Dam of Twin Foals...Words Fail Me!

RutlandH2O

RutlandH2O

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I saw this on the US Yahoo! site. Go to Yahoo! Screen/Broken News Daily. Rare Twin Horses Born on Easter.

Mute the commentary...the 'reporter' is obnoxious. The condition of the dam is so shocking one would think the story should be about her and not the babies.
 
OMG, the poor mare!
Noy making an excuse but not knowing anything about breeding - could she have been made worse from the growing foals inside her?
I notice they only show very short clips of her :eek:
 
RutlandH2O said:
MB, thanks for the link. Someone who commented on the video reported the owner to the authorities. How that mare managed to produce those babies is beyond me!
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Hmm well we certainly don't know the circumstances and I'm sure that carrying twins takes its toll, but that looks pretty bad for me even due to these facts. I haven't personally see any mare looking like that after birth but then I've not seen twins before myself - anyone with more breeding knowledge on here care to comment?

As said though, hopefully she will pick up pretty quickly now with some tlc :)
 
According to the comments the woman has owned her for 18 years, so goodness knows how old the poor thing is (or how many foals she's bred previously). She looks like she can barely stand up. I hope she's taken in by one of the rescue organisations.
Much less important, but the woman also talks in the report about her neighbour delivering the foals and being really excited- if my horse was pregnant I'm blowed if I'd want to miss it and let someone else deal with the birth! We even stay up for our pigs and sheep in case they have problems. I wonder if the same disinterest has led to the state of the poor mare...
 
martlin said:
I'm not surprised she's looking poor. She just gave birth to twins. She should pick up now pretty quickly.
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This is not a simple case of 'looking poor' because of giving birth to twins. That mare is starving! The prominence of her hip bones, ribs and shoulders is shocking. I've seen two different mares after they produced live twins. They both had normal body scores with well-covered hips, etc.

I doubt, very much, that the mare will 'pick up now pretty quickly.'
 
I hope she is being fed appropriately and/our foals fed supplimentary milk too. Sounds like she is being watched by a number of organisations so I hope so.
 
I have had a few mares that were in poor condition towards the end of their (normal) pregnancies. I was always told it was because they put their all into the foal.
I say this is rubbish! Those same mares looked perfectly well all the way through their pregnancies with me because they were fed correctly.
 
Foxhunter49 said:
I have had a few mares that were in poor condition towards the end of their (normal) pregnancies. I was always told it was because they put their all into the foal.
I say this is rubbish! Those same mares looked perfectly well all the way through their pregnancies with me because they were fed correctly.
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One of our broodies is overdue now and is looking a bit ribby (NOTHING like that poor mare though I should add). Our girl does struggle a little to keep weight on and has to have fairly big feeds but when the due date nears she won't eat as much as the foal takes up so much room.

Twins are uncommon mostly because of the fact they greatly increase the risk to the mare and foal(s) so sensible people have one removed. Our other broodmare has been scanned with twins at two weeks on more than one occasion, each time we have one pinched out so that she can have one happy healthy foal :)
 
Foxhunter49 said:
I have had a few mares that were in poor condition towards the end of their (normal) pregnancies. I was always told it was because they put their all into the foal.
I say this is rubbish! Those same mares looked perfectly well all the way through their pregnancies with me because they were fed correctly.
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^^^This!

My Shire mares NEVER lost condition before or after foaling. There seems to be a misconception (pardon the pun) regarding the body condition of mares after they foal. I've had no end of people remark on how good my mares looked when they came to see the babies.

There was a beautiful Shire mare that gave birth to twins a few years ago. The owners were expecting a single foal (the mare had been scanned). She produced two gorgeous fillies and was featured in a report in H & H. The mare was in lovely condition. I still have the photo from that report. There is no excuse for mares to look poorly because they have given birth, whether to a single foal or, hopefully not, twins.
 
It says the mare is 18 years old and the woman has owned her for a number of years. I suspect an 18 year old mare in foal to twins could have lost weight fairly radically if her extra nutritional requirements were not met. Older mares, especially those who have foaled numerous times (as in this mares case) can be brought down by it as, like with most mares, they will put their all into their foal. In this case the older mare had twins so I have no doubt it put extra strain on her. Those foals are a good decent height and weight so I can imagine they took a toll on her. With the right feed she should be able to slowly recover but it could be tough getting the weight back on her as those twins will continue to take an awful lot out of her for the next 3 months.

I'm glad to see I'm not alone in thinking how bizarre it is that owners aren't there for their mares during foaling. I'd be absolutely horrified if anything happened to my mares during delivery when had I been there I could have done something, and that's why I will never be able to understand those who aren't there for their mares during labour. I digress, this lady seemed to be a pretty laissez faire type of person so maybe she doesn't know or care too much. Who knows. It would be interesting to see what condition her other horses are in, from what I saw they looked okay, as did her cattle, so maybe the mare did just drop the weight very quickly.

And it's not unusual for some broodmares to look a little poor after birthing, particularly for the first week or so. Mine generally look a little tucked up for a day or so afterwards and then their bodies sort themselves back out and they look well again. In this mares case she looks very poor however but as I say I don't know whether this is due to the foals, her age or lack of feed, or perhaps all of those reasons. Either way the mare does need some mega calories putting into her now.
 
RutlandH2O said:
This is not a simple case of 'looking poor' because of giving birth to twins. That mare is starving! The prominence of her hip bones, ribs and shoulders is shocking. I've seen two different mares after they produced live twins. They both had normal body scores with well-covered hips, etc.

I doubt, very much, that the mare will 'pick up now pretty quickly.'
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I dont agree either, she is feeding 2 babies all her goodness is going to her babies.. Poor girl My sisters mare who was 38 never looked that bad before she was PTS..

Dread to think what she looked like when she was in foal..

Hope she finds someone who know's what they are doing.
 
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