Stressful Pregnancy

[First Time Mum]

Hi first time on here.

Have been looking around for people with similar experiances. My mare is due to have her first foal in mid may however due to breaking a bone in her elbow she has been on box rest since she was covered! She is due to get out the stable this week and into the field. Have any of you had any similar experiences? On vets advice once she is turned out she will be out 24/7 to prevent silly sessions every morning and risking her doing anymore damage.
Thanks

 

[JoBird]

Blimey that's bad luck and I bet that has been stressful! Not experienced anything like that but I would say fence the field into a very small section to start with and gradually move the fence to allow her into a larger area. If you turn her straight out into a large field she WILL go crazy and you obviously cant dope her at all! Fingers cross and keep us updated x

 

[haras]

Oh no, so glad your mare can get out now though.

My mare had colic surgery in september when she was 3 months pregnant and had to have 4 months box rest. When we first let her out again, we gave her a paddock slightly bigger than her stable. After a month, she had a paddock about the size of a school, and now has about 1/2 an acre, shared with my youngster for company.

I was very pleasantly surprised that my mare was very sensible and did not hoon about and risk injuring herself. So I think increasing the paddock size gradually did work. My mare is in at night, but she loves her stable and would be devastated if I left her outside!

When my mare was in the small area, I put my youngster the other side of the fence, so that she had company.

Only other idea would be to see if the vet would be happy to sedate the mare the first time she goes out.

No other suggestions I'm afraid!

 

[magic104]

At the time she was not in foal, but I had a mare on box rest after having a splint bone removed after it was fractured. I was also lucky enough that she was able to move to my sisters who had a 16 x 16 stable & when the time came was able to put up a fenced area outside which was increased until she had full access to the paddock. I was not able to walk her every day in hand & I was not going to put someone else at risk so that was the best option for us. Obviously not everyone can put a pen outside their stable, but if you can just keep her space limited & gradually open it up it does save the mad hooleys