Hey, you're not alone! I made the same mistakes. Luckily everything (so far) has turned out well for my mare and baby. I braided my mare's tail ALL the time. I even wrapped it due to all the false alarms quite a bit too. I didn't think Sadie was having the baby the night she did, so the tail wasn't even braided and I NEVER had the time to even wrap it when baby started to come!
I even had shavings until I learned about how it sticks to everything. Heck, I've even had some straw that was too fine, but there was nothing I could do about it except find a different store to buy it until I finally found a decent bale. Turned out that was 2 days before she delivered. Any earlier and it would have been as fine as shavings...
I never stayed up with my mare. With so many false alarms, I went between not caring what happened to being way overprotective of her to wanting to GIVE her away!
I checked her ALL the time, but she was literally a yo-yo, so her "signs" didn't help me at all. When she waxed 3 hrs prior to labor, I honestly thought she was going to be a week a way and didn't trust it at ALL.
I was advised to up grain content and put Sadie on Alfalfa. She's doing SO amazing well as is her baby that I haven't. I'm scared to change her diet, even though she may benefit from them.
Lastly, I had barbless wire all around my mare's pen until AFTER baby was born! It was finished at 9 pm on a day they should have been able to be turned out. If no one had mentioned fencing on here, I would have been in a bad situation when payday was gone, the money was gone, and baby was on the other side of the fence. Baby could have come and gone in and out of the fence as she pleased. I never even thought of it.
So, if you feel like you did everything wrong, what you have done has worked for you. There have been enough foals lost on this forum. I have personally had a foal that never took a breath. It wasn't a mini, but I learned a great deal from it. I have mourned his loss the last nine years. It wasn't until Sadie's baby stood for the first time Sunday night that that wound finally found closure. Yes, a person can over-worry, but for the person that ends up needing that info, it's priceless. Like all the info on dystocia that I read this pregnancy. It saved my filly's life.
We're not out to frustrate anyone, we're just over-concerned aunties that REALLY hope for the best for each other. To prove a point, I cried when I read Cheerio lost her filly. I cried when Sugar's baby stood for the first time. We get attached to each other's mares on here. We can't help it.
