CRAZY part 1

The past 2 weeks have been crazy. Crazy weather and crazy busy and crazy mare foaling. Unfortunately not all of it turned out good.

I'd been keeping a real close watch on Kaydee, one of our Welsh pony mares. She bagged up 3 weeks early (here we go again...) and so I brought her in where she'd be out of the bad weather and I could watch her closer. We bought a nursery monitor and hung it in her stall so I could here any suspicious noises, like, her water breaking.

Kaydee was just HUGE, and i suspected all was not right with the pregnancy. After a week of checking on her through out the night, last Saturday morning she gave signs of early labor. I was off for the day -first to mt Pleasant and then to Moroni where we were holding auditions for a play I'm directing. So Tom was staying back and was going to call me as soon as she looked like she was getting serious. I thought it was odd, when, I returned at 3ish to find her exactly as I left her. So I thought a little walking around would be good for her edema (poor thing had 4 posts for legs) and put her out in the round pen to graze and walk around.

About 1/2 hour after placing her there, she laid down and started to roll (never a good sign with a pregnant mare), while she was rolling I could have sworn I heard her water break and I looked over to see a bit of bloody tinged water. After she finished rolling, she simply jumped up and stood there- no contractions, pushing, nothing. I immediately called the vet- no response, left a message. Called vet #2 (45 minutes away in Spanish Fork) he advised that possibly it was a "pre-waters" bag- keep an eye on her. She walked around a little, then dropped and rolled again. I called him back and he said not good- why don't I go in and see if I can feel 2 legs and a head.

GULP! I went in the house and cut my nails and grabbed some oil. As I was heading back out- my phone rang and it was vet #1- she apologized and I advised her of the sittuation. She was about 40 minutes away.

So the low-down on a mare foaling is that once the water breaks, the foal must be born within 15 minutes to live. IF that was her water that broke- it had already been 40 minutes. Summer, the vet, arrived and went right in to assess the foal. It seemed in the right position, and the water had broke when I thought it did. So she started pulling on the front legs- with no luck. She got her chains and attached them to the legs and then went in to try and determine what the colt was hung up on. Somehow the head wasn't coming along with the legs. She gave a shot of oxytocin to the mare to help her contract. And I took over the head while Tom went back to help pull. Over a half hour later, they finally got the colt pulled. It was still alive, but our relief was short lived when it started fading. within 5 minutes of being born it was dead. It's lungs had been compromised during delivery.

It was heartbreaking. He was a beautiful, big colt. This is the first foal I've ever lost- I guess the odds were against me.

Summer and I milked off the colustrum from kaydee- incase I have MORE bad luck with foals this year. Summer looked at me and said, "How many more foals do you have coming?" She's beginning to believe me when I said something's not right with my babies this year! Is it the crazy wether? Something in the feed? Or were these two coincidences? I guess we'll find out when the next mare foals.

So Annie and gretchen are due next- in about 10 days. They both seem normal for their due date- keep your fingers crossed.