After all the stories of late foaling mares, we had a shock suprise this morning - found a little filly out in the field, approx 6 weeks EARLY!!
Last weekend we loaded up our few infoal girls, plus a separate trailer load of gates/board/etc (for indoor stable construction) and carted them all some 6 miles down the road to daughter's farm where they are going to foal this year, in a nice indoor building with plenty of room for big stalls and play areas if the weather should be bad. The mares all loaded beautifully and travelled calmly (at around 10mph so as not to shake the coming babies!) The first mare to foal (we hand breed) was not due until earliest 28th July so we thought we were pretty ok in getting them moved.
Apparently not! LOL!! This morning daughter looked out across the field at the quietly grazing mares and spotted a small object that had no business to be there.
Mad panic to call the other mares down into the barn, shut the doors on them and opened another door to a separate space for the following Momma mare and new baby. She trotted happily in followed by her bouncing daughter! I dashed over to help throw down bedding, get protective boards quickly tied up against the cow/sheep fencing which surrounded Momma's new 30'x30' stable! Momma had a drink and enjoyed a feed plus some carefully sliced "clever girl" apples, and we looked at our new filly. Tiny, and a bit frail leg wise as yet, she's all there, drinking regularly on a bag that had no milk (well it was just a little filled yesterday when I looked), swallowing happily and when she dropped the teat the milk was running out! This is an 'elderly' experienced mare and I just know that if anyone can raise this little girl, she will do it. She has given us 5 fillies and 1 colt so far, bless her! But her due date this year was the beginning of August and she has never been early before!
Ok I know you are fed up with all my chat, so here's a quick phone picture - please excuse the lack of clean bedding, I grabbed the picture before we smothered the floor with loads of straw. Will get more pics tomorrow. Momma is a British mini Shetland 31" and Daddy is Darmond Boogermans Bravado 28".
Now rushing to get the rest of the stalls built in case anyone else decides to jump the gun - and I thought mares were foaling late this year. LOL!!
Anna
Last weekend we loaded up our few infoal girls, plus a separate trailer load of gates/board/etc (for indoor stable construction) and carted them all some 6 miles down the road to daughter's farm where they are going to foal this year, in a nice indoor building with plenty of room for big stalls and play areas if the weather should be bad. The mares all loaded beautifully and travelled calmly (at around 10mph so as not to shake the coming babies!) The first mare to foal (we hand breed) was not due until earliest 28th July so we thought we were pretty ok in getting them moved.
Apparently not! LOL!! This morning daughter looked out across the field at the quietly grazing mares and spotted a small object that had no business to be there.
Mad panic to call the other mares down into the barn, shut the doors on them and opened another door to a separate space for the following Momma mare and new baby. She trotted happily in followed by her bouncing daughter! I dashed over to help throw down bedding, get protective boards quickly tied up against the cow/sheep fencing which surrounded Momma's new 30'x30' stable! Momma had a drink and enjoyed a feed plus some carefully sliced "clever girl" apples, and we looked at our new filly. Tiny, and a bit frail leg wise as yet, she's all there, drinking regularly on a bag that had no milk (well it was just a little filled yesterday when I looked), swallowing happily and when she dropped the teat the milk was running out! This is an 'elderly' experienced mare and I just know that if anyone can raise this little girl, she will do it. She has given us 5 fillies and 1 colt so far, bless her! But her due date this year was the beginning of August and she has never been early before!
Ok I know you are fed up with all my chat, so here's a quick phone picture - please excuse the lack of clean bedding, I grabbed the picture before we smothered the floor with loads of straw. Will get more pics tomorrow. Momma is a British mini Shetland 31" and Daddy is Darmond Boogermans Bravado 28".
Now rushing to get the rest of the stalls built in case anyone else decides to jump the gun - and I thought mares were foaling late this year. LOL!!
Anna
