CCTV NIGHT-TIME FOAL WATCH: how often do you check?

AnShanDan

AnShanDan

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Just been wondering how frequently most people check their mares during the night?

I have my 2 (one my own and my friend's) mares due a fortnight apart in theory: 21 April and 7 May. We have a nice foaling box all organised within my little stable and will have cctv hooked up to the house (20m away) and my friend's lorry (round the back of the stable).

We are planning to take it in turns to watch during the night. But how often do you get up? Every hour? More often :o???

What are your experiences: will we be likely to miss the foalings unless we literally stay up all night? Not sure I can do days/weeks of no sleep ;).

At the moment they are both still very chilled and behaving totally normally. They both have started to bag up but that's it. I was planning to start bringing them in at night very soon but not watching at night exactly for a week or 2.

Still undecided about the milk testing - my friend isn't keen to interfere in any way with her mare which is up to her but I may still test my own.
 
We use the milk testing, and also stay up in shifts, so the mares are not unwatched at all. But, we are charging for the service :) so have to do that.
Realistically, the majority of mares you could look at every hour as all other signs start to indicate. Position your CCTV where you can open your eyes and see it - it makes a massive difference to your tiredness levels not to have to drag yourself out of bed to check (you do start to see imaginary foals in the straw though! lol!) I would use this in conjunction with milk testing, and when the testing indicates a foaling within 24 hours, stay up the whole night.
 
I check hourly to start with, leaving cctv on from when we leave them around 6. This gives you a real feel for what they nornally do and as other signs kick in decrease that time until it is every 15 minutes and even then you could miss an entire foaling.
We missed one once (mind you up to that point no one had ever seen her foal) and literally within 10 minutes there he was, and since he was a huge coloured foal you couldn't have missed him 10 minutes earlier. When we raced up to the stables we decided that she had foaled him standing up and by then she was casually looking over the stable door. The foal had all the cord and some of the bag attached to him, and she had no straw in her mane or tail, the bed was unruffled.
So even 10 minutes can be too long!
 
I have just a single mare due anyday, this is my own mare, I am not a stud! I started foal watch when she was 318 days (we are now at 350!) camera is on all day and all night so I have a really good idea of what is normal for her, in the day I check pretty much constantly.

At night I generally go to sleep at 12.30, and check her at 2am, 4am and 6am, however, I am very slow at getting back to sleep so generally watch her for 1/2 before falling asleep again and as I have been doing this for weeks I tend to wake up 15 mins before alarm goes off so she is probably only left unchecked for a round an hour at a time.

If she is acting at all oddly I physically go and check her.

Looking back on it now I wish I had done milk testing, however, even with milk testing I would still probably have checked a few times in the night :D
 
I have stayed awake and checked mine all night in shifts every hour and missed 4 out of the 5 of mine !!

Though i dont have CCTV i am definitely thinking of getting it this year - i am like a walking zombie for a few days!! i am just hoping this years one is on time due 14th June as the week after im at hickstead x
 
Your replies are making me think I'll miss them unless we literally watch every min day and night!!
Maybe I need to make up a rota for the night-time shifts? Who can I rope in to help....has to be someone who won't just fall asleep so that rules out my husband for a start!!!

I can see myself staying up all night then dozing off during the day and voila...the foal.
 
Bit of a thread hijack here but what does everyone use? We have no electric at farm but i wondered if anyone else is in same situation?

Great to hear what everyone does too. My mareis 273 days so i dont have foal watch yet to look forward too. I will be staying over but i would love to get some sort of camera so i dont have to get out and disturb her
 
I have a little caravan next to the foaling boxes, i used CCTV and also record it all 24/7 so if i am not about, i can see how her behaviour has been. I do foal watch single handed - but also have toddler twins so cant watch 24/7. Thankfully, my mum and other liveries keep an eye on them when i have to pop home. The days are tough as i have the boys with me but we make it fun, have picnics etc lol.
I got up last year between every 45 and 20 minutes depending on how she looked. I say 'got up' but in reality it was open my eyes.... look at the screen for about 5 or 10 minutes, maybe rewind quickly through the recorded footage from the last 20-45 min to see if she has been restless etc, then back to 'sleep' - i cant do sleeping in short doeses!
Last year, the mare (whos dates we never had as she was bought infoal) ended up foaling at 10.20am.... i had gone home to get ready for an exam i had at 11.30... mum was at the yard from about 6.30... at which point i had gone home so hubby could go to work and i was there to get the children up.... my mum left the yard when a livery came down... livery checked mare and called to say her veins were up... i dashed down just as you could start to see the bag!
If there is some way you can rope others in to keep a gentle eye on the mares when you are not about it takes a bit of pressure off about having to watch 24/7.

This year i also have the addition of a foaling alarm so am planning on waking every hour to watch the cctv... unless shes looking restless etc.

Re the post with someone with no electric at their yard, i cant think of much to suggest but i am pretty sure you can get some night vision cameras that work via battery.... ?
 
luckilotti said:
Re the post with someone with no electric at their yard, i cant think of much to suggest but i am pretty sure you can get some night vision cameras that work via battery.... ?
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Thanks for that, its good to know there might be something by battery. If anyone knows any info i would really appreciate it.
 
I've got 2 on foal watch at the mo, one due 1/4 the other 5/4. We have cctv rigged up which broadcasts to the tv in the owners bedroom and I go and watch them when they are either out or they send me the link/code thing which works in a fuzzy sort of way! I am on hand via phone any time.
 
When does everyone start foal watch?? My mare is 316 days and started to bag up over a month ago now, today her teats are very warm (have been cold before) her hind is slightly relaxed.
 
We camped down the barn for 8 weeks.
And I realised the day she foaled that she would foal that night.

If you fancy your sleep, get to know your mares very well. The big give aways were:
Her lady parts were redder than normal
She groomed a horse she didn't like
Having been relatively grumpy for days, she went dreamy and dazed
Her tummy tucked in a little.

Bless her, she then waited for everyone but myself and my mum to leave before hopping up and down like a woman posessed. After about 4 hours of me biting my nails and her jumping up and down, I went to check and had a nagging suspicion things were imminant. Her waters broke as we phoned home for back up!!!!!

Without any CCTV, but with some really dogged determination, we were able to watch the whole thing as a family.
Paid off, foaling was by the book (after months of against the book behaviour :rolleyes: ) and we were saved the stresses of a previous foaling which resulted in a dummy foal and a hospital stay!!!

So yeah, know you mares!! I know they don't always show signs but more than anything I had a gut instinct, she just wasn't herself!

That way, you can check the CCTV and know what's normal/what isn't.
 
Every hour and a half! Its a baby monitor off of ebay with two camera's with a screen plugged into a telly like above has said its much easier if you only have to open your eyes not get up. The mares are just outside the window too so noise wakes me up, and the bloody owl/fox and lapwings.

We have 2 TB's over due nearly 3 weeks, one on 341, two on 315 and one on 300 days.
 
Have CCTV playing in the bedroom all night from 2 weeks before the due date.
My old mare is pretty good to guess, when I catch her in at night and shes squirting milk over my feet I know shes not far away - she generally goes 2 weeks over.
When they are close I have a timer and either set it for an hour or 20 mins.
 
Can anyone tell me the best cctv camera to get for my foaling box will it have its own screen ?I haven't a clue understanding the gargen please help
 
I'm watching my sheep who are about to start lambing at the minute. I think the cameras were from a firm called spy cameras. You just buy what you actually need so we just use an old television. If you keep the sound on all night you will hear as soon as your mare starts to do anything unusual.
 
WILLCOCK said:
Can anyone tell me the best cctv camera to get for my foaling box will it have its own screen ?I haven't a clue understanding the gargen please help
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you will need a camera with infrared so it can see in the dark and then you either have cables going to a tv or to a wireless internet box thats set up to send to the web. or you need a camera with built in wifi. obviously the stable needs to have an internet signal for sending if you want to view from the internet at home
 
The last mare I foaled I watched for six weeks two weeks before due and the month the mare was late .
By the end I was exhausted and slightly nutty .
The moment her tail started an unusual swish I called the vet ( prearranged as the mare was huge ) the vet was less than ten minutes away and was with me within the ten minutes and the mare was in trouble already it was a fast moving situation after that and we ended up with a cut bruised but alive mare and a slightly shocked but huge live foal .
TBH in those moments I said to myself never again .
I then dropping with exhausting got the foal feeding and went to bed and slept for twelve hours .
That delivery showed me it needs to be 24/7 to be sure your there when the mare needs you .
 
CRABBYMARE do you have any recommendations for wireless? My mare is 295 days some I'm needing mine in asap. My stable is approximately 13 /14 metres from the wireless router. Its not my place, so I need to watch online from home
 
scottyg said:
CRABBYMARE do you have any recommendations for wireless? My mare is 295 days some I'm needing mine in asap. My stable is approximately 13 /14 metres from the wireless router. Its not my place, so I need to watch online from home
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I dont know anyone who uses wireless ones as the places that have them use wired to a box and watch online. best way is to find somewhere like maplins or screwfix and ask in the shop. for some ideas http://www.equicom.co.uk/calving-cameras-39-c.asp have various camera setups that might work for you and they also give you a better idea of how the cameras are set up than a lot of places. I dont work for them and I have not used them but its useful for comparisons
 
By the time my mare foaled I was so exhausted that I failed entirely. I not only slept through her foaling night, but slept in the following morning (unheard of!), which meant the first I knew of my filly was a txt message on my phone accusing me of not telling anyone she'd been born! Thankfully everything went like clockwork and mare and filly were up and ready for examination by the time I finally rocked up. Found the placenta, called my vet to let him know the deed was done and then promptly didn't sleep for the next 24 hours as I just watched her in amazement.

Sometimes the best laid plans ..... (but it can still work out for the best. She never gave us any trouble as a foal. The subsequent 6 years were another matter!)
 
We will be in the caravan next to the stable. Last time we used one of those baby intercom things. I heard her breathing change and went out and she had started to deliver the foal.
 
When I started breeding, I checked every hour and got caught out. We have thick walled stone barns and cannot operate CCTV to our house.

Last year, I just camped in the adjoining loose box, with torch, flask of coffee and my Kindle. I needed to go back to the house and returned 10mins later to hear water breaking at 4.00am. A big filly which my CB mare pushed out in 15 mins. That is how easy it is to miss a foaling.
 
This is terrifying me. I work 24hr shifts so there will be one or two nights a week I won't be able to be there but will have my and dad on call. I just know she will foal when I'm not there :(
 
My only experience of foaling is on an established stud - so they employ people to sit up through the night to observe mares on camera. They are having my mare to foal down as I'm just not set up to be able to do it. I am hoping to do the night watch for mine though and have already planned my work diary accordingly!
 
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