Rolf Harris is on channel 5 at equine hospital

Laafet said:
Sallyf totally agree with what you said. IMO vet hospitals are not necessarily the best equipped at foaling, apart from when it is going wrong even then it better to try to treat the mare at home where she is happy and relaxed. This year we had a vet at a normal foaling which was occurring during a colic for another mare in the other main foaling box, said vet (a partner from a very large Equine Hospital) was very interested as he had not seen a normal foaling in a long time :O, I just looked at the mare said, 'she's about to foal', she was not sweating or pacing but I just had this feeling, next thing she lay down and broke waters.
As for the foal being taken away, seriously, horses cope with grief in a different way to humans. I have seen two dead foals in the last four years of foaling on a TB stud (I sit up 6 nights a week), one was PTS as it had an abnormal heart and at 10 days was just struggling too much. The mare was allowed to have the foal for half an hour as it had stood and nursed before the vets took it away for a PM, she lost interest very quickly. The other mare struggled during foaling and her foal died during birth, she too lost interest very quickly, pawed the foal a bit, then we had to take it away for testing (as is standard), she was then placed in a box away from the other foals for a day and sadly we had another mare that died during birth. So we decided to foster that mare onto the orphan foal, she took to it with great success. This mare had lost foals before and seemed unfazed by the whole experience. In the wild, the mare would not hang around a dead foal for long and from what I have seen even in the highly bred TB, they too lose interest very quickly.
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I disagree with you, horses have been known to grieve , the fact that the mares you saw with their dead foals got to paw and sniff them, they knew they were dead which is why they left them, but it lesssens the stress when theyve seen them, so while they may not grieve the same as humans they do still grieve and part of dealing with it is to see that their foal is dead
 
JG - in the difficult deliveries where you knew foal was alive, was it a true dystocia or just a bit tricky? Was there obvious movement or was it more gut instinct on your part? Genuine question as I would have agreed with this statement until I saw several dystocias where you genuinely could not tell - no movement of legs or mouth. One springs to mind particularly, doing a (very long) controlled delivery under GA, and the surgeons were convinced the foal was dead, to the point that embryotomy was suggested. I was working with the foal team and it was only their insistence that the foal would be alive if it came out quick enough that stopped an embryotomy - 40 minutes later we had a live foal. These were hugely experienced vets in a hospital renowned for its repro skills. Prior to that I had seen a few where vets werent sure, but that was the first one that really emphasised to me that sometimes you really cant tell, and why I would be reluctant to do an embryotomy unless the foal was literally falling apart! However I'm sure you have seen more normal foalings than I will ever see, so it's really interesting to get another perspective on things like this.
 
Murphy88 said:
JG - in the difficult deliveries where you knew foal was alive, was it a true dystocia or just a bit tricky? Was there obvious movement or was it more gut instinct on your part? Genuine question as I would have agreed with this statement until I saw several dystocias where you genuinely could not tell - no movement of legs or mouth. One springs to mind particularly, doing a (very long) controlled delivery under GA, and the surgeons were convinced the foal was dead, to the point that embryotomy was suggested. I was working with the foal team and it was only their insistence that the foal would be alive if it came out quick enough that stopped an embryotomy - 40 minutes later we had a live foal. These were hugely experienced vets in a hospital renowned for its repro skills. Prior to that I had seen a few where vets werent sure, but that was the first one that really emphasised to me that sometimes you really cant tell, and why I would be reluctant to do an embryotomy unless the foal was literally falling apart! However I'm sure you have seen more normal foalings than I will ever see, so it's really interesting to get another perspective on things like this.
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How do you draw the line between a 'true' dystocia and a foal that's too damn big to come out in the normal 10-20 minutes? I mainly foal Irish Draughts now (although I did a lot on a TB stud years ago) and the foals tend to be big as the mares are good doers and greedy piglets!:rolleyes:

I would say up to half my mares foal with minimal or no assistance - if they're making progress and all seems well I leave them to it and just watch. (Or they chuck them out between checks!)

The other half will have 'difficult' deliveries - in most cases they could possibly get the foal out without assistance eventually, but others would have had dead foals or a badly damaged mare, or both.

Minimal assistance - in my book - involves a check that we have two front feet and a nose - and things are progressing smoothly. The mare tells you if it's just too hard. And I'm of the view that a hard protracted delivery isn't good for mare or foal - the mare is too knackered to tend the foal - and the foal may have suffered an oxygen deficit resulting in a Dummy foal. So if it looks difficult, I give them a helping hand.

It's not unusual with IDs to have them stick hard at the shoulders - you get the shoulders clear and then the damn thing sticks at the hips. And as my vet is more than 30 minutes away, I can call him - but I can't wait for him! (He's never got here in time yet - just in time to give the mare some anti-inflammatories and ABs.) I'll never forget one vet arriving (90 minutes after I called him and 5 minutes after I got a huge colt out) and saying: "Good grief - how did THAT get in there!" I wasn't amused at the time as I'd spent 20 minutes flat on my back, with half a foal on my chest and my feet braced against the mare's buttocks, twisting the damn thing to try and free its hips! He WAS alive - but fairly knackered - and the mare couldn't get up for about an hour.

I always feel some movement/resistance from the foal. Thinking back there was one I wasn't sure of - but he was a big red bag and I was too busy trying to get him out FAST to feel anything but my own rising panic!:D

I would expect that with a foal who had already suffered some oxygen deprivation there would be much less movement - and with a mare under GA, presumably the foal would be - effectively - sedated too.

I HAVE got one mare - a daughter of the mare who had the HUGE colt - and the first time I thought I'd have to foal her I was VERY worried. She was HUGE - and fat - AND a maiden - AND belonged to someone else (she's on long term breeding loan.) I expected her to have a monster. But she barely farted and threw out the tiniest, daintiest foal I've ever seen from a pure bred ID. Looked more like a small show pony foal! And she's done the same every year since - she puts everything on her back and very little into the foal (but then milks like an old Jersey cow so they grow like stink.) I LOVE her - no worries at all at foaling time except that if you blink, you miss it!

One of the things I didn't like at that delivery was the circus around the mare. I rarely have anyone to assist when foaling a mare - but if we have a daytime delivery when staff are present, everyone stays well back out of the way. Nothing upsets a mare more at foaling than loads of people around. She needs to relax and trust the person helping.
 
marydoll said:
I disagree with you, horses have been known to grieve , the fact that the mares you saw with their dead foals got to paw and sniff them, they knew they were dead which is why they left them, but it lesssens the stress when theyve seen them, so while they may not grieve the same as humans they do still grieve and part of dealing with it is to see that their foal is dead
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I'd agree. My best old mare I bought in foal and she had a premature delivery of a dead foal at about 290 days - in the field! I couldn't get near the foal - she came at me on her hind legs with her mouth open - she meant business. Vet said we should PM the foal - in case it was a 'nasty' - so I tried several times to catch her - no way was she having it! She stood guard over that foal for 24 hours - never leaving it. Then she walked away and I was able to catch her and put her in another field - and remove the foal. 8 foals later she now knows me and trusts me a bit - I can deliver her foals and then tend her (with care) but I don't let anyone else in with her and the foal for the first 3-4 days - she's immensely foal proud.

My young mare who had a dead foal was confused - and in a fair bit of pain - but still KNEW she should be looking after her foal. We left it with her for a few hours - and then distracted her with a feed and removed it. She settled down quite quickly then, but was VERY protective with her next foal.
 
marydoll said:
I disagree with you, horses have been known to grieve , the fact that the mares you saw with their dead foals got to paw and sniff them, they knew they were dead which is why they left them, but it lesssens the stress when theyve seen them, so while they may not grieve the same as humans they do still grieve and part of dealing with it is to see that their foal is dead
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I don't have any input into this thread, other than in relation to what this post says.

My mare has severe separation anxiety when other horses are removed from her field. Even if they were removed from one side of the electric fence to the other she would go mental to the point of two hours (her record!!) of non stop galloping about and frothing all over. She even skidded on her belly through a fence one day when her field mate had been sold (even though there were other horses in the next field). I was at an absolute loss as to what would happen if she ever were for some reason be left alone in the field through absolute necessity.

Anyway, over the past few months, for various reasons, the other horses on my yard (on a very small yard - only 6 stables) passed away (nothing suspicious!!) and my girl was left with one other old mare to cuddle up to in the next field over the electric fence. Sadly, this mare passed away shortly afterwards and I had the dreaded call to say my girl was left completely alone. I was petrified for her, knowing how she had always reacted so severely in the past to being left alone in the field. But strangely (I allowed her to see the bodies of each horse which had passed), she spent the next month completely on her own in the field, with no other horse in sight, or even on the yard itself. She seemed to just 'know' that she didn't have a choice and had to get on with it.

That being said, she didn't look happy like she normally does. She was quieter than ever and usually stood by the gate waiting for me with her head down.

Since she has a new friend at the yard, her anxiety symptoms have started again, although not nearly as bad!
 
Strikes me that there are an awful lot of 'armchair experts' here.

Okay - the outcome of the foaling was not necessarily a great success, however the mare apparently recovered well and pathology confirmed that the foal was non-viable.

I do, however think that both the Leahurst staff and the owner of the mare were very honest and brave to allow the filming to be broadcast.

As far as Gingerwitch's comments about veterinary treatment being ' experimental' are concerned, I would suggest that Leahurst's internationally recognised success rate with colic surgery renders it far from experimental. Additionally, I would dispute that vets refer cases to teaching hospitals without giving extremely informed guidance as to costs, prognosis and welfare. Certainly not my experience!
 
MrsHutt said:
There were various things in the care and treatment of the mare that I would have questioned - but my biggest problem is that no one was wearing a hard-hat in with her! Surely the H&S bods will be down on them like a ton of bricks? Not as if they didn't know what was going to be happening!!
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My thoughts exactly! Seems like a pretty basic thing to throw on in that situation :eek:
 
There maybe a few armchair experts on here, keflavik - but it's been interesting to read comments from at least two posters on here with many years experience of foaling who also question the method of treatment of the mare.
 
amymay said:
There maybe a few armchair experts on here, keflavik - but it's been interesting to read comments from at least two posters on here with many years experience of foaling who also question the method of treatment of the mare.
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Fair comment, and personally I don't think that I felt particularly comfortable watching the scenario - but it's a bit too easy to criticise without necessarily knowing the whole story.

The problem with TV documentaries is that they are designed to provide 'good telly', and I strongly suspect that there were elements of the whole case presentation that were not televised - for example, an extremely well respected reproduction consultant was seen very briefly in the background, but not mentioned.

Ultimately, I think that everyone concerned was in an extremely unenviable position (and not least the patient and her owner) and have every respect for them for consenting to allow the filming to be broadcast.
 
patterdale said:
Can't quote, but IME if the foal was dead enough to be rotting and falling apart he should have been able to tell that straight away. The smell alone is unmistakable.
Then, he should have found the hind leg that was coming through with the fronts first time he checked, but he didn't look for anything beyond the 2 legs and head.
The 'third' leg would have been there all along, presentations don't change that quickly, particularly when the foal is sadly long dead and therefore incapable of movement.

Then when they kept saying the foal was changing position....ditto above.

Also, the girl watching her saying that she was 'trying to urinate and then collapsed' totally missing the fact that it was actually the waters, which my husband spotted before she did.

The various handling shockers.

But mainly the fact that he didn't notice that the foal was dead and presented wrongly straight away.

I know it's hard etc and they did bring the mare through it, but like I say - I wouldn't have been impressed.
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Have to agree !!
 
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