PH/calcium testing - availability?

Bennions Field

Bennions Field

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i have been looking on ebay/the net and can find lots of various tests, but, which ones are appropriate/usefull and what scales should be used, ph between what levels and calcium between / down to what level. i have a maiden and any help with predicting the right time would be greatly apprecialted. many thanks for all your help :-)
 
I have used milk testing for many years and it has made such a huge difference to foal watch for me. I use the pool strips and the distilled water method as shown in the link. The only thing I'd say is that although it's always been very accurate (within 24 hours), knowing your mare helps pinpoint the actual time she will foal. I have one mare who will foal within a couple of hours of dropping marginally below 7ph and the rest of mine foal within a few hours of dropping to 6.2ph. All of them go over 500 hardness (calcium) before they foal and one goes to 700.

I obviously use all the other methods as well but milk testing has by far been the most accurate to narrow the timeframe down.
 
Their was a post on here a few days ago now about mares milk testing strips, very helpful post, but I read the testing strips cost £60.
 
Gucci_b said:
Their was a post on here a few days ago now about mares milk testing strips, very helpful post, but I read the testing strips cost £60.
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Yes for the foal predictor kits you are looking at a big price tag (relatively speaking). The pool strips and distilled water would bearly cost you more than a tenner and should easily be enough to test 10 mares (although I admit to using more test strips with maidens as gives me a better idea of their pattern for the following year) :)
 
thanks all for your help everyone, my mare is a maiden so its going to be a bit of a guessing game anyway, so any help with testing is going to be a big bonus and hopefully not so many sleepless nights.

i will try and find some pool testing strips, but the hint on the levels is really usefull thank you :-))) its not too long now, starting to believe she's actually going to have a foal, she's certainly getting bigger by the day now, and starting to fill out a very slight amount on her boobs, thankfully she actually likes being scratched on her belly and around
there :-)
 
I went and bought one from the aquatics section at my local garden centre. It was only a couple of pounds. It came with a little test tube and a bottle of liquid. The milk went in the tube, then a few drops of the liquid, a quick shake and I compared it to the colour card. It was useful and I had so much fun doing it.

I think it was Karyn on here that helped me out with the numbers.
 
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