What a great thread! I was a newbie to it in 2009 (guess that still makes a me a newbie really, compared to a bunch of posters here) I had a lot of experience in the neonatal ICU at Hagyard Equine Med. I was a tech there, so i got to work with a LOT of babies and mamas…and helped to foal out some pretty high risk mares
…THAT said…when you see all of the BAD stuff (hell, ONLY the bad stuff) it made me a freakishly paranoid first timer when it was MY first and w/ a maiden mare. lol
But everything went perfect. And some of my favorite memories are of the 10 days leading up to Tiro’s birth. I am lucky that I have a near perfect barn setup with a temp controlled office that has a big window facing the foaling stall (…and a bathroom with a shower!) I lived at the barn 3 weeks prior to her foaling, the bonding was wonderful. She is a very lovey-dovey mare I spent a lot of time with her grooming her and massaging her. For a solid 6 days before she actually foaled she was pretty uncomfortable and had me up all night long…she would pace and was up and down several times during the night with lots of groaning, so I would get up (at 2AM if need be) and massage her back and comfort her. I tested her milk like crazy woman…and found that tasting the milk was a good indicator (I had another mare that I foaled out 2 weeks later, and same exact thing happened). I know that really does almost qualify me for the crazies lol. But when it goes from “tangy or salty” to absolutely NO tanginess to just sweet or creamy (sorry to gross some of you out) she IS going to foal. I did not have a foaling camera set up, but kept a baby monitor with me at all times and slept with it next to my head (very light sleeper). you can hear when they are pacing or getting up and down, groaning…which is sometimes just as/if not more important than seeing it on a screen. Though, I was lucky, I could just pull back the drapes to see what she was doing.
When she did foal…I almost missed it. She was calm and cool in the morning and I turned her out like any other day…I was just settling in to take a nap, just kind of dozing to a Harry Potter movie when the power went out 45 min later…I went outside to see if it was anything abnormal (had nothing to do with the mare) but there she was with 2 feet sticking out, right outside her stall window at 10 AM! lol typical maiden i guess! Good thing I had the foaling kit organized and in front of her stall…threw it over the window and jumped out to help.
It was textbook. she foaled in about 10 min, 10 min later she passed the placenta and the foal was up standing and passed his meconium.
She did get pretty crampy and uncomfortable about 2 hours later, so next go round I would have banamine ready to give to her as soon as the placenta was out.
Another thing that I will say from experience at the clinic…to help prevent neonate diseases (they pick up salmonella and other ‘bugs’ from traces of fecal matter)…before the foal nurses, make up a bucket of diluted soapy ivory/betadine and thoroughly wash/rinse the teats/perineal area (under the tail between the legs and down to the udder…I also wash the areas the foal will bump around to find the udder). A lot of people don’t do this and nothing bad happens, but it doesn’t hurt to do it either…just try to use something with very little fragrance and be sure to rinse all the suds off. The clinic used antibacterial wipes that were made for use on dairy cow udders.
It is a beautiful experience and soooo different when it is your own mare and foal! Enjoy! Be perepared to be in awe and totally smitten with your new foal :o)
