Foal Watch 2020

monte1

monte1

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At the request of MP and a few others I am starting a thread for my own personal foal watch

the mare is a lovely BWB with Ramiro Z bloodlines and sire is Vagebont, he has Mecenas and Samber bloodlines, the official due date was 12th April and foal moved around into position on Friday, we have colostrum and now just waiting, all very exciting and slightly stressful :)

This is my first ever foal, but not the mares, she has been a mum a few times and her owner has a rising two year old by the same sire, who is just stunning!

I am very excited to be able to finally meet him or her in the next week or so and will keep you all posted and add pictures once I can upload!
 
at my old yard all of the mares that were due recently were late, 2 of them have now foaled, one on 9th april and one last night, all ok....there is now one pony mare who is now 12 days late so YO is watching her and is absolutely shattered after having to watch the other two mares for nights on end. once this one has been born there is a gap till the last one is due so YO should be able to catch up on her rest. . wish i could be there but am being sensible and keeping away, i am being sent pics so at least i can see the foals on my phone..
 
The lock down has indeed made it all a bit more difficult, I had pre-planned foal watch duties with the mares owner, so we would sleep in her lorry at yard, but obviously can't do that, so we are doing opposite ends of day for care, feeds etc and I will stay up in my trailer for my overnight watch. if we do need to be there together for anything, we are making sure social distancing and using gloves and disinfecting everything used.
makes it slightly easier it is private place and no one else is there
certainly didn't factor the current situation in when excitedly planning this last year :-(
 
One of mine I was checking 2 hourly. Went down looked at her, calm and eating hay, no signs whatever. 2 hours later lovely foal, totally dry and up and sucking so had been there for a while. With that particular mare I never managed to be there when she foaled, all my others I did. One I would swear used to wait for me to appear before she went down to foal.
Fingers crossed all goes well Enjoy the experience it is magical.
 
It's the mares 3rd foal. 1st one I missed by about 5/10 mins. The 2nd one caught me unaware, she didn't wax up and as she'd run with the stallion I wasn't too sure of dates. Funnily enough I had woken (and I rarely do) during the night at 4.36am. Went down a couple of hrs later and she'd had her. This time we are camping out in the trailer. I know it's the end of May! 3rd time lucky. ?
 
Tagging along to hopefully learn some tips :D mine is due late may and I'm planning to sleep in the horsebox. OH thought having horsecam set up would be enough but home is a 5 min drive away and I think that's too far :p
 
been lots of teat pics on the foaling hub on FB, that has been very helpful esp as mine's a maiden so handy to see other maidens iyswim

People say that they sometimes don't have all the normal giveaways o_O
 
Those who've been there before, what should I have in my foaling kit? Not sure what is necessary and what's only really useful if you are very experienced o_O vet will be on speed dial obv if necessary but we're an hour away from the practice (stud mine went to is a 10 min drive and they would be Ok to assist if we had a disaster I think).
 
last year YO was not at the yard, pony mare (who we are waiting on now) wasnt supposed to foal for a few days and YO checked her before she went out and was happy she wasnt ready. i was just leaving the yard at about 5ish and looked over the door of the foaling box and mare was getting down and up and was sweating. phoned YO who was an hours drive away and while i was on the phone the front feet and nose popped out, i was the only only one at the yard and so YO phoned her friend who was 20 mins away then phoned me back and i could tell her he was out. this was my first and only foaling experience and as i had read lots i knew to clear his nose and YO's friend arrived after it was all over. it was scarey but lovely at the same time. good luck everyone...
 
milliepops said:
Those who've been there before, what should I have in my foaling kit? Not sure what is necessary and what's only really useful if you are very experienced o_O vet will be on speed dial obv if necessary but we're an hour away from the practice (stud mine went to is a 10 min drive and they would be Ok to assist if we had a disaster I think).
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Lubricant in case you need to put an arm up, baler twine in case you need to hook a leg, iodine or similar for the cord stump (easiest to do in a little shallow tub) a bucket for the placenta for the vet to check, an enema (human stuff fine), a little foal or dog rug and a couple of towels (Generally don’t actually use unless foal very weak)
 
Thanks TM, it's just the lube I'm missing then, seems there was a run on it when covid hit! :oops: Hopefully local farm shop will have some in stock, I'm guessing lube is lube....?
 
Morning all,

Nothing to report yet, mares owner was in lorry on watch last night, we are taking turns due to CV19-
I slept with phone under my pillow so could rush over, as am 5 minutes drive away.

we have borrowed a remote access camera for foal watch, which is just brilliant, so we can watch her from our phones, it is a bit addictive though and i find myself checking constantly to see what is happening ( by the way doing this every hour or so, uses loads of data !! :-})

MP, I joined Foaling Hub on FB as well, it is really useful and a bit scary as it shows you how much can go wrong, but I am confident that we have made as many contingency plans as we can and mares owner is very experienced so I am very much following her lead.

Photo of her from this morning eating her breakfast :)

Will keep you posted, good luck to anyone with foals due
 

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Peregrine Falcon said:
Are you on duty tonight monte1? Perhaps a pic of teats for MP?

Honestly, if someone had got hold of my phone when my mares have been due.......
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LOL the photos :-)
yes, I will take some later on, when i am back up there, she hasn't bagged up all that much to be honest, but certainly has milk, which apparently is good and I was told last time she didn't bag up that much till after foal was born, so this could be normal for her, it seems they are all quite different and classic signs sometimes can't be relied on :-)
 
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