Should I hit the panic button?

Goodness - foalwise, we are only a week in and you have been through hell and back mentally in the last few weeks. Just give yourself - and your brain! - a rest for a bit.
You have plenty of time to go back to working with Hermosa and, as others have said, she will soon start getting bored with his antics and let you get nearer to both of them to do some basic handling. Please just concentrate on this for the next few weeks. It will give you all some much needed breathing space and set up both of them for whatever decisions you need to take in the autumn.

Longer-term - to me there seem to be a number of questions only you can answer:
  1. Do you want to keep Hermosa?
  2. Do you want to keep the foal?
  3. Do you want to keep both of them?
When you have got the answers to these questions that you feel happy with then you will know how to plan. But I think answering these questions based on what sort of accommodation you can find for them would be the wrong way round to approach this - definitely a "cart before the horse" approach!!!
 
pistolpete said:
Noooo don’t wean early unless you want a horse who suffers separation anxiety his whole life. Good research to confirm this. Not kind to do it. Feel for you CI it’s been a rocky road but everything crossed things will turn out ok. He is stunning. As is she!
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Interesting, do you have a link to the research? Do you mean research as in a scientific study?
 
don’t sell because it doesn’t end wall for the mare and foal . Most inexperienced people buy these horses and keep them not the right conditions. You could wean early if you were stuck 4 to 5 months.

I can completely get a why you’re feeling like this you probably miss riding .
 
Spirit2021 said:
don’t sell because it doesn’t end wall for the mare and foal . Most inexperienced people buy these horses and keep them not the right conditions. You could wean early if you were stuck 4 to 5 months.

I can completely get a why you’re feeling like this you probably miss riding .
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Rather sweeping and extremely negative statements there, perhaps 'sometimes' it doesn't end well, perhaps 'sometimes' inexperienced people buy these horses etc.....

OP I know you have had a terrible few weeks with one thing and another but the wisest thing I think will be as you suggested yourself, to try to pin your YO down to a decision perhaps in a month or so when she has had time to mull things over (don't make her feel pressured!) and then have a re think about it all.

And try and give yourself a break, physically and mentally, even perhaps a day out away from it all with your OH, while the weather is good, or just a couple of hours doing something else each day, anything that you enjoy away from the situation.
 
pistolpete said:
Noooo don’t wean early unless you want a horse who suffers separation anxiety his whole life. Good research to confirm this. Not kind to do it. Feel for you CI it’s been a rocky road but everything crossed things will turn out ok. He is stunning. As is she!
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Really? You can prove this?
My current mount was weaned at 3 months as her mother couldn't feed her and was v v ill. No harm done and she's absolutely not got and never had any anxiety issues.
I've had some myself that were weaned early for various reasons, not always wanted to but was required and again, never experienced issues.
I have never ever had anxiety issues from early weaning and not come across it before.

CI, maybe your YO will help you work things out for later on x
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
Really? You can prove this?
My current mount was weaned at 3 months as her mother couldn't feed her and was v v ill. No harm done and she's absolutely not got and never had any anxiety issues.
I've had some myself that were weaned early for various reasons, not always wanted to but was required and again, never experienced issues.
I have never ever had anxiety issues from early weaning and not come across it before.

CI, maybe your YO will help you work things out for later on x
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Agree with you FF . I had to wean one of mine at 41/2 months on vets advice . Never had any issues at all . Ideal no , but did impact him in any negative way .. no.
 
@Xtra, yeah, if the YO can't fit them into her set-up when they go onto their winter routine, then I might take you up on that.

I don't know what I want anymore, or the right choice. It just feels like I've had had unending drama with this filly, and I'm exhausted. Between jumping out of a field at our first yard, a desperate (and at times), hopeless search for youngster-friendly livery that wasn't a million miles away, and now this, I got nothing left. None of it is really her fault. Some of it might have been easier if she'd had more handling as a baby, but for most of this drama, it would not have made a blind bit of difference.

On the positive side, she has a great, trainable temperament, she's well put together, and she's a lovely mover. If I sold her and tried to find a Spanish horse of similar quality from a stud that had its sh1t together a bit more, would I be spending £££££££££?
 
You're living too much in the future.
Whilst it's important to know where they'll be in 6 months time, take a step back now and just enjoy having a baby running around.
All the stress you bring will affect the mare, and make her harder to do things with.
Disengage for a while, go up, lol at them and leave. Give yourself a break.
 
I'd just stick with what you've got. The devil that you know, and all that.

You've had a lot thrown at you, but now that the foal is here, I think you can breathe a bit.

After a bit of time you may be able to do more with Hermosa with her foal at her side/nearby.

Then once he's weaned, you can kick things up a notch. She's just turned 3 (right?) so there is really no rush. Yes, I would be trying to work out the whole hoof thing as soon as I could, but don't burn yourself out over it.

I think you've got some of the most difficult events behind you now (Gypsum pts, finding pregnancy, the actual foaling), so if you've made it through all of that, you can handle the rest.

I know you said Gympsum wasn't handled so much when she was young, but there are some that run nearly feral until backing and do turnout just fine.

Sit back and enjoy the cute foal antics. Not the experience you had in mind, but it's truly a unique experience to have a foal.
 
Keep her. Sell the foal. If someone is willing to buy it at weaning then problem solved, you get your mare back and can crack on and get her ready for backing next spring.

I think you are getting too much up in your own head and need to take a break. Go away for a weekend they will still be there when you come back. It seems to me like you are trying to force things because you feel you have to. She will come round you have until November to tame the foal he doesn’t have to leading in his first few weeks of life. You have months to work with them. Take a step back and breathe and take a break.
 
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I would ask around - on here, Facebook, friends. I am nowhere near you (south of England!) but I have a spare field with horses on either side that isn’t being used. Equally, will have to pick up a foal at the sales in the autumn or something to keep our bogof foal company once weaned (still waiting for it to turn up!), so someone like you would solve all my problems at once! I am pretty sure there will be other people like me around the country - get the word out and see what turns up!

What about the friend who wanted to buy the foal? Where would she put it? Can they go there for a couple of months, then Hermosa come back to the current yard?
 
yeah if my nursery field had been bigger I'd have offered space to a mare and foal in order to have a pair to wean together.
 
I guess there are options if it comes to it.

Today, I realised that the one person who I’ve missed the most is my vet. Hermosa had yellowish discharge coming out of her vulva. I asked Dr. Google, who said discharge is normal after foaling but yellow stuff could be bad. Very bad. I put in an emergency call out and vet sedated her, had a grope, lavaged her uterus. She didn’t seem overly concerned but said there was some bruising and put the horse on antibiotics. Took a culture as well.

So that was my Sunday evening. Don’t know if I was overly punchy about calling the vet but the risks of not doing it seemed too deathy.
 
Caol Ila said:
I guess there are options if it comes to it.

Today, I realised that the one person who I’ve missed the most is my vet. Hermosa had yellowish discharge coming out of her vulva. I asked Dr. Google, who said discharge is normal after foaling but yellow stuff could be bad. Very bad. I put in an emergency call out and vet sedated her, had a grope, lavaged her uterus. She didn’t seem overly concerned but said there was some bruising and put the horse on antibiotics. Took a culture as well.

So that was my Sunday evening. Don’t know if I was overly punchy about calling the vet but the risks of not doing it seemed too deathy.
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I’m another who sometimes wonders if I’m too quick to call the vet. But my reasoning is I’d rather pay for a call out and exam to be told there’s nothing wrong, than wait and risk missing something that could have been easily treated if only I’d called yesterday / last week.
 
little_critter said:
I’m another who sometimes wonders if I’m too quick to call the vet. But my reasoning is I’d rather pay for a call out and exam to be told there’s nothing wrong, than wait and risk missing something that could have been easily treated if only I’d called yesterday / last week.
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Better to waste £100 on nothing, than £100’sssss on ‘should have got the vet’.
 
Amymay said:
Better to waste £100 on nothing, than £100’sssss on ‘should have got the vet’.
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This especially as (I don't think) she was checked post foaling? Might have missed if she was. I had an emergency call out for a niggly colic after foaling, I think the mares can be a bit vulnerable to going off colour. Sounds like the right call to me.
 
Good call, I've seen a horse nearly lost to post foaling laminitis caused by a retained piece of placenta. And it cost a fortune and the horse and foal had to be sold to pay the vet bill.

Fingers crossed she's fine now, CI. You really are going through the mill :(
.
 
milliepops said:
This especially as (I don't think) she was checked post foaling? Might have missed if she was. I had an emergency call out for a niggly colic after foaling, I think the mares can be a bit vulnerable to going off colour. Sounds like the right call to me.
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Yeah, she wasn't checked as no one could catch her the day after she foaled, and I thought going to levels like pinning her in a corner when there wasn't an actual problem anyone could see would cause a lot more problems . She's still a bit wary, but at least she now lets me and OH catch her and lead her around the field.

When she was sedated, I managed to cuddle Caso. He's slowly working out that we aren't scary.

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Jules111 said:
I'm a born worrier and some of the best advice I've had is to stop worrying so much about the future, it will find you anyway. I have to admit the things I worry about often sort themselves out or an obvious solution appears.
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I’m a born worrier and have had generalised anxiety at times and I find it nearly impossible just to stop worrying about the future. What I find helps is having a clear plan in place (even if it doesn’t work out) which is why I think CI is stressing.

I agree that things normally sort themselves out but I hate not having a plan, that’s what makes me worry
 
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