Who was lucky enough to be there for the birth?

Most people, watch their mares very, very carefully and are present at the birth -- to ensure all is well and there are no complications.
 
Saw it all but thats what we do for a living and with another 6 to foal i'm not planning on missing any of them either
 
I've had 6 foals over the last 19yrs, and seen them all!
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First time we nearly missed it. We were watching her so closely and she had waxed that day at lunchtime. Went down to check her just before midnight and she was just standing there, head nodding, half asleep as she had been for a couple of hours. Decided to go and have a look behind her and underneath - check bag etc. Low and behold, there was a pair of feet emerging! She did nothing at all to help and we had to literally haul the foal out of her. It was her first and she just seemed completely oblivious!

Her second then was far more text book and she did the whole looking uncomfortable, nipping belly, getting up and down and then finally foaled lying down.

The first one though we could easily have missed or even lost the foal if we hadn't looked so closely!
 
I missed this years foal and she was born at home. At 10.00am the mare still looked like she a week or two to go. 7.00pm when I got her in there were a few milk splashes on her legs. Shen tucked into her tea and hay. 8.00pm still eating. Went into grab some supper ready for staying up all night. 8.30 went to look again and found foal trying to get to its feet and the mare had cleansed. She obviously didn't want us around this time.
 
I have missed most of them, the last 3 were all out in the fields. Though did get there for the last one when his head was showing so got some photo's of that. The one before was about 4pm & I was at work. I think I actually prefer not to be the one there.
 
Saw the lot! Mare had her breakfast as normal in the field with the other horses, walked away from us and her waters broke, filly was born at about 8.30am and was on her feet within 20 minutes. Mare (maiden) didn't sweat up, and foaled about a fortnight early so we hadn't even started foal watch.
 
Saw it all, just about to get out of bed in the morning from 2 hourly checks on the CCTV and I saw her lie down get up again walk round the box and then lay down again and her waters broke. Got dressed very quickly and was with her through it all.
 
Like Groomsbridge, part of the service we offer - 6 this year so far, 5 would have foaled without assistace the 6th definitely needed help coming out, to ensure live foal. One of the 5 was a premature foal and (red bag) did required immediate and continual support for several hours but happy to say now 15weeks old and 100%.

So far foaling times have been from 9.40pm to 9.20am and 311 days to 360 days.

Only 3 more this year (unless we get asked to do more)!

Last season all foaled supervised, 1 needed two of us to pull it off and 1 maiden mare needed a couple hours "hands on" to allow foal on for milk so uneventful thank goodness.
 
Missed two by minutes - foal still sneezing and shaking head.

This years I caught in time and had to assist - enormous foal at 6mths it stands shoulder height to me and I'm 5'7"

This is pic of foal, mum and yearling having a snooze a few minutes after foaling.
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