Stormy's foaling thread

[LittleBittyBritches]

Hubby fixed the hookup so the Stormy is in and to bed. She was "winking" at me, and did it this afternoon too, not after peeing. she still has a little leaking from her "hooha." I am really worrying about fescue at this point. She is 340 days tommorrow, and not much milk, but showing other signs. her milk is a clear with yellow tint. i will post a pic, it just seems like it should be much fuller than this at this stage.

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

Here is an udder shot from the rear and the bottom from this evening.

Here is a picture of her vulva this evening

 

[cassie]

hmm, have you bred this mare before Kara? I can't remember lol sorry, or is she a maiden just wondering if it is a normal thing for her to bag up before foaling or after... and remember its been a strange year for foalings... have you seen any fescue on your property? has she relaxed much behind compared to normal?

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

hmm, have you bred this mare before Kara? I can't remember lol sorry, or is she a maiden just wondering if it is a normal thing for her to bag up before foaling or after... and remember its been a strange year for foalings... have you seen any fescue on your property? has she relaxed much behind compared to normal?

She has had 2 foals before, but not with me. This is my first. I spoke with the vet and she said that most of the fescue poisonings they dont get any milk at all. But I think we do have fescue in the back pasture, We fenced it off a few days ago when we found out about it, but she was on it before that.

 

[cassie]

has her udder changed compared to normal? can you get milk from her?? its scary stuff isn't it

we can't wait till our foals are on the ground!!

oh n can you feel the foal moving?

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

has her udder changed compared to normal? can you get milk from her?? its scary stuff isn't it

we can't wait till our foals are on the ground!!

oh n can you feel the foal moving?

Yes, her udder is bigger than it normally is, but not by much. I can get some milk that is clear, and today it was clear with a slight yellow tint. Very scary! That's why I called the vet, but she said to just watch her. I have seen/felt the foal moving yesterday and before, didnt see it move much today.

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

I did call the vet about it a couple days ago. She said that there was not much she could do that i would have to wait and see that maybe she is a late gestation. She said she didnt want to cause any problems or added stress by poking and prodding her.

 

[cassie]

hmmm, maybe try and get the grass tested... or checked lol what Diane is saying is good advice!

hope everything works out

like Diane says their udder can change in a day!

 

[AnnaC]

Please try not to worry Kara - remember that our animals can pick up on our anxieties, which in turn can make them feel stressed. I think I have said before that there are lots of fescue grasses in a pasture, but there is only one that causes a problem and it is highly unlikely that that particular one is amongst your grass.

Your vet is quite right in that, unless little Stormy actually shows signs of something being wrong, then it is best not to be poking and prodding her around. So try to relax and just let Stormy take her own time to get this special baby cooked and delivered.

As has been said, most mares this year seem to have tossed their due dates out of the window - and I'm not talking about the humans who have made mistakes with the dates! Stormy is progressing steadily at her own rate and, before very long you will have a beautiful bouncing baby to love!

 

[cassie]

couldn't agree more with Anna!!!!

Kara i'm sure everything will be fine

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

Please try not to worry Kara - remember that our animals can pick up on our anxieties, which in turn can make them feel stressed. I think I have said before that there are lots of fescue grasses in a pasture, but there is only one that causes a problem and it is highly unlikely that that particular one is amongst your grass.

Your vet is quite right in that, unless little Stormy actually shows signs of something being wrong, then it is best not to be poking and prodding her around. So try to relax and just let Stormy take her own time to get this special baby cooked and delivered.

As has been said, most mares this year seem to have tossed their due dates out of the window - and I'm not talking about the humans who have made mistakes with the dates! Stormy is progressing steadily at her own rate and, before very long you will have a beautiful bouncing baby to love!

thank you so much Anna. I want to do the best i can, but dont want to make things worse. I am out to check her, maybe she has a huge udder this morning.I have tried not to be worried or concerned around her, and ave that for my poor husand who hears my crazy concerns all the time!

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

I wanted to see if anyone noticed that Stormy didn't lay down as much last night as she usually does... At least each time i got up to check her, she was standing. Just seeing what anyone else thought.

 

[AnnaC]

It maybe the way the foal was lying that made her feel uncomfortable to be laying down so much. One of the ways you can 'help' her is to make sure she has a really deep bed so that when she lays down, her tummy sort of 'sinks' into the bed without 'finding' a hard floor!

Use a little imagination here please - a mare with a huge tummy goes to lay down on a bed less than really deep. She tries to lay flat out, but with her tummy in the way, her head is actually 'downhill' (lower than her big body) which means that her spine is crooked/stretched/at an angle instead of being straight. So she becomes uncomfortable and tries sitting up sternal, which with her big tummy can compromise her lung space. So she gets up and stays standing until her legs need a rest and she tries laying down again!

Here, against probably all the other advice you will be given, we actually deep litter our mares. As all mares are stabled at nights for at least a month before they are due they have plenty of time to build up an immunity to any 'germs' that might be around. We also use straw for bedding so I dont know how it would work for other types of bedding. We start with a large deep bed of straw, pick up all droppings as soon as they are done (all through the night!) and add more straw every day when the mares go out to graze. By the time the mares have been in a couple of weeks we have beds that are around a foot deep and tramped flat. All the wet goes straight through, the top is never wet and there is no smell (so many people have asked why our stables dont smell 'horsey'!) The secret is enough bedding in the first place - in our 15x13 stables we would use probably 12 of the convential straw bales to start with, packing it down hard and building good solid banks up the sides, then we would add another bale to top it off. Daily straw is then added as necessary. None of the beds are 'fluffy' but are kept tramped down so the horses walk on the top and dont sink in. But when the mares lay down the bed does 'give' under their tummies and they can all sleep in comfort!

All our mares spend most of their nights flat out, just getting up when they want to eat their hay, have a drink or to pee or poo, you rarely catch them standing up to snooze - they even stay down asleep while we come and go picking up their droppings, and a lot of them dont even both to get up and watch while we are in the next stable helping someone to deliver their new baby! LOL!!

I know most of my ideas are strange (to put it mildly!) but I do think a lot of mares would be more comfortable if their beds were a lot deeper than is normally considered perfectly acceptable for a horse to live on.

Here ends the epistle! LOL!! Sorry, got carried away again on my soapbox!

 

[AnnaC]

Hey! I managed to find a pic of one of the stables in our barn (home made stables I hasten to add!) Not the best of pics, but you can see what I mean. The wooden side wall is actually 5 foot high and only about half of it is showing above bed level. If YOU stood on the bed you would not sink in, but the weight of a sleeping mare WILL cause the bed to give/sink under her tummy!

When a mare foals we pile straw up against the sheep hurdle doorway to keep out any draughts and cover the lot with rugs to prevent foal legs from getting caught!

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

Thanks Anna, I will get her some more straw in there before bed

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

Ok, Stormy is in her bed, and ready to be watched! My observations for this evening are this. Ph to 7.5, can't feel the foal (which worries me a little, but I know towards the end they dont move as much, so I'll go with that.) Her udders have been hiding from me or something! They are filling from in front at the top (if that makes sense) not where the nipples are, but up more. They are about 2 inches wide, 3 inches long, and 1.5 inches deep (elongated).

I attached a picture, but you can't see them real well, all you see is the nipple part of her udder. (I hope I am making sense.

Also, her nipple part of her udder is obviously not filling evenly. But today, i know for sure she is gaining milk, whereas before i never noticed a huge difference from time to time. also her milk was very sticky when it dried on my hand. So, there you have it, that's my observations.............

 

[cassie]

Yay Kara definite changes!! so exciting!! Suzie has done a similar thing, one udder is sometimes bigger then the other... how is she looking behind? very soft ?

when is she due again? sorry keep forgetting

lol

 

[LittleBittyBritches]

Kind of soft.. I really don't know what to look for for that

 

[jessj]

When she takes a step or when you tap her booty does it shake like jello? D is really soft lower, but not around her tail head. Of course she has been very wll blessed in the booty department, so it may not get as soft and her tailhead may not go as prominent.

How is stormy in the booty dept?

 

[cassie]

If you feel around the tail head it should feel really mushy like jelly should wobble lol not describing it really well sorry n has she relaxed in the hooha?