Once the colostrum has come in, I worry if I can’t monitor them for even 5 minutes. They can foal SO quickly, especially mares that have had a foal or 2 before. I really prefer to use a listening device, over a camera, although I do have both. It is my Fisher Price Nursery Monitor that really does the job. I just can’t stay awake checking on a camera, but I can listen with the volume up. Then the noise in the stall will alert me, or even wake me up if I doze off. A camera won’t do that. It is also SO much more restful to try to go to sleep, but the noise won’t let you, than it is to try to stay awake. I find that exhausting.
Thank you Kathy, as I said the mare was very sneaky. She really showed no signs of impending birth. I’ve learned from my own experiences with my daughter, sometimes things just happen. I had no reasoning either. You are right we can always second guess. I think from now on though I’m just going to put a sleeping bag and cot outside the foaling stall. Make my husband watch the girls at night.
My cameras have sound and, like Darlyn, I keep the volume up and never fail to know when the time has come.:yes:
My camera actually has sound too, but it is not as clear as my FP nursery monitor, so that is what I use, and keep the camera colume off. The best set up I ever used, was when a mare owner rigged 2 microphones hanging over the stall, and wired it into the stereo. Then I slept in a very comfortable set of head phones with stereo!
Is your baby monitor a wired system? I desperately want sound, because I have been on foal watch for long enough I’m going to sleep through this event if I don’t get it.
Yesterday my DH worked all afternoon to install a camera with sound, but it doesn’t work, and he can’t get help until Monday, which might be too late. Tell me which FP model you use. We have a barn about 400 ft. from our house, with trees and a slight rise between the house and barn. Can a baby monitor work with this situation?
Red Bag Deliveries (getting back to the topic, maybe a separate thread can be started about monitors???) are a breeders most feared delivery.
I’m checking my scissors and making sure they are right there (which we have, but now they will be in my pocket).
What kind of gloves does everyone use?
Sorry, I don’t mean to stray from the topic. However, it is because of my fear of red bag deliveries that I need to be awake when foaling begins, and hence, my question.
I use the basic Fisher Price model, but I am pretty close to the barn. I was working in a situation about 400’ away a decade ago, and also was able to use the older model. It was not super clear, and I had to shift it around a bit in the house to be able to get reception, but it did let me know what was going on. I think they are only about $20 so may be worth a try.
My husband is a Dentist and wears gloves all the time when working on his patients, I just get a big box of gloves from him They come in sizes, and I get the small ones so the big ones dont fall off my hands.
WOW, what a read. I am counting myself ‘very’ lucky - three textbook deliveries with two different mares, both maidens. What brave souls you all are. Time for me to quit while I’m ahead. The odds are included in the breeding equation!
No one mentioned fescue as one of the causes of red bag problems.
This is a great thread and thank you for posting. kathy you are a remarkable woman in the gift of transferring knowledge and making it factual and practical. - Thank you 
I have been very very fortunate not to have ever had a red bag delivery…even though I have delivered foals from two mares here whom had placentitus and were both high risk for red bad deliveries. Of course I have read up on the topic and refresh myself at the start of every foaling season but I just wonder, like others, would I be able to cope. It is one of my biggest fears to be faced with such a delivery.
I just experienced a red bag delivery a few days ago. Ironically, not my mare who is to term and has cancer. This mare was over due, not an older mare either. Mare was huge, so I was expecting one of two things, a very large foal, or twins. Had my vet on standby. I had foaled her out two prior times, and everything was text book. This time she carried to 361, had some edema under her belly. Bag was completely full for a week. I had been watching her like a hawk, knowing delivery was iminant, as her milk was white. She cleaned up her dinner, and I went in the house, she tripped the foal alert a few mins later. From the moment I walked into her stall, the whole delivery, labor, was just wrong. She was in hard labor, but not normal hard labor. She was sweating terribly, legs shaking, buckling, panting, gums were very pale, and still no water breaking. This went on for close to an hour. I had a call into the vet, and she was on her way. Finally her water broke. She presented the nice bubble, followed immediately by red placenta and feet. The foal was red bagging, and upside down. I got the foal turned quickly, my neigbor (thank gawd for him) and I pulled with everything we had and got him out very quickly. All of the placenta was delivered before the foal. The colt was not breathing, and was limp. I performed CPR, and got him breathing fairly quickly. He was limp for about ten mins. lots of towel rubbing, and he started to rally around. In the mean time, the mare has never whinned to the foal, got up went into the corner and was still panting, and tons of sweat, legs shaking, generally shocky. I administered banamine, and at this point suspected a bleed. Vet arrived and clearly mare is suffering from a uterine tear. There was nothing we could do to save her. Her colt is doing well as a bucket baby. I feel like I have an infant again. That foaling was an experience I hope never to see again. It was tragic and wrong from the start of it all.
OMG. You have me quaking in my boots. I dont even know what to say except how sorry I am for you. How very sorry!!! And, as you know, I have the mare with cancer also.
I have experienced three red bags out of maybe 130.
Most recent was in February. Mare is 20 years old, hadn’t had a baby in at least a couple of years, and she was over 2 weeks late. No indication that anything was wrong until I went in the stall and saw the placenta coming. Just tore through it and got the baby out. The mare was fine, the baby was very, very weak for the first couple hours but turned out fine.
The others were younger mares, again no indication that anything was wrong. They came out fine as well.
The trick is simply to be there and to rip through the sac to the baby as fast as you’re able, and to have good fortune on your side.
WOW, information like what we have here is what makes the internet such a powerful and wonderful tool. I am printing this whole thread to refer to should I need it (and hope that I don’t) I am on foal-watch with a maiden mare as I type this. I have several foaling “manuals” and none have been as descriptive as a some of these posts. I feel much more confident to handle a red bag situation now. THANK YOU ALL.
Okay, (someone else asked this and now I’m wondering), what degree does fescue hay play in Red Bag Deliveries?
Fescue
“In horses, pregnant mares are most at risk when eating fescue, since the alkaloids produced by the fungus inhibit prolactin release. Mares will have an increased risk of prolonged gestation, abortion, stillbirth, dystocia (difficult birth), foal mortality, retained or thickened placenta, no milk, and mare death (in foaling, or from a retained placenta).”
Dystocia includes red bag. I live in an area where there is a lot of old pasture growth. The mares that have the fescue problem have had some history of red bag occurances. Is it a direct correlation?
I think so.
My best mare had a horrific red bag a few years ago. She was “due” on my calculations, and I have never been too far off on her on a Friday. By Monday she still had not had the foal. Since this mare dripps milk every year, I was actually milking her twice a day to try and save the collustrum. So at midnight I milked her and she just stood there. Well unfortunately I fell asleep and my husband actually went to check on her at 4:00AM well he came out of the barn screaming “red bag”. Well I ran down to the barn and yep he was right. It was about 18" long. I opened it up and reached in but no foal. The mare was lunging so hard she was crashing around in the stall (thank you baby monitor for not working!! Since then I have a camera!!) anyway I loaded her in the trailer and drove to the clinic 10 minutes away. Well the 4 men vets started working on her, reached in and found two HIND feet. and not only that the foal was upside down. So the foal was trying to come out on its back feet first. It took the vets about 45 minutes to deliver the foal after pushing it back in and turning it. It did not help that my mare is 16-3!! By this point I was more worried about the mare. The foal was obviously dead. I could not believe it when one of the vets actually attemped mouth to mouth in a last ditch effort. But it took so long to get the foal out I knew it was a futile effort. Later they decided the foal was about 12 hours dead by the time the mare tried to “expell” it.
A freak foaling yes but since I have been very leary!!. The mare is fine but lost the next foal at 6 weeks to colic and aborted the one she was carrying a few days later. This year she is due May 12th–I will appreciate any jingles!!! This is the longest awaited foal I have ever had!!! Her last foal is 5 years old!!
We had a very scarey foaling last night. I’m not sure if it was a RB or not. The mare went into labor, The white sack came out, followed by two front feet, but they were upside down. Of course I freaked, but somehow managed to remember to make the mare get up. So I made her get up and walk around. I had to repeat this a couple times. That did get the baby postioned correctly, thank God.
Then it appeared a fairly normal delivery until the hips and back legs came out which were wrapped in the red placenta.
1 1/2 hourse after the delivery, baby was still unable to stand and nurse so we had to nurse the mare and feed baby.
Long story short, after 7 hours, the baby is able to stand and is nursing vigorously.
I’m just wondering if this baby was weak because of the early separation of the placenta? This my my most difficult delivery and it was terribly scary.
The vet came and checked baby over, and said she looks good, just weak. But her blood wasn’t clotting properly, so we’ll retest tomorrow morning.
Any special concerns here? Baby now is nursing like gangbusters and looks great. I’ve heard about difficult births where the baby appears well and then crashes.
