me. Your vet has too many “rules” and I question his competence at least as far as repro goes. Keep that in mind for the next one. I am not the one who has to pay this vet bill and I am still pissed about how high it is going to be!
We don’t worry too much about a mare who’s butt appears soft but doesn’t have much of a bag. We just had a mare go 3 weeks over and had a squishy butt for almost two months.
We have another mare that bags and waxes and foals out all within an hour or so. Every mare is different. I think your vet is being a little over reactive. 
[QUOTE=zoehesed;8691467]
My farrier told me that he knew a mare who went 13 months before? Really hoping she doesn’t go that long! [/QUOTE]
13 months is roughly 395 days. There are mares - I know of several just this year - who have gone over 400.
I don’t know why the vet doesn’t give equidone until after they give birth but that is what they have told us. Something about it messing with the colostrum quality.
You can fix the colostrum quality issue very easily - buy tested high quality colostrum. You can’t fix red bags and prolonged gestation leading to too-large foals :no: The WHOLE point of Equidone is to mitigate the potentially lethal consequences of the fescue toxicity BEFORE foaling.
For all we know, fescue is a/the reason the mare still hasn’t foaled and has no milk to speak of.
I also do not understand their reasoning for NOT letting anyone have colostrum outside the clinic. It is their clinic policy. It is NOT something they told us due to inexperienced people at the barn. They just DONT let anyone have it outside the clinic at all.
Honestly, it sounds like they are control freaks who don’t have a good understanding of Equidone or colostrum or fescue toxicity 
The reason she went to the clinic to begin with is we were told she was VERY close to foaling and the mare’s owner was scared about not having colostrum since her milk hadn’t come in yet and the vet would NOT let her have any outside the clinic which gave her a panic attack thinking we would have to trailer the mare and newborn foal immediately since she was so very close to going into labor. That afternoon after the vet had stopped by to check on her and telling us all of this, the mare started acting oddly - peeing every 10 minutes or so… swishing her tail and circling her stall. The owner and myself thought perhaps she was going into labor which scared her owner because -again- her milk was not there yet and the vet would not let us have colostrum outside the clinic. SO she decided to take her in before she really went into labor and then things stopped after that night and what was supposed to be just a few days has now turned into over a month stay.
so that is the gist of the situation.
Lots of lack of understanding and taking advantage of newbies and laziness, IMHO The mare did not sound ready to foal when this all started.
This. Yikes.
No news?
tic tock.
Some people fail to understand that mares have NOT read the book. They do not care that they are supposed to go exactly 340 days. One mare I was watching went 389 - I was ready to get in there and drag that foal out… foal finally arrived, normal and healthy.
A pony mare foaled at 294 days… a healthy, normal, bouncy filly that was full term for that mare.
One mini mare I watched foaled out on day 312 three times in a row… and always between 10:30 and 11:30 at night. I wish all mares were as committed to a schedule as that one was!
Mares may bag up a month ahead of foaling - or not until as they are foaling and the milk comes down. Some get mushy butts far ahead… some don’t.
Some mares may have read Blessed Are The Brood Mares cover to cover - and dutifully wax up 48 hours ahead of foaling, go through Stage One, Stage Two… the prefect textbook delivery.
Some mares barely stop eating long enough to pop that foal out.
Some mares foal in the peace and quiet of a barn in the early hours of the morning - others prefer high noon out in the paddock with construction going on next door and landscapers on the other side of the fence with lawnmowers and weedwhackers roaring (she was completely unfazed by any of the activity).
Many years ago, the final question on my very intense Equine Reproductive Physiology course exam was what is the first rule for mares? For 50 extra points… the most predictable thing about a mare is her unpredictability. I would not be that comfortable with the way this vet is handling this mare - unless there are a few concerns that we are not aware of…
We are still waiting…
I totally get that mares don’t go by the “book”
My main question was if this vet’s policies were typical as to what to expect in this type of situation because I plan on breeding in the future and wanted to know what to expect from a vet and also of fescue problems and how alarming access to stubble might be? To me it didn’t seem right so I asked here to find out from others more experienced what was more typical.
I am not the owner of this mare so I do not have a say in what vet is used etc. It seemed as though this vet was a bit ticked off when they came out to the farm for her final vaccine and saw that we didn’t have the mare confined to a stall for the past 90 days like they had wanted (instead she was confined to a smallish dry-lot as this mare turns into an evil burrito when not happy) and since we didn’t do what they wanted us to… well the mare MUST have fescue poisoning so bad she needed to be taken to the clinic THAT night in order to “save her” and yet equidone is not started? not till after she gives birth they say…? I’m supposed to trust the vet right??? but that goes against everything I have read about this…
Based on this experience alone one could deduce that mares are typically taken to a clinic to have their foal because that is “the best chance to save her” according to this particular vet and that letting a mare foal out at home is not advised because you won’t have access to colostrum and the vet may or may not make an emergency farm call when you need them. I thought it wise to ask what others have experienced because the panic inducing comments of this vet didn’t quite sit right with me and vets are supposed to be the ones you trust so I had some internal conflicts going on with this whole situation.
Mare is pretty much stuck now at the clinic until she has the baby because you know the second her hoof steps off the trailer at home she will go directly into labor! She is also a very not happy horse at the clinic and has warning signs on her stall bites/kicks/tries to escape etc. I feel badly for her and the owner but there isn’t much I can do. I only want to learn from this experience so I know what to expect in the future. Vet bill is probably well over 1K at this point and the baby hasn’t even hit the ground yet…
What a nightmare. If that vet is the only one available I suggest you move or forget about breeding. Is she not getting any turnout at all?
NO turnout whatsoever at the clinic - and her window is shut because it upsets her anytime a horse walks by. The owner has been going most days to hand-walk her but other than that she is stuck 24/7 in a stall.
There are other vets in the area and I will definitely use someone else when I eventually need one.
That is disgusting.
The vet had wanted us to confine her to a stall at home for the last bit of her pregnancy because of “fescue” problems in the area…we didn’t do that… I guess this is their way of forcing us to…
Do breeders not normally restrict a mare to a stall the last bit of pregnancy? What is usually done for mares in areas where fescue is a problem? I thought the dry-lot (not really a true dry-lot as there was minimal stubble but nothing sufficient for a horse to satisfy themselves on) was a good solution myself…? Anyone care to share what you usually do to help mares in fescue areas?? What is your usual routine?
You want them out and moving as much as possible otherwise they tend to stock up and get very bad edema late term. Dry lot is the way to handle it.
Dry lot with minimum fescue and plenty of hay.
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