“Stork”, born March 28th. A tall!! chestnut colt by Cupid o/o Dream Hopper.
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Sydney is still playing the waiting game. She started intermittently dripping milk, cramping/squatting, and wringing her tail around 10 am, so it’s just a matter of time. She doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to release the hostage, though. The neighbors have been running chainsaws all day; Sydney isn’t much of a worrier, but I’m sure that isn’t helping at all. Her milk is still mostly thin and clear-ish yellow but testing 425+ (highest my strips go) in Ca and 6.0 pH. Good thing I didn’t wait for it to look white or opaque before starting to test her.
I had two pregnant mares this year for my first time breeding.
My one mare gave birth a week ago at day 290. I wasn’t even checking her progress because it was so early, and sadly she had placentitis and because I wasn’t there when she gave birth, the foal was trapped in the placenta and died 
Even at 290 days it looked perfectly normal. It was a black pinto.
So that was a horrible first foal experience.
My other mare, Lusitano, is at 264 days today. She’s a maiden. She’s bred to a cremello Lusitano stallion so will have either a buckskin or a palomino. I’m going to be seriously anxious as the days tick by, especially given the disaster with the other mare …. !
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Oh how awful. I’m so sorry! Best wishes for mama #2.
Probably a stupid question, but is there any way you could leave Mom and Kiddo at home, go and get the plasma, and bring it back for the vet to administer?
If it were me in that situation I would haul them loose and together in the open space
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I’d haul them loose, drive super slow.
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Good luck, @eightpondfarm.
I’ve had a nightmare of a day. Sydney’s water finally broke at around 10:30 this morning, Immediately, I knew the presentation wasn’t right. It wasn’t a full red bag, but I could see a bit of the placenta emerging ahead of the foal. When I gloved up and reached in, I found two front hooves - but pointing up - and just barely could brush the end of a muzzle. I thought the foal was just still in the process of making the final rotation and gave her several minutes, but no dice. No emergency vet coverage here, so I tried as hard as I could alone, with a friend who is a vet school faculty member coaching me on the phone, but I got nowhere. I could get Sydney to her feet, but she would throw herself down as soon as I grasped a leg and started pulling. I got kicked twice from her thrashing - once on the arm and once on the back of the head - luckily just glancing blows. I finally was able to reach my neighbor, and he and his son came over to try to help. Nothing, and at this point it had been well over an hour.
The only option left was to load Sydney and drive as quickly as safely possible to Tennessee Equine Hospital, 114 miles away. There were three wrecks on I-40, and it took me almost 2.5 hours to get her there. Bless her freakishly good-minded heart, she loaded without blinking, stayed on her feet, and consumed nearly a full net of alfalfa on the ride. Her heart rate upon arrival was only 48; if you didn’t look at her hind end, you wouldn’t have even known there was anything wrong.
Apparently the trailer ride helped correct the malposition, because once she was there and sedated, the vets were able to pull the foal relatively easily. Miraculously, she (turns out the ultrasound was wrong) was just barely alive still somehow. Sadly, they weren’t able to revive her, and she passed in about half an hour. She was very tall but otherwise not abnormally large. Of course, she was buckskin with four perfectly matched socks and a star. 
I forgot to tell the vets working on Sydney that she is a lightweight when it comes to sedative, so they gave her just an average dose of Xylazine for the delivery, which prompted her to immediately go down, flat out, and refuse to get up for over an hour. The vets were a little concerned at first, but I assured them that that’s actually just Sydney. That part was almost a little comical. Once she got to her feet, she passed the placenta intact. By the time she fully came out of the sedation, she was 100% her normally cheerful self and happily loaded up to come home. She unloaded and immediately started grazing. Just another adventure to her, I suppose. I’m glad that she was a maiden, because she doesn’t even know there is a foal that she should be missing.
Of course, I’m second guessing all of my decisions with her. Should I have taken her in last night when she’d been showing mild discomfort all day but not going into hard labor? If I had loaded her up today as soon as I found the malpresentation, would the foal have had a chance? Is it all my fault for trying to do this by myself?
I promised her while we were trying to pull the foal that if she survived, I’d never do this to her again, and I intend to keep that promise. My rational brain knows that this was probably just a freak thing, but I could never live with myself if we had a repeat. She is entirely too valuable to me emotionally and much too special of a mare to take the risk. ET isn’t really in my current budget, but hopefully it will be one day.
It’s going to be a very long time (if ever) before I’m comfortable foaling a mare out at home again.
Hug your mares and babies.
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Oh, @Montanas_Girl (and Sydney), I am so so sorry. I want to cry for all of you and give you a hug that would take away all the pain. Please please please don’t beat yourself up! You can only make the best decision with what you know at the time and your girls know you did that. Even the little one. Jingles for peace.
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So glad Sydney came through without harm. And how incredibly sad you lost the foal. Breeding is not for the faint of heart is it…
You did everything you could and proved yourself honor-bound to your mare.
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So sorry, what a tough loss. Am glad your mare is doing ok
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I’m so sorry Montanas_Girl. I’m glad Sydney is ok and seems unphased. Last year Lyra foaled her Major Mac filly back feet first. Even with an experienced vet in attendance the whole time the filly didn’t survive delivery. Lyra was also a maiden and so didn’t realize she was missing a foal. She was very attached to people for a few days. Try not to beat yourself up too much, it doesn’t help. We will be doing trans abdominal ultrasound to make sure that this year’s baby is not coming backwards, unfortunately you can’t always see all the ways they can be wrong.
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@Montanas_Girl, I’m so sorry for the way things worked out. As I mentioned upthread, I lost a foal this year too. I certainly understand the second guessing you’re doing, I did exactly the same thing. In the end, sometimes Mother Nature just has different plans than we do. My heart is with you tonight.
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{{{{Montanas_Girl}}}} . I am glad Sydney is OK.
Susan
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I’m so sorry! I was so looking forward to seeing Sydney’s foal. Hugs to you and Sydney, though it’s fortunate she’s not distressed. My mares dam lost a foal once, and her distress made the whole thing worse for us all. Maybe look at it as a minor blessing in the whole sad situation. Please don’t beat yourself up with what ifs. You did the best you could and there is no way to know if it would have turned out better if you’d taken any of the options.
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